What would you do if you discovered a weapon more dangerous than the nuclear bomb?

[quietism]

It's been a few months since I've logged in on the site. Umm. I suppose it just didn't cross my mind, but it's not like I've had much good to preoccupy myself with otherwise.

I have a bit of a thought experiment I'd appreciate some feedback on. If you were to discover a weapon more dangerous than the nuclear bomb, what would you do?

Without going into detail, I'll just say this thought experiment is very relevant to me at the moment. I've asked a few people I know personally, the answers mostly falling into three categories:
- Can you study countermeasures / prevent it by publicising it? (Not really)
- Can you profit from it financially? (Probably, but I would never do that)
- Can you just pretend you never discovered anything? (Yes, but..)

I'm a bit of a misanthropist. I don't think it would bother me so much to see the world descend into chaos. But, there's also a lot of decision paralysis and ambivalence. There are plenty of things I want in life, all things I don't believe I will ever be granted, the most right now being in person friendship/relationships which I haven't had in a very long time. On the status quo doing everything in my power I don't really expect that to happen despite the low bar I set. And I do generally think of life as gambling. I really don't like the idea of gambling for anomalous change to bring me happiness, but it still makes me wonder. I wish there was an anonymous hotline for this kind of thing, I think sasu is just about the closest you can get for this kind of question.

 

[Lost in a Dream]

I guess it depends on what the weapon is and what makes it more dangerous. Is it just a bigger bomb with a much bigger blast radius? Or is it possibly some kind of chemical weapon that spreads in the wind or something? If it's a bomb I definitely wouldn't want to use it or sell it, but I don't know what I would do with it honestly.

If it was a chemical weapon of some sort, I might look into ways I could potentially use it on myself without harming others, but I doubt I would even use it for that. It's an interesting thought experiment though.

 

[SVEN]

Can I put it on Ebay ?

 

[Rynalia]

I'm gonna test it on myself first, far away, and in isolation to make sure it's actually more dangerous.

 

[Forever Sleep]

There surely are annonymous numbers you can report terrorist activities. I think you can report things to the police annonymously. I'd probably do that. Try and work out a way they couldn't trace the call in case. Although, I'd certainly be scared shitless of repercussions. I guess if it was that bad, they'd look at putting you in to witness protection.

 

[VoidButterfly]

Generally I'd presume that if I'd found a weapon that all the world's scientists had missed then I was probably not understanding something about the situation.

 

[quietism]

I guess it depends on what the weapon is and what makes it more dangerous. Is it just a bigger bomb with a much bigger blast radius? Or is it possibly some kind of chemical weapon that spreads in the wind or something? If it's a bomb I definitely wouldn't want to use it or sell it, but I don't know what I would do with it honestly.

If it was a chemical weapon of some sort, I might look into ways I could potentially use it on myself without harming others, but I doubt I would even use it for that. It's an interesting thought experiment though.

Not just a bigger bomb, no. The danger of a bomb is that it can be deployed and detonated relatively quickly and it can take a long time to repair the damage (or longer with nuclear fallout, but certainly still finite). What I have in mind is also not exactly a chemical weapon but somewhat similar in that it could take a long time between deployment and damage, and the damage is of a more irreversible and clandestine nature; by the time it's been noticed it's already too late.

Can I put it on Ebay ?

Yes >_<

Although I feel like that'd get passed off as a scam? Or ebay would auto delist it. I wonder.

There surely are annonymous numbers you can report terrorist activities. I think you can report things to the police annonymously. I'd probably do that. Try and work out a way they couldn't trace the call in case. Although, I'd certainly be scared shitless of repercussions. I guess if it was that bad, they'd look at putting you in to witness protection.

I didn't consider this idea. I don't know what exactly you could say for that kind of place to take you seriously without encouraging them to try to take you in to some off-the-books interrogation place. Or if witness protection would even really help at all. Same as with any other weapon, there's the theory and the idea that explains how it can be constructed, and to a person with the right resources, only a few pages would be enough of a leak to reconstruct it. Who would the witness protection be protecting you from, anyway? I'd think state actors would be the most willing to do the dirty work to get their hands on this kind of technology.

 

[Forever Sleep]

Not just a bigger bomb, no. The danger of a bomb is that it can be deployed and detonated relatively quickly and it can take a long time to repair the damage (or longer with nuclear fallout, but certainly still finite). What I have in mind is also not exactly a chemical weapon but somewhat similar in that it could take a long time between deployment and damage, and the damage is of a more irreversible and clandestine nature; by the time it's been noticed it's already too late.


Yes >_<

Although I feel like that'd get passed off as a scam? Or ebay would auto delist it. I wonder.


I didn't consider this idea. I don't know what exactly you could say for that kind of place to take you seriously without encouraging them to try to take you in to some off-the-books interrogation place. Or if witness protection would even really help at all. Same as with any other weapon, there's the theory and the idea that explains how it can be constructed, and to a person with the right resources, only a few pages would be enough of a leak to reconstruct it. Who would the witness protection be protecting you from, anyway? I'd think state actors would be the most willing to do the dirty work to get their hands on this kind of technology.

I probably misunderstood this to be something you had somehow stumbled across possible criminals building! If it's a new science or discovery of some sort, then I don't know really. Depends if you discovered it. In which case- you might have some idea of who already knows about it. If you've found out someone else has stumbled upon it or developed it though, then who's to say how many people already know about it? Maybe the cat is already out of the bag.

But in that case- yes- I see your dilema. Who could be trusted with such knowledge that they would make whatever it is safe and hidden, rather than develop it for their own ends? In which case, I don't know that I trust anyone unfortunately. Seeing as how so many of us are keen to stockpike weapons of mass destruction.

I guess that's the bit in the film where all those involved swear to keep it a secret and try to prevent it being happened upon by another. Really though- if one person has worked it out, I imagine more will be able to, too.

 

[rambunctiousrambler]

I'm gonna test it on myself first, far away, and in isolation to make sure it's actually more dangerous.

if it's worse than the nuclear bomb you're going to hurt animals either way

 

[avoid]

I've asked a few people I know personally, the answers mostly falling into three categories:
- Can you study countermeasures / prevent it by publicising it? (Not really)
- Can you profit from it financially? (Probably, but I would never do that)
- Can you just pretend you never discovered anything? (Yes, but..)

How do I discover a weapon of mass destruction that everyone, including scientists most intelligent, has overlooked? And what sets me apart from the billion other ordinary people? My point is that if I were to withhold this discovery from mankind and take it with me to the grave, what are the chances that someone else stumbles upon this discovery the same way I did? If I'm truly unique and confident that no one else will discover the weapon, then I'll keep everything to myself. By the way, this reminds me of a short film: O.I. on Youtube.

But if there's a chance others will discover the weapon too (in the future), then I would try to sell the weapon to my country rather sooner than later. For all I know, someone else may discover this weapon next year, or perhaps tomorrow. Only if I'm certain that the weapon remains undiscovered for at least another century, will keeping it a secret be worth forgoing the money. Money can alleviate my guilt of fast-tracking the discover by a year, but not by a century.

Ideally, I would try to discover countermeasures but I'm not equipped with the intellectual capacity to do that on my own. And I don't plan on leaking the discovery without serious financial compensation.

Another option is to build the weapon and hold the world hostage! Not for money but for political influence. You can act on your own judgement and principles, or align yourself with a country by acting as their weapon, retaining the final say in whether you'll use the weapon of course.

I probably misunderstood this to be something you had somehow stumbled across possible criminals building!

View attachment 100-Billion-Dollars.mp4

 

[notreallybored]

ב''ה, beware of attacks from Big Bomb, they may not appreciate the competition. Defense is a business, after all.

 

[EternalShore]

I'd rather not be the bad guy who killed all of humanity~ >_< I'd dig a hole and bury it ig~ It'd be neat if it was more than just a bomb tho! :) like a space-time machine! :D because those are really powerful and can definitely be weapons but would be so fun to mess around with too! >w<

 

[quietism]

How do I discover a weapon of mass destruction that everyone, including scientists most intelligent, has overlooked? And what sets me apart from the billion other ordinary people? My point is that if I were to withhold this discovery from mankind and take it with me to the grave, what are the chances that someone else stumbles upon this discovery the same way I did? If I'm truly unique and confident that no one else will discover the weapon, then I'll keep everything to myself. By the way, this reminds me of a short film: O.I. on Youtube.

But if there's a chance others will discover the weapon too (in the future), then I would try to sell the weapon to my country rather sooner than later. For all I know, someone else may discover this weapon next year, or perhaps tomorrow. Only if I'm certain that the weapon remains undiscovered for at least another century, will keeping it a secret be worth forgoing the money. Money can alleviate my guilt of fast-tracking the discover by a year, but not by a century.

Ideally, I would try to discover countermeasures but I'm not equipped with the intellectual capacity to do that on my own. And I don't plan on leaking the discovery without serious financial compensation.

Another option is to build the weapon and hold the world hostage! Not for money but for political influence. You can act on your own judgement and principles, or align yourself with a country by acting as their weapon, retaining the final say in whether you'll use the weapon of course.

Thank you for sharing that O.I. film. I really liked it. It's surprisingly accurate.

This "how could it be overlooked?" argument is one I've heard before and it makes me think. It makes me think about how fragile science is and how scientists tend to be wrong about a lot of things. That's just the nature of science, that negative results are more common and there's a huge bias to hide them - all that matters is things get "less wrong", but even that can be impossibly hard to quantify due to things like Godel's incompleteness theorems. I am of the personal belief that an overwhelming amount of significant problems in our world will wind up being undecidable. There's also a kind of "established belief bias" that can prevent thinking out of the box in very significant ways among established fields. The progression from geocentrism to heliocentrism to galactocentrism to acentrism took centuries and I believe that this is not the last transition of this kind that humanity could bear witness to.

I don't believe the situation I am in is really unique. Just a few coincidences and the right (but unpopular) research subfield. I'm not worried about anyone independently discovering it anytime soon. Just like einstein, other people would probably stand-in and discover general relativity if they had not, although it could take a pretty indeterminate amount of time. Although einstein in particular it bothers me how they get held on a high pedestal, I think reflective of the foundational problems of science; they were wrong about many important things; belief in local realism, the significance of gravitational lensing, the original idea behind the cosmological constant. And then there is Stigler's law of eponymy - no scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer. Everything is full of mistakes and political power struggles.

The holding the world hostage thing is... kind of what I'm worried about happening if the technology got out.. yeah. That's why I don't care about the money aspect. But just like in O.I, it's quite not like mutually assured destruction. If two people have the technology, it's not clear in the slightest who would survive, but one of them wouldn't be killed directly, unlike in MAD. And just like in O.I.-- the only realistic countermeasures would impair people's lives to the point of insipidity (e.g. even more comprehensive censorship or like disabling hearing of entire populations just so they can be better controlled)

I'd rather not be the bad guy who killed all of humanity~ >_< I'd dig a hole and bury it ig~ It'd be neat if it was more than just a bomb tho! :) like a space-time machine! :D because those are really powerful and can definitely be weapons but would be so fun to mess around with too! >w<

How do you best bury an idea to stop others from finding it? The answer I gravitate towards for politics is autocratic educational curriculums, but for science, I'm not really sure. I suppose there's so much trash on the internet now that the most valuable and insightful ideas naturally get buried all on their own.

I see the cute pictures mentioning a positron bomb and I think back to a cloud chamber I saw at a science museum. Ahh.. just particles bouncing around.. Life is this simple.