From: p3 (rm3cpp@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Sep 26 2005 - 19:49:42 MDT
> In 1979, the US Office of Technology Assessment
> (since dissolved
> by the W. Bush administration) put out a publication
> called
> "The Effects of Nuclear War" (still available on the
> OTA CD set).
> It evaluated the destructiveness of various nuclear
> war scenarios.
> The worst scenario conceivable at the time resulted
> in at most,
> IIRC, a 25% fatality rate in the US and USSR from
> weapons and fallout. Deaths from agricultural
> productivity,
> infrastructure damage, disorder, etc., were not
> calculated.
> However, the report showed that it was quite
> impossible
> for an all-out nuclear war to wipe out human life on
> earth,
> and unlikely for it to cause as much destruction as
> the
> Black Death did.
My apologies. I need to broaden my ultratechnology
knowledge base, so that I can make lists of
potentially threatening ultratechnologies that
contains more than "nanotechnology."
However, as for the destruction (and threat) posed by
any technology (from nukes to nanotech), I think it
will always be more than we expect, even if we take
this realization into account.
He is short-sighted who looks only on the path he treads and the wall on which he leans. - Kahlil Jibran
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