ARMS-D-Request@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU (Moderator) (10/06/86)
Arms-Discussion Digest Sunday, October 5, 1986 11:44PM
Volume 7, Issue 27
Today's Topics:
The search for bannable categories of autonomous weapons
Part of the problem or part of the solution?
knowledge and being co-opted...
"Superman" philosophy, let Superman protect us, dangerous policy
SDI against what forms of thermonuclear delivery systems??
nothing to fear from other nations?
Hazards of lost nuclear weapons
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Date: Fri, 3 Oct 86 09:56:08 PDT
From: Clifford Johnson <GA.CJJ@Forsythe.Stanford.Edu>
Subject: The search for bannable categories of autonomous weapons
I forget who mentioned it, but I agree that ROEs (Rules Of
Engagement) represent a morally/legally significant and separable
element in weapons automation. Surely the execution of ROEs
requires human judgment at the time of execution, and consequently
their preprogramming might be prohibited. This seems to me a good
point for decrying autonomous weapons, if a tight enough definition
of ROEs could be given (which presumable would exclude mere
booby-trap cases).
To: ARMS-D@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
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Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1986 17:11 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: Part of the problem or part of the solution?
From: Gary Chapman <chapman at russell.stanford.edu>
About a month ago I went out to dinner with my legislative liaison
from Washington....
I asked her the critical question: Do you do this because it's
interesting, or because you want to save the world from nuclear
catastrophe? She answered, "Both."
That's the right answer, I think.
I agree. Without the intellectual interest, burn-out is easy.
Without the passion, the whole business is sterile. Victor Wiesskopf,
a famous physicist, said it best: Human existence is based on two
pillars -- knowledge and compassion. Knowledge without compassion is
inhuman, and compassion without knowledge is ineffective.
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Date: Sat, 4 Oct 1986 17:17 EDT
From: LIN@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU
Subject: knowledge and being co-opted...
From: Hoffman.es at Xerox.COM
The insiders always have that trump card in any argument: "Classified
information that you haven't seen and I can't tell you about proves
you're wrong."
I disagree that this is always a trump card. Details are classified,
but broad brush strokes are not. The really fundamental arguments
turn on broad brush strokes. Besides, if you can force the insiders
to use it, you can often call their credibility into question with
respect to the public debate. Those with sympathies towards the
insiders will not change their position, but those in the middle tend
to be jaundiced at all the lies fed to them under the guise of
security clearances.
As a rule, it is useful to know basic orders of magnitude about
defense issues.
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Date: 1986 October 04 20:56:59 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: "Superman" philosophy, let Superman protect us, dangerous policy
JSL> Date: Tue, 23 Sep 86 08:40 EDT
JSL> From: "J. Spencer Love" <JSLove@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA>
...
JSL> The advent of autonomous weapon systems, the concentration of the power
JSL> to kill everyone in the world into the hands of a few, and the (hopefully
JSL> science fictional) possibility of having a single world government (thus
JSL> eliminating "external" forces) ...
I have come to realize recently (after watching most of a 36-hour
Superman marathon on TV last month) that a major problem in the world is
the "Superman" mentality. People don't want to join together to defeat
evil. They would rather simply hire some superman to do the job for them.
They would rather trust a single source of power, than distribute the
power among the populace. True a distributed power isn't without its
problems, such as mob rule, lack of planning, tendancy to purge society
of unpopular people, but a central power that is so very powerful it can
at any time revolt from popular rule and simply take over the world seems
more dangerous than any mob or anarchy.
I would rather see people linked together by communication/computer
networks whereby they can report problems and summon a posse to round up
the problem-makers, and whereby they can watch the judicial process to
verify the captured problem-maker gets a fair trial and proper punishment
if convicted; instead of either calling the police to do the whole job
(but most of the time the police aren't called because nobody happened to
see the crime because everybody's afraid to be outside except the one
person who took a chance and got beaten&robbed) or carrying firearms
themselves and using them at the slightest provocation (resulting in lots
of accidental deaths such as man who shot&killed his newspaper delivery
boy of 1.5 years because he thought he was a prowler).
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Date: 1986 October 05 12:46:29 PST (=GMT-8hr)
From: Robert Elton Maas <REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject:SDI against what forms of thermonuclear delivery systems??
MJ> Date: 25 Sep 86 15:47:25 EDT (Thursday)
MJ> From: MJackson.Wbst@Xerox.COM
MJ> Subject: Re: Nova/Frontline program
REM> ... [Reagan] wants to stop ICBMs now, and later move ahead against
REM> other delivery methods. That seems to me quite reasonable (assuming the
REM> whole idea works at all and isn't destabilizing of course). I think it
REM> would be a straw man for us to say that Reagan plans to stop ICBMs only.
REM> We should admit that stopping ICBMs is only stage one of Reagan's plan."
MJ> Fair point. Conversely, those arguing the case against SDI can fairly
MJ> insist on disclosure of plans and expense estimates for what Reagan has
MJ> in mind to do the rest of the job of rendering thermonuclear weapons
MJ> "impotent and obsolete."
It may be too early for anyone to make plans or solid cost estimates,
considerng we have only begun to reseac the ICBM defense problem and
haven't started any research at all on other defense, but indeed we
should at least ask them what pie in sky idea they are planning to think
about comparable to Reagan's pie in sky idea for space-based defense. If
they don't even have a pie-in-sky idea, then Reagan is a liar or idiot
when he claims he can make all nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete
instead of just ICBMs.
So, let's ask the right question now, and demand some sort of preliminary
pie-in-sky answer. (I think we have reached concensus.)
MJ> The problem of effective population defense against SLBMs and cruise
MJ> missiles might even make SDI look cheap and easy...
Might very well be. This should be used as an argument against the whole
SDI idea. On the other hand, if Reagan changed goals to just defending
against fast or non-recallable means of delivery (ICBMs and nearby
SLBMs&IRBMs) combined with 99% arms reduction, I might be on his side.
(Reagan reversed himself on the spy exchange, said his rhetoric to score
political points, then did what he said he wouldn't do; maybe he'll
change his SDI stance too?)
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Date: Sun, 5 Oct 86 16:34:06 edt
From: David Rogers <drogers%farg.umich.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: nothing to fear from other nations?
Date: 30 Sep 86 09:06:00 PST
From: "ESTELL ROBERT G" <estell@nwc-143b.ARPA>
Once we realize that there is really
nothing to fear from entire "other nations" or "other races" but rather
only from "criminals and terrorists" [of wharever background], then we
won't need to devote such a large portion of our national budget to that
kind of defense.
I wish this were true. There REALLY ARE cases where we have a lot to fear
from "other nations". Certainly the Poles have had a lot to fear from
Germany and Russia for hundreds of years. The key is determining who the
"national criminals" are, differentiating those from nations who just
stand in our way, and figuring out what we can do about the real criminals.
David Rogers
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Date: Sun, 5 Oct 86 18:23:47 PDT
From: Doug Urner <dlu%tektools.tek.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Hazards of lost nuclear weapons
Reply-To: Doug Urner <dlu%tektools.uucp@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
A couple of weeks ago I came across an article in the "People's Daily
World" about a number of dead penguins washing up on the shores of the
Falkland Islands. The report went on to say that the penguins had
probably died due to radiation poisoning from radioactive materials
(weapons) that were aboard one or more of the British that were lost
in the Falklands war. The weapons were probably nuclear depth charges
according to the report. I wanted to check this out more but there was
little to go on in the story. Does anyone know if this story is true
or where I might find more information? Or of any information of the
fate of nuclear weapons that have been lost at sea? Or how much credibility
to give to the assurances going around that there is nothing to worry
about in regard to the damaged Soviet near Bermuda?
Doug Urner, dlu@tektools.TEK.COM
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End of Arms-Discussion Digest
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