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CBHacking comments on Crazy Ideas Thread - Less Wrong Discussion
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How many technologies are you aware of that don't have a harmful potential application? I mean, (electronic) computers were invented for military purposes and can enable all kinds of mischief on the Internet. Refrigeration makes military logistics a lot easier. Hell, internal combustion drives tanks and other military vehicles. GPS makes cruise missiles easier, but pre-GPS ICBMs just used inertial targeting; that's close enough for thermonuclear bombs.
In HPMOR, Harry figures out a large number of ways to make weapons out of the materials present in a low-tech classroom. I doubt anything short of reducing the world to subsistence farming (and no more than that) is sufficient to bring about a state in which
Subsistence farmers waged bloody wars throughout history. Either a 1% product surplus or simple robbery can provide the keepup of an armed force. The force might be small, a band of a few hundred or thousand men, but it can pillage the countryside unopposed until it meets a bigger army.