End The Experiment With Government
Human beings have been experimenting with various forms of social control since pre-history. Extrapolating the basic family unit to tribal, community, province, national, and now global levels to varying degrees of success or failure over the centuries, the social side of the human animal has, like his drive to bring the forces of nature under control, sought to bring his fellow human beings under control for his own security and/or personal gain.
But now these two drives are in conflict. Since the beginning of the atomic age, when man first harnessed the natural power of the atom, scientists and ethicists have warned the political class about the proliferation of nuclear power as a destabilizing influence on peaceful governments and international relations. Non-proliferation treaties were actively negotiated and enforced behind the scenes of the superpower conflict of the Cold War. The US enabled Britain, France, Israel, Japan, and others of its friendly postwar allies to develop peaceful nuclear power, and some even developed nuclear weapons. All have responsibly kept those weapons in their deepest reserves of self-defense only in the case of invasion or first strike upon their own nations.
The peaceful development of nuclear energy has had successes, with Japan and France gaining a majority of their energy from this source, and other countries, which enjoy domestic coal or other energy sources, less so.
The Soviets were similarly interested in keeping the nuclear genie in the bottle, but at the same time enabled China to join the nuclear club, along with a host of Warsaw Pact nations gaining peaceful nuclear energy. With the split up of the USSR, a number of former Soviet republics took control of nuclear weapons stored in their territory, though most surrendered them to Russia in the interests of stability and non-proliferation.
However China has pursued a much more fast and loose policy with regard to non-proliferation. It enabled Pakistan and North Korea to attain nuclear weapons capability, and as we've seen, those nations have proliferated the technology to such rogue nations as Iran, Libya, Iraq, among others. While Libya has stepped back from the brink in order to rejoin the community of nations and avoid an expected, if not planned, US attack, others have not been so responsible.
North Korea, given a pass by former Presidents Carter and Clinton in the 1990's to continue its nuclear programs for 8 years without international oversight, possibly the greatest treason against US national security since Benedict Arnolds betrayal, used that time to build its fuel processing capabilities and perfect its nuclear weapons manufacturing capacity.
As we saw this past week, North Korea has detonated at least one small nuclear weapon, though reports are that it had much lower than expected yield. NK has also tested a new ICBM capable of reaching most of the US several times, so far with failures, but building a reliable ICBM is technically easier and cheaper than building nuclear weapons, so it is only a matter of time before North Korea has the ability to strike the US. NK has resisted all international attempts to entice it to surrender its weapons program, demonstrating the utter failure of the UN system to perform its core function of ensuring world peace.
Iran has likewise resisted efforts by the west and the UN to bring its nuclear ambitions and programs back under international oversight and compliance. The mullahocracy is currently enriching weapons grade uranium, and is expanding its processing capabilities, apparently deep in bunker protected facilities, as if expecting international military action against it for its sins. The CIA expects Iran to test its first weapon within 5 years.
While President Ahmedinejad of Iran insists his nations ambitions are peaceful, he refuses to explain what peaceful purpose there is to weapons grade nuclear fuel, and refuses to apologize for or disavow his statments proposing to wipe the nation of Israel "off the map". Indeed, he contiues to make such statements, and is also contributing to the insurgencies in Iraq with training, shelter, and weapons, as well as arming Hezbollah with thousands of rockets.
As all this is happening, the international community, and most national governments, abjectly refuse to exercise their prerogatives of power to secure the world against these two rogue nations. Even in the US, Democrats would rather talk about surrendering Iraq to the Islamofascists than to talk about their own failings in North Korea, or propose solutions to Iran. At the same time, the Bush administration is castrated with a Secretary of State who would rather negotiate than do anything else (what else is new), and a Secretary of Defense who should be telling stories he can't remember to his great-grandkids beside the fireplace.
What is the point of having a slightly tyrannical government as the primary superpower if it isn't going to do its job of securing the nation? What is the point of a United Nations that is anything but united?
The foreign policy experts are calling for more international treaties to bring nonproliferation "under control". The problem is that we have plenty of nonproliferation treaties already that haven't done anything. Like the failure that is gun control, nuclear non-proliferation treaties are a joke: they only disarm the law abiding, criminal states, like street thugs, do not obey gun control or nuclear control laws or treaties if their intent is criminal activity. Victim disarmament is the proper label for nuclear nonproliferation treaties, just as they are the proper label for gun control laws.
It is thus rather evident that attempts to legislate against the development of technologies are inherently faulty and incapable of being enforced upon parties determined to flout them.
Instead, we should be looking at the root factors that enable the construction of nuclear weapons if we as a race want to put the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle.
The primary root factor is government. To date, not a single private corporation has ever built a nuclear weapon, even though many parts for such are build by private firms under government contract, and personnel with the requisite skills tend to wind up in private industry. To date, not a single private individual has ever built a nuclear weapon. The degree of resources required to produce enough weapons grade nuclear material is rather staggering, even in this day and age. It remains in the billions of dollars.
Building nuclear weapons requires the assets of a national government, and the legal power to enforce secrecy upon its citizens. It requires access to natural resources capable of being exploited outside the channels of international commerce (for instance, Iraqi attempts to purchase Nigerian yellowcake signalled its ambitions in the 1990's, a fact that even Dan Wilson has admitted to be fact in recent months). It requires a defense infrastructure capable of defending a geographic territory against conventional attack by parties interested in stopping it from attaining its ambitions.
No corporation on earth has these capabilities, even though many corporations peacefully operate nuclear power plants. No corporation has exhibited a desire to attain these capabilities. No individual has a hope of attaining these capabilities, James Bondian fantasies notwithstanding.
The assertion by luddites like Bill Joy that future technologies, like nanotechnology, will enable cheap nuclear fuel processing, but this is based on a poor understanding of the science of nanotechnology. It is highly likely that nanotech devices capable of sorting isotopes atom by atom simply will not be robust enough to withstand the molecular damage done by nuclear radiation. As fuel concentrations rise, so does radiation levels, causing greater nanite die-off. There is a natural ceiling of purification possible with molecular nanotechnology. Modern isotope processing requires batches of liquid chemical compounds of heavy isotopes processed through centrifuges. This is a rough method that does not depend on placing radiation sensitive integrated chips and nano-mechanical assemblies in close proximity to nuclear decay reactions.
For this reason, the nanotech shibboleth is shredded as an excuse for technology controls.
No, the real "problem technology" in the nuclear proliferation problem is the technology of government. It is a blunt instrument that runs roughshod over individual liberties strictly for the purpose of amassing and weilding power and wealth outside the free market system. If we are to start banning technologies, lets start with this one.
But now these two drives are in conflict. Since the beginning of the atomic age, when man first harnessed the natural power of the atom, scientists and ethicists have warned the political class about the proliferation of nuclear power as a destabilizing influence on peaceful governments and international relations. Non-proliferation treaties were actively negotiated and enforced behind the scenes of the superpower conflict of the Cold War. The US enabled Britain, France, Israel, Japan, and others of its friendly postwar allies to develop peaceful nuclear power, and some even developed nuclear weapons. All have responsibly kept those weapons in their deepest reserves of self-defense only in the case of invasion or first strike upon their own nations.
The peaceful development of nuclear energy has had successes, with Japan and France gaining a majority of their energy from this source, and other countries, which enjoy domestic coal or other energy sources, less so.
The Soviets were similarly interested in keeping the nuclear genie in the bottle, but at the same time enabled China to join the nuclear club, along with a host of Warsaw Pact nations gaining peaceful nuclear energy. With the split up of the USSR, a number of former Soviet republics took control of nuclear weapons stored in their territory, though most surrendered them to Russia in the interests of stability and non-proliferation.
However China has pursued a much more fast and loose policy with regard to non-proliferation. It enabled Pakistan and North Korea to attain nuclear weapons capability, and as we've seen, those nations have proliferated the technology to such rogue nations as Iran, Libya, Iraq, among others. While Libya has stepped back from the brink in order to rejoin the community of nations and avoid an expected, if not planned, US attack, others have not been so responsible.
North Korea, given a pass by former Presidents Carter and Clinton in the 1990's to continue its nuclear programs for 8 years without international oversight, possibly the greatest treason against US national security since Benedict Arnolds betrayal, used that time to build its fuel processing capabilities and perfect its nuclear weapons manufacturing capacity.
As we saw this past week, North Korea has detonated at least one small nuclear weapon, though reports are that it had much lower than expected yield. NK has also tested a new ICBM capable of reaching most of the US several times, so far with failures, but building a reliable ICBM is technically easier and cheaper than building nuclear weapons, so it is only a matter of time before North Korea has the ability to strike the US. NK has resisted all international attempts to entice it to surrender its weapons program, demonstrating the utter failure of the UN system to perform its core function of ensuring world peace.
Iran has likewise resisted efforts by the west and the UN to bring its nuclear ambitions and programs back under international oversight and compliance. The mullahocracy is currently enriching weapons grade uranium, and is expanding its processing capabilities, apparently deep in bunker protected facilities, as if expecting international military action against it for its sins. The CIA expects Iran to test its first weapon within 5 years.
While President Ahmedinejad of Iran insists his nations ambitions are peaceful, he refuses to explain what peaceful purpose there is to weapons grade nuclear fuel, and refuses to apologize for or disavow his statments proposing to wipe the nation of Israel "off the map". Indeed, he contiues to make such statements, and is also contributing to the insurgencies in Iraq with training, shelter, and weapons, as well as arming Hezbollah with thousands of rockets.
As all this is happening, the international community, and most national governments, abjectly refuse to exercise their prerogatives of power to secure the world against these two rogue nations. Even in the US, Democrats would rather talk about surrendering Iraq to the Islamofascists than to talk about their own failings in North Korea, or propose solutions to Iran. At the same time, the Bush administration is castrated with a Secretary of State who would rather negotiate than do anything else (what else is new), and a Secretary of Defense who should be telling stories he can't remember to his great-grandkids beside the fireplace.
What is the point of having a slightly tyrannical government as the primary superpower if it isn't going to do its job of securing the nation? What is the point of a United Nations that is anything but united?
The foreign policy experts are calling for more international treaties to bring nonproliferation "under control". The problem is that we have plenty of nonproliferation treaties already that haven't done anything. Like the failure that is gun control, nuclear non-proliferation treaties are a joke: they only disarm the law abiding, criminal states, like street thugs, do not obey gun control or nuclear control laws or treaties if their intent is criminal activity. Victim disarmament is the proper label for nuclear nonproliferation treaties, just as they are the proper label for gun control laws.
It is thus rather evident that attempts to legislate against the development of technologies are inherently faulty and incapable of being enforced upon parties determined to flout them.
Instead, we should be looking at the root factors that enable the construction of nuclear weapons if we as a race want to put the nuclear weapons genie back in the bottle.
The primary root factor is government. To date, not a single private corporation has ever built a nuclear weapon, even though many parts for such are build by private firms under government contract, and personnel with the requisite skills tend to wind up in private industry. To date, not a single private individual has ever built a nuclear weapon. The degree of resources required to produce enough weapons grade nuclear material is rather staggering, even in this day and age. It remains in the billions of dollars.
Building nuclear weapons requires the assets of a national government, and the legal power to enforce secrecy upon its citizens. It requires access to natural resources capable of being exploited outside the channels of international commerce (for instance, Iraqi attempts to purchase Nigerian yellowcake signalled its ambitions in the 1990's, a fact that even Dan Wilson has admitted to be fact in recent months). It requires a defense infrastructure capable of defending a geographic territory against conventional attack by parties interested in stopping it from attaining its ambitions.
No corporation on earth has these capabilities, even though many corporations peacefully operate nuclear power plants. No corporation has exhibited a desire to attain these capabilities. No individual has a hope of attaining these capabilities, James Bondian fantasies notwithstanding.
The assertion by luddites like Bill Joy that future technologies, like nanotechnology, will enable cheap nuclear fuel processing, but this is based on a poor understanding of the science of nanotechnology. It is highly likely that nanotech devices capable of sorting isotopes atom by atom simply will not be robust enough to withstand the molecular damage done by nuclear radiation. As fuel concentrations rise, so does radiation levels, causing greater nanite die-off. There is a natural ceiling of purification possible with molecular nanotechnology. Modern isotope processing requires batches of liquid chemical compounds of heavy isotopes processed through centrifuges. This is a rough method that does not depend on placing radiation sensitive integrated chips and nano-mechanical assemblies in close proximity to nuclear decay reactions.
For this reason, the nanotech shibboleth is shredded as an excuse for technology controls.
No, the real "problem technology" in the nuclear proliferation problem is the technology of government. It is a blunt instrument that runs roughshod over individual liberties strictly for the purpose of amassing and weilding power and wealth outside the free market system. If we are to start banning technologies, lets start with this one.
posted by Mike Lorrey at 9:58 AM
4 Comments:
Mike, when you use fabricated terms like 'islamofascist' you only betray a sympathy to the Bushevik big government cause. Anyone with a modest understanding of history knows that Islam and the corporate/government hybrid of fascism are inimical and immiscible. And for someone who supposedly champions smaller government you have taken every single one of big government's slogans for world domination at face value. Why?
Are you suggesting anarchy? :)
more like atomarchy. It is clear that the problem technology is that of government itself.
a. magnus,
Use of the term "fabricated terms" belies an ignorance of language and an attempt to assert that certain words are illegitimate, which anyone "with a modest understanding" of language knows (see, two can play at the insults game). The English language is every changing and forming new words for new ideas and concepts, or to reidentify changed old ideas or concepts, or more accurately describing such.
The fact is that islamofascism IS the biggest threat to liberty in the world today. Our own government has become tyrannical in response to islamofascisms tactics of using our freedoms against us while taking advantage of the areas where we have given up our freedoms (like giving up the freedom to fly armed).
For someone who supposedly champions individual liberty, you have taken every single one of the global anti-American movements propaganda points as your own personal programming.
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