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Comment by scottlocklin | Hacker News Reader

"Will emerging technologies make the state system obsolete? It’s hard to see why not."

Yeah, it's hard to see why not if your view of technology is something like that of medieval demonology, which appears to be the thesis of this article.

Meanwhile, in reality land, you can make explosives and poison gas out of stuff in your kitchen, automobiles put a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy in the hands of individuals, this has been true for 100 years, and somehow "the state system" has done just fine; strengthened even in that period of time.

Also Bostrom is a nincompoop and no article that mentions him deserves to be taken seriously.

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And I think that the author's view is totally and completely backwards. If anything, it will solidify the importance of the state as a law enforcement entity. If someone from Brazil attacks an Italian citizen in his home, is Japan going to help the Italian or bring justice to the criminal in Brazil?

>automobiles put a ridiculous amount of kinetic energy in the hands of individuals, this has been true for 100 years, and somehow "the state system" has done just fine; strengthened even in that period of time.

Yep.

States figured out how to turn automobiles into tanks, essentially strengthening their power. Yet the article implicitly posits that somehow the same won't happen with microprocessors and nanomachines? The entire article seems a bit fanciful. States aren't going anywhere.

>States figured out how to turn automobiles into tanks

So did this disgruntled citizen:

https://youtu.be/PZbG9i1oGPA

And which tank is superior?

The "killdoser", designed and built by the non-state actor inside the US nation state?

Or the M1 Abrams, designed and built by the US nation state itself?

Even if you build yourself a "killdozer", you are powerless against the US state. Because the tanks that the US nation state built substantially increased the strength and power of that nation state years ago.

Yeah, this is a common fallacy, I'm sure there would be a name for it. Basically "my strategy will work, assuming my opponent doesn't act at all", and ignores the fact the opponent is a capable, well resourced entity.

Many bitcoin proponents have the same fallacy - i.e. "this is better than banks, therefore banks are obsolete", ignoring the fact that banks will work with new technology as it suits them.

>Also Bostrom is a nincompoop and no article that mentions him deserves to be taken seriously.

Agreed, and as I've pointed out elsewhere[0] (see also the parent comment[1]), his ideas are also not that new. I think it's quite sad that people somehow think that, because it shows how history -- even the development of ideas in the 20th century -- can be so easily forgotten.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319970

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21319584

"Will emerging technologies make the state system obsolete? It’s hard to see why not."

Honest question - could the U.S. Government be considered an Abstract State Machine?

If you squint, I could buy that as a way of describing the execution of policy (a state machine could, for example, oversee wealth redistribution payments) but not as a description of policy making entities.

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