Cybernetics

[McAvoy]

Come to think of it. If they successfully design new limbs they would have to be at a significantly weak design. I mean even if you have new limbs that can bench the same as the old biological ones, they are still mechanical and harder than a flesh and bone one. Getting punched would hurt more than it would with a flesh and blood one.

I also think people would have learn how to do basic repairs to their new limbs. Can't go to the local mall methinks to get it fixed like a cell phone.

[Mikey]

Don't forget, there is a natural limitation on the abilities of a replacement limb, or organ, or whatever - that of the body to which it is attached. Sure, one day we might have servos in a bionic arm which are capable of lifting 3000 lbs. or more - but whether or not the arm is capable of it, trying to lift a truck will either tear it off the trunk to which its attached or completely wreck the shoulder and spine.

[Teaos]

Yeah we covered that when we spoke about it on the show, that you would essentially have to graft in a whole new skeleton to make it work.

[IanKennedy]

DITL is inevitable.

[McAvoy]

Yeah we covered that when we spoke about it on the show, that you would essentially have to graft in a whole new skeleton to make it work.

That is if you wanted to lift anything exceeding human limits.

People also could start modifying their replacement limbs. I do wonder when we get to that point how much regulations there would be. Which side of the political parties would be on.

[Teaos]

Repulblicans would let you do what you want so long as you had the money. Democrates would not let anyone do it unless everyone could.

[Mikey]

Repulblicans would let you do what you want so long as you had the money. Democrates would not let anyone do it unless everyone could.

You might be surprised how many Republicans would want to restrict certain things to the military*. The Tea Party, OTOH, would want everyone to have everything they could afford, "cuz this is 'Murica!" Democrats would likely be split, with a sharp distinction between regulations for items of medical necessity and those considered luxuries.

* Then again, I saw a right-wing propaganda meme on Facebook that said something to the effect that if the military can have something, then everyone should have the right to own that thing. Of course, this is asinine ludicrousness, because no private citizen should be given the right to own, for example, a MILAN or an M1A1 Abrams even if he could.

[Teaos]

The "logic" behind that statement is at the base of the second ammendment. That the right to bear arms is tied to the fact that a militia formed from the people should be realistically be able to take on the military and over throw the goverment. Thus by that logic a private citizen should be able to buy military hardware so they can fight the military on even footing.

[Mikey]

The "logic" behind that statement is at the base of the second ammendment. That the right to bear arms is tied to the fact that a militia formed from the people should be realistically be able to take on the military and over throw the goverment. Thus by that logic a private citizen should be able to buy military hardware so they can fight the military on even footing.

I've heard this said quite a bit, and I haven't ever heard anything evidentiary to support it. That the 2nd-amendment "right to bear arms" is tied to the need for a citizen militia seems pretty common-sense; but bearing in mind the circumstances surrounding the need to create the Bill of Rights, logic favors the idea that such militias were needed in the absence of a strong standing army, not to supplant it. Remember that the "American" side in the American Revolution was largely composed of such citizen soldiers, or men who were such and later adopted into the structure of the Continental Army. Even a decade later, when the Bill of Rights was written, local peacekeeping/Native American conflicts/etc. were still being prosecuted by local militias. It sounds like a great middle-America ideal that the citizenry should have the capacity to overthrow a Republican democracy which somehow overstepped the Constitution which created it, but it just doesn't make sense that such was the idea behind the 2nd Amendment.

Of course, one could also say that a fowling piece was the only way that some folks could have put meat in the pot, but it doesn't seem that such would have required an entry in the Bill of Rights.

No matter the reasoning, I am profoundly and continuously glad that I don't live in a society in which any idiot with enough bread could go out and pick up a Charlie G... you know, for busting those really stubborn cans off the fencepost.

[Teaos]

Even I could hit a can off a fence if I had an Abrams.

[Captain Seafort]

I've heard this said quite a bit, and I haven't ever heard anything evidentiary to support it.

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined

Before a standing army can rule the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

it is a chimerical idea to suppose that a country like this could ever be enslaved . . . Is it possible . . . that an army could be raised for the purpose of enslaving themselves or their brethren? or, if raised whether they could subdue a nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty and who have arms in their hands?

The idea that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to allow Joe Bloggs and his mates to take on the US Army and win was at the very least present when you were writing your constitution.

[McAvoy]

Yeah... don't care about guns because anyone can own a gun. But if you are rich enough to own a tank or some sort of heavy equipment, then that is a problem.

[Teaos]

Well if you want to get technical, if a civilian can own anything the military does, that includes bio warfare and nuclear options. But I dont think even the leaders of the NRA would ask for that.

[Mikey]

Those citations were well-found, yet seem to all still be based in a pre-Constitution United States. Be that as it may, I still cannot believe anything but that the root idea was based in a culture whose soldiery of freedom was the citizen soldier, not in a culture based on fighting against that soldiery.

Be that as it may, there is a prevailing attitude in this nation that something should be done simply because it can be done. I've even seen it said explicitly by supporters of non-regulation of firearms that the basic reasoning of their position is "because I can." That is an idiotically dangerous idea, and seems to often cohabitate with the equally loony idea that I'm somehow not a patriot because I do not (yet) own a firearm. In the final analysis, I still don't want to live in a society that allows the shady dumb-ass next door to own a case of Willy Pete grenades, or a Charlie G., or that M1A1, or a Javelin system. Is that arbitrary? Perhaps. Does it violate some guy's interpretation of the 2nd Amendment? Possibly. I don't care. I want my government to be concerned with issues like that, and to protect me from the kind of lunatics who would want to own those things... because believe you me, anyone who wants to own those things - I don't mean decommissioned collectibles, I mean functional materiel - is a dangerous person who shouldn't be around people like me who want to live their lives without hurting anyone.

[Tsukiyumi]

My only problem with the concept is that only the rich would be able to afford to own those things, and would lead to a collection of private armies with substantial firepower.

Well, more substantial than the private armies they already own.