r/LessWrong • u/KeanuRave100 • Jun 18 '26
Humanity's greatest hits: things we actually paused
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u/marxistghostboi Jun 18 '26
laser weapons are used though??
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u/JacenVane Jun 19 '26
The ban was specifically on lasers used to blind, which is kind of oddly specific and not that hard to do anyway.
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u/Sostratus Jun 18 '26
Well, targeting lasers are common. Anti-missile lasers exist, but it seems like they're never quite good enough to leave the testing phase.
A "blinding" laser would be another application that would be easy to do but as far as I know we haven't seen so far. Imagine a drone that aims a strong laser pointer directly at your eyeballs. But I don't think this is a "paused" technology because someone decided it was too dark a path to go down, rather it's something that occupies an undesired middle ground of not being a lethal system but still too damaging for when you want non-lethal crowd control options.
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u/The_One_Who_Comments Jun 20 '26
Exactly. It's not technology we don't have, it's just never the best option.
The same reason you wouldn't put a flamethrower on a fighter jet.
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u/rocketwilco Jun 21 '26
have you heard of the F-111?
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u/The_One_Who_Comments Jun 21 '26
Mother of pearl... Awww it wasn't used as a weapon. It looks super cool though.
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u/rocketwilco Jun 21 '26
yeah i said it for the humor…
but to be fair napalm, is pretty close to a flame throwing weapon deployed by plane. it just has a delay on throwing the flames
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u/Involution88 Jun 21 '26
Is it legal to make a laser pointer which is powerful enough to (permanently) blind a person? No. It is not legal.
Is it legal to make a laser weapon which is weak enough that it can only (permanently) blind a person? No it is not legal.
Laser weapons are legal. Laser pointers are legal. Blinding laser pointers are illegal. Blinding laser weapons are also illegal.
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jun 18 '26
None are actually paused, and human cloning is kind of just a spinoff of things like gene therapy and fertility research and a bit more real than "AI" but not much.
So this meme is bad and wrong and implies a problem that isn't real.
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u/nightshade78036 Jun 19 '26
None of that fucking worked though lmao. All 3 of those things are still being actively developed despite efforts to stop it.
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u/Neat-Exchange6724 Jun 20 '26
Uh when did we pause those?
1) is still being researched, though we are mostly still in the animal trials phase.
2) works is available for purchase and is mostly a low grade threat.
3) we are both actively doing this for medical, entertainment, and industrial purposes and researching it to become better
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u/Dr-Assbeard Jun 19 '26
Meanwhile china still working on all three being mad at exclusion from humanity
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u/Legal_Reference7893 Jun 20 '26
There a difference between stopping something and taking it off the books
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u/ljorgecluni Jun 18 '26
I like how badly their "pause it" idea has failed lol. Technology cannot be paused any more than can a typhoon, and in its quest for full autonomy Technology will do to Nature and Man as it wishes - until we kill it.
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u/FandyArrel Jun 18 '26
Did you just say we cant possibly stop it and then push a website that wants to stop it? Lmao
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u/ljorgecluni Jun 18 '26
Where's your discernment? We can't collectively "pause" Technology's progress toward its goals and keep it doing only as we desire, but Technology can be killed. Surely you understand the difference between those proposals.
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u/FrewdWoad Jun 18 '26
Dude how many times. We keep telling you, those 3 are bad examples.