tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post4739058630218794120..comments2024-03-28T08:06:43.198-04:00Comments on The Silicon Graybeard: Happy Deficit Day SiGraybeardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00280583031339062059noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1592992209402300549.post-67354345258596718812019-10-05T00:33:10.538-04:002019-10-05T00:33:10.538-04:00"Accepting and Living With the Death of the U...<i>"Accepting and Living With the Death of the United States." That graph makes me think maybe he's right and the end is inevitable. Maybe there really is nothing we can do except make the best of the bad situation and enjoy the liberties as they die away. [...] It was nice while it lasted.</i><br /><br />The standard dystopian plot we grew up with was that technological innovation will increase central control until Skynet took over and implemented Running Man. More recent movie plots say, given they are nearly reading your mind because you're filtering all your communications through portals they monitor, the totality of control will resemble the Matrix.<br /><br />Happily, I am here to tell you that is an incorrect extrapolation, and has always been incorrect. The actual military reality is that technological innovation always is more of a force multiplier for the small group than the large, for the weak than the strong. This was true for the printing press, the handgun, the telephone, drones, and in the near future 3D printing of cheap rockets. In 2002, the US Navy Millennium Challenge wargame concluded the Iranian coastal fishing fleet armed with Russian Silkworm missiles could beat a US carrier group. More recently, somebody destroyed a Saudi oil refinery, at a distance, without risking their soldiers, for some trivial cost in drones.<br /><br />The correct prediction is the end of the Age of Governments. When Bubba can surround his trailer, which has been reinforced to be a tornado shelter, with a minefield and perch drones in trees around it, there's not going to be any "tax collection".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com