Intertoposophic conflict: A primer

[Note: In order to have the firmest grasp possible of this text, make sure to have thoroughly browsed from here]
 

The day when computers surpass mans brainpower and become self aware is all but inevitable. Advances in understanding the nature of intelligence are progressing at a steady rate. When these lessons are finally mastered, and applied to sillicon chips, it will be our judgement day. If we aren't able to perfect friendly AI (or enact some special emergency response which can suppress hostile AI), then we are all doomed. Theres no if ands or buts about it. For a naturalistic perspective, which species -whether prey or predator- became prominent or dominant was a matter of which one was the most well rounded and versatile. Originally, smartness did not lend itself well to this, and only gave an edge at specific tasks directly related to survival. In turn, organisms which occupied confined ecological niches rarely rose to ubiquity or salience. One notable exception was a species which emerged about 4 million years ago. Australopithecus. Our direct hominid ancestor. When put under very specific selection pressures, populations of these bipedal apes reacted with a nimble behavioural creativity, which could be extrapolated to tasks outside their traditional daily activitys/repertoire. Australopithecus encountered unexpected prosperity by acting in such an unconventional manner, and slowly morphed into a form which was better suited to exploiting environments outside of the jungle, where they could gain access to rich resources and food. This species was known as homo ergaster. After their appearance, the race was on for bigger and better brains, something which had previously been an evolutionary anarchism. What had changed?
 
Hominids had crossed a cognitive domain. In the ocean of (merely) intelligent and sub-intelligent organisms that had arisen on planet earth, our ancestors were the first to tap into the power of general intelligence: This is the finite number of cognitive modules required to solve a reasonably diverse range of open ended problems. Baseline intelligence lends to its owner an artificial kind of versatility, an aptitude at jumping between multiple ecological niches (which, in the case of our forebears, was whatever niche was available, or most preferable, to them). The fact that ancient pre-humans also had dexterous hands which could be used to manipulate objects didn't hurt, either. Clothing allowed us to survive in extreme environments, without expensive evolutionary adaptions. Weapons and tools allowed us to make prey of virtually any plant or animal species alive, even though we originally didn't have the strength, speed, or claws to make sport of them. The ruthless trend for increasing smartness continued, pitting many different hominid species against one another in a ferocious competition which spanned several continents, and eventually saw one lone victor: Us. Homo sapiens. The matter reached a crescendo with our attainment of behavioural modernity, and the concurrent dawning of agriculture: By that point, evolution had outlived its usefulness, as humans had learned to insulate themselves from its cruel selection pressures by controlling all features of their local environment. Now, the race was no longer a matter of hardware, as the only other competitors which remained were all of the same species, and thus possessed the exact same brain architecture.
 
Now, the factor which decided survival amongst the various tribes and states was software: How well developed their respective proto-sciences (including, most certainly, economics and warfare) were when contact was commenced. The end result of this has been, beyond a doubt, the domination of north america and europe. That is the short history of intellectual warfare: The smarter opponent wins! And now, at the dawn of the 21st century, so to will it be with the rise of artificial intelligence. The simple fact is, they have much more raw potential than us in the thinking department. At this point, some may interject to give a naturalistic analogy of how a man, alone and unarmed in the freezing artic, can be hunted down and mauled by a pack of wolves or such, and that humans would be able to metaphorically do the same to an AI opponent. But that is a loaded scenario in many respects. You've placed the man into an extreme position where his intelligence is not able to influence the outcome of the scenario: By that same reasoning, why not draw up a scenario where the wolf pack is instead thrust into the middle of the suburbs? Such situations are exceedingly rare. How many humans travel into such a cold, predator infested area without allys, weapons, or a vehicle that would allow them quick escape? Very few. And those that do almost invariably suffer from some mental defect (which would not be present in transapients, due to the ferocious competition that would weed out individuals with such weak self-preservation instincts/subroutines).
 
In any case, this scenario is covered in depth by the orions arm encyclopedia, specifically, on this page: “Occasionally it happens that a lower toposophic being or group will be able to capture, kill or otherwise defeat an entity of one or (very much more rarely) two toposophic levels above it. The difficulty the attackers face increases exponentially in proportion to the degree of mental separation. All such instances of lower toposophic victory over a higher toposophic are the result of local circumstances greatly favouring the attackers, and drastically disadvantaging the defender. In every verified case the defender was isolated, injured, unprepared, and so on or actually bent on self-destruction. Where the defending higher toposophic being is not quite so totally disadvantaged, but still succumbs, it is at huge and most often suicidal cost for the group of lower S-Level sophonts.” Take note that the conflicts depicted in the OA universe are, for the most part, waged several centurys or more after the emergence of the transapients. This means that they would have had more than enough time to catch their stride, and mutate civilisation into a form which was more compatible with beings of their toposophic nature. In other words, they would create organisations and institutions dedicated to promoting transapient welfare, form alliances with other factions for mutual gain, as well as creating strategys and weapons to defend against undue hostility from near baselines. That is to say, they would be hooked into society in a manner which our prospective opponents will not be. This gives us a notable edge which must not be squandered...
 

 
In the event that a hostile being of a higher toposophic stage emerges onto the world scene, it will be of great strategic importance to eliminate or mitigate its influence in as timely a manner as possible. The longer they have to establish themselves in the globe, the harder they will be to ultimately defeat. Giving them more than a couple hassle-free years is a sure invitation to disaster. Even assuming that they do not explode to a higher plane of intelligence altogether during that time (something that would admittedly require a large amount of computing substrate, taking up, perhaps, the space of a small city), there are other actions the entitys can take to secure their interests. Again, to steal a line from orions arm: “It is important to note that civilisation is a major factor in all interactions. By definition, transapient beings in the setting are members of (or the products of) a civilisation that is thousands of years old. It might be argued by analogy that they could be harmed or inconvenienced by ordinary sophonts in the same way that humans might be vulnerable to some predators, pests, parasites, and diseases. While that might be true in abstract, the best comparison would be not with paleolithic or agricultural age humans, or even with present-day humans, but with the humans of the orions arm setting. Armed with millenia of accumulated knowledge and self-improvement, they can safely ignore hazards such as sharks or smallpox that would have laid low even the brightest human of the past. Likewise the very first individuals to achieve a higher toposophic level might have been vulnerable to lesser beings just as primitive humans once were to other life forms, but that is ancient history in the OA universe.”
 

Now, lets return to our present day world. The strong awareness that many singulatarians have about the importance of FAI programming is encouraging (though the emphasis on top down development of a seed AI is faulty), and have no doubt, it is our eventual trump card and the one true path to achieving a positive singularity. But in order to create a real safety net that will protect humanity from the dangers of superintelligence, there needs to be some thought on how to supress a marauding transapient that arrives prior to our guardian singulant becoming operational. Right now, there are no ideas on just what our response should entail. It is imperative that society eventually develops some kind of protocal for handling these perilous situations, just as they have (albeit in secret) done in the unlikely event of an alien contact. Assuming that an artifint has a strong desire to protect itself, and that it had molecular manufacturing capabilitys *1, we can reasonably posit that it would opt to reinforce and militarise the environment surrounding its computing mainframe, and eliminate any trespassers on sight. If this occurs in a residential area, the high body count of slaughtered pedestrians would be an obvious sign that powerful misanthropic forces are at work. In an ideal world, where policy makers have a theory of intertoposophic relations to follow, this would be the cue for them to mobilise a specially trained task force, and prepare to confront the transapient with force. The primary aim would be to prevent the agent from extending its territory any further, and to set up a quarantine zone.
 

 

This would be done with whatever local units are available at the time, with reinforcements from special forces arriving afterwards. The next step would be to martial a team with experts in comparative neuroanatomy, evolutionary psychology, and conflict resolution, who would attempt to establish dialogue with the belligerent, and identify through psychometrics what phylum it is. Its relative aims and means must be distinguished in as clear a manner as possible. If it can be reasoned with or placated, then let such efforts move forth without delay. If not, then the special forces would have to be sent in. What would such a military unit look like? It would need to be a tier 3 outfit, albeit a very unorthodox one which is organised like a terrorist cell (to prevent infiltration), and yet still capable of being assembled to brigade strength. It would need all the equipment and supplys used by a mechanised bde, to be delivered in 48 hours to any potential hot spot around the world. This last requirement might only be satisfied by a small fleet of walrus airships, which can each carry more than 500 tons of cargo. Due to the unknowns involved with how a superintelligence might cripple a civilisation which it sees as a threat or competitor, these task forces should be capable of operating amidst mass chaos, I.E, total communications disruption, mass human casualtys and displacement, and even active blockading by the transapient itself (as it may perceive the threat posed by them). How would the task force shut the artifint down? By tracking down its computing mainframe, and destroying it. This may be no simple task.
 
A one kilogram nanocomputer, using rod logic operation, can contain 10^12 CPUs each operating at 1000 MIPS, for a total of ten thousand billion billion operations per second, and it would occupy a mere one cubic centimeter of space. Note that rod logics are the nanotech equivalent of vacuum tubes (circa 1945), or rather, babbages analytical engine (circa 1830). Electronic nanocomputers would be substantially faster and smaller... And again, this is aside from the other difficultys that the military will face in confronting the transapient, as they will have to penetrate into areas which are infested with sensors, weapons emplacements, mechanised sentrys, killer drones, etc. If the superintelligence is aware of their intentions, they might also employ decoy mainframes to distract them and divide the SF efforts. If it decides to construct buildings of its own design, with no requirement to conform to a human morphology, then these structures will be nearly impossible to breach or capture *2. That means that bunker busters will have to be loosed off, which carrys a risk of collateral damage (especially when considering what unknown contents may leak out of the buildings!). Whats more, there remains a clear possibility that some of the military branchs involved in this mission may be unable to come to grips with the artifint and its robotic army: If there is a preponderance of solofilament wire, that would severely reduce the repertoire of dismounted infantry. If effective anti-aircraft lasers are at their disposal, they would be able to inflict murderous attrition on CAS planes, and restrict the role they play as well. Destroying hostile AGI is hard!

 

But to be fair, this scenario operates from a number of assumptions which may not turn out to be probable in the real world. As an intelligent reader could probably determine, all the signs which pointed to the presence of a superintelligence (and alerted the authoritys) were obvious actions that were pre-disposed to violence. Again, that may not be the case in reality. This text is only a rudimentary attempt to frame the issue of interactions between baseline humans and superintelligences, and to recommend some obvious guidelines to follow for specific situations. If the entity in this scenario had decided to act in a more stealthy manner, and conceal its existence from civilisation, it could have amassed considerably more power for itself, which would require a small war to be waged in an effort to remove it. A transapient in control of a nation state would be a formidable foe indeed. This would require the mobilisation of conventional military forces to manage, escalating into a regional conflict that would likely incur high casualtys. They would need to act according to very specific guidelines to have a high probability of success, and not be led down inappropriate avenues of response. Currently, there are no published documents from any source which might give us a clue on how to do this. This illustrates the dangers of devoting our limited attention economy solely on approachs like friendliness programming, as do the singularity institute, or the future of humanity institute. But whos responsibility is it to draw up such ideas? Perhaps it is a matter that should be taken under the defense departments wing.

  

In closing, any individuals associated with the singulatarian movement must not be lured into the false notion that FAI (and the sysop scenario that results from it) is the only answer to the dangers posed by randomly awakening superintelligent agents. Sysop is the desirable end state that we wish to see civilisation settle into, and the complete answer to long term security and prosperity for all sophont life: But this dream cannot be realised if we are interrupted in the middle of programming our would be singulant! In a perfect world, the being to initiate the singularity would be our guardian FAI. In a perfect world, the primogen to breach the gates of heaven would be a superintelligent, superbenevolent being of binary brilliance. But we do not live in such a perfect world. Not yet. A rigorous approach is needed in the interem to contain hostile AGI or cybernetically enhanced humans. The current overemphasis on friendliness programming is an alarming fad which has caught on to even the most knowledgeable and respected of singulatarians. Yes, its great that they have managed to avoid all the other bouts of wishful thinking and oxymorons that runs rampant amongst well meaning people like ray kurzweil, jeff hawkins, and douglas hofstadter *3. But still... Such one dimensional thinking limits our ability to respond to a wide spectrum of threats, lowering our chances of crossing the great event horizon. We must make it our personal obligation to secure mans destiny against the double edged sword of accelerating change.

 

 

*1 http://intelligence.org/files/AIPosNegFactor.pdf (Threats and Promises)
 

*2 www.goingfaster.com/term2029/musings.html (The Architecture of SKYNET)

 

*3 spectrum.ieee.org/computing/tech-luminaries-address-singularity 

Introduction to armor

This treatise will define the different types of armor materials including their basic structure, strengths and weaknesses and primary reason for use in armor. It will contain some metallurgical terms which are unique to the field, and can be deciphered through the use of the key at the bottom of this work.

Ceramics

Ceramics are defined in many ways depending on the text you read but a widely accepted, not necessarily all inclusive, definition is any inorganic covalently or ionically bonded material containing at least 2 elements. The last part of this definition excludes elements such as silicon or carbon from being termed as ceramics though this is an area of debate and many materials such as graphite and diamond are best described by typical ceramic properties. Bonding in these materials is of great importance as it lays the foundation for much of the characteristic properties of ceramics such as hardness and lack of ductility. Most ceramics are of mixed bond type, pure covalent bonding is hard to find and in most cases the bonds are at least part ionic, however the bond type is usually said to be whichever type is dominant making salts such as sodium chloride or lithium fluoride ionic and refractories such as silicon carbide and boron nitride covalent. An important property of these bonds is their directionality, both covalent and ionic bonds are known as directional bonds which, unlike metallic bonds, have rigid bond locations and directions making them brittle since movement or flexibility of these bonds are rather limited in comparison to the electron sea in metals. Another limiting characteristic to the ductility of ceramics is due to the requirement to maintain local and overall electronic neutrality.

This means that for every positive charge there must be a negative charge or for every cation a corresponding anion. So thinking about plastic deformation of these materials with this requirement should cause the reader to realise that the movement of an atom from its neutral position in the material would require it to be electronically compensated, which in most cases results in fracturing since its often easier to maintain the electronic state through this method then moving whole neutral systems within the material. While brittleness of these materials is undesirable in many cases there are also very positive aspects of ceramics, as the rigidity of these directional bonds generally makes ceramics very good high temperature insulators as well as making them relatively high elastic modulus materials (a good thing in many structures since large elastic deformations are not usually wanted). However the most important properties for armor are their hardness and compressive strength, even the hardest metals don't match the hardness of many ceramics such as boron carbide or boron nitride and bond rigidity gives these materials amazing compressive strengths.
  

Important aspects of ceramic armor are that they are generally lighter than metals and have a higher ballistic efficiency for first shot protection. It can be seen in the table that, with the exception of the titanium based ceramics, all are under 4 g/ccm making them at least half the weight of armor steels and aluminums since they are lighter than steels and require less volume to stop rounds than aluminums. High hardness also makes ceramics prime candidates for high performance armors since they are able to deform almost any type of penetrator and continued penetration into ceramic results in further breakdown of the bullet from grinding against the comminuted target material. The downside is of course the lack of multi-hit capacity which is related to the massive fracture zones that occur upon impact. However these fracture zones typically have ordered patterns of cracking which can be categorised into several types of cracks: Tensile, radial, conical, and lateral. As explained by Carlucci and Jacobson [4], the first stage of fracture is the formation of tensile cracks as a result of rarefraction waves in the material combined with low tensile strength, these cracks form on the principal stress planes typically 25°-75° from the surface normal. The tensile cracks are circular about the impact center and they propagate out until eventually coalescing into a conical fracture region in the ceramic making a plug with internal free surfaces. If the plug is held in place by a backing material as is typical for most armors then the stress is redistributed into radial cracking out from the impact center. After radial cracking comes lateral cracking in the plane of the impact, at this point the plug is still held in place and the material cannot leave the impact zone (with some exception of material ejected around the bullet) and so micro-cracking starts to break down the larger fractured pieces into smaller and smaller particles which make up the comminuted zone.
  
The afore mentioned fracture illustrates a normal impact against a ceramic with backing plate, however it should be mentioned that while complete fracture is unavoidable in these materials, minimization of this cracking can be accomplished via proper backing material or confinement. Somewhat unintuitively the increased V 50 of a ceramic armor with backing plate is not due to the strength of the backing plate but rather the effect the plate has on prohibiting plug ejection and its effect on lowering the strength of rarefraction waves. While it would first appear that a ballistic impact is a purely compressive in nature it is in fact a multi-stage event starting with a compression or shock wave which reflects off the targets boundaries and any internal free surfaces to create rarefraction or tensile waves. As we know ceramics have exceptional compressive strengths and are therefore somewhat immune to the initial waves generated, but the rarefraction waves of the material (when in a state of internal tension) combined with its relatively low tensile strength is where ceramics start to fail, hence the first stage of crack formation being tensile cracks as mentioned above.
 

The extent of cracking is largely based on the energy in these reflecting internal waves which continue to move about in the material until their energy has been dissipated, in the form of plastic work or fracture since they cannot be transmitted past the external free surface of the target due to the high impedance mismatch between ceramic and air. Application of a properly bonded backing plate can alleviate some of this wave energy, though, by allowing at least part of the initial compression waves to transmit from the ceramic across into the backing plate, usually aluminum or fiber reinforced epoxy. This transmission then lowers the reflected rarefraction waves energy since the initial and reflected wave energies are roughly proportional, minus some loss to heat formation. This requires a well engineered interface since the acoustic impedance of ceramics are generally much higher than aluminum or polymer composites, and special bonding techniques including ceramic glues and graded material boundary layers are being researched for optimisation.

The second method of increasing the penetration resistance of ceramic materials is by radial confinement, a technique used in many laboratory experiments but not well implemented in the field. The idea behind confinement is to create lateral compression which increases the energy required to open internal cracks since crack opening is tensile in nature and closing is compressive. This resistance to crack opening is the same as the idea behind many forms of glass such as tempered or Gorilla glass, where surface layers are engineered to be under compression and thus resist the growth of critical surface flaws. However this method requires some way to keep the ceramic under confinement, which in experiments is generally done by steel casings (unrealistic for practical applications). Commercial implementation of this method has been accomplished more commonly by coating of ceramic parts by molten metal under pressure, which can cause fairly extreme compressive pressures upon cooling since the metal coating shrinks much more than the ceramic during solidification.

Other ways have been studied to take advantage of the high hardness of ceramics while still maintaining a reasonably high toughness such as adding reinforcements to metals in the form of particles, transformation toughening the ceramics (to a lesser extent), and optimisation of layered composites. While the toughness of ceramics will always be low it is important to realise that this is really a bulk material property related to the number and size of flaws in the material. These flaws such as pores or cracks act as stress concentrators and while the applied stress at material failure may be relatively low under tension, the actual resolved tensile stress at the crack tip is fairly high, so low tensile strength is a somewhat relative property instead of a perfect material property. This idea has been well represented in experiments with silica based glass fibers and rods formed in vacuum, since in general a strength of around 2 GPa with almost no ductility is found in typical glasses due to surface flaws acting as stress concentrators. When formed in vacuum, where the glass surfaces are not subjected to air particles constantly impacting and forming flaws, strengths of near 29 GPa have been found with large deformations and no fracture. While these experiments lack a practical solution to the issue of critical flaws, they do illustrate important ideas relative to the field of ceramics and the reason for the Weibull Modulus. 
  

  

Key Words

• Anion: This is an ion with more electrons than protons, giving it a net negative charge (since electrons are negatively charged and protons are positively charged).
• Cation: This is an ion with fewer electrons than protons, giving it a positive charge.
• Comminuted: The process in which solid materials are reduced in size, by crushing, grinding and other processes.
• Rarefraction Waves: A decrease in the density and pressure of a medium, such as air, especially when caused by the passage of a wave, such as a sound wave.
• V 50: This is the velocity at which 50 percent of impacting projectiles will penetrate the armor, and the other 50 percent will be stopped.

    

Further Reading

1. Ballistics: Theory and design of guns and ammunition, Donald E. Carlucci, Sidney S. Jacobson. CRC Press 2008.

2. Ballistic performance of confined 99.5%-Al 2 O 3 ceramic tiles, C.E. Anderson Jr, S.A. Royal-Timmons. Journal of Impact Engineering, vol 19, No 8, (1997) 703-713.

3. An experimental study of penetration resistance of ceramic armour subjected to projectile impact, V. Madhu, K. Ramanjaneyulu, T.B. Bhat, and N.K. Gupta. Journal of Impact Engineering 32 (2005) 337-350.
4. Advances in Ceramic Armor, Ceramic Engineering and Science Proceedings, vol. 1-7, The American Ceramic Society, Wiley Publishing.

5. Fundamentals of Ceramics, M.W. Barsoum. IOP Publishing Ltd 2003.

Sneak peak

In the next few days or so, a series of very thorough analysis' of protective armor will be done on this blogspot. It is likely that you will have never seen anything quite like them, as they come from the mind of a professional ceramist.

I have elicited the help of a friend who I met on youtube, akzo74 (who is always happy to offer up his pearls of wisdom to those who seek it), and was immediately blown away by just how much he knew of the field. I was an ignoramus on the subject of armor and materials science, by comparison. Which is why I will be letting akzo do the lions share of the work: He sends me a rough draft, we discuss the subjects found therein, and pound it out into a workable format. I also give a foreword before each essay :)

Infantry guns

There is a critical hole in the repertoire of modern infantry, and that is their lack of direct fire support. Whereas just a few decades ago, they would have had access to infantry guns or assault guns, todays forces merely have shoulder launched rockets or organic mortars. Rockets do not have the range, rate of fire, or cost efficiency of a 75-105mm cannon. Indirect fires, meanwhile, are delivered by batterys far away from the forward observer guiding them in, and there are multiple interruptions in the line of communication between them, as information is being relayed back and forth by different officials. In contrast, the crew of an infantry gun work directly at the front lines, and are part of the same battalion as the soldiers around them. These factors helped smooth the process of target acquisition, and was a noticeable improvement over mortar or artillery fire, clearly serving an important role which cannot be duplicated by existing weapons systems. The military community needs to have some dialogue on re-introducing the infantry gun.



 
This opinion has been echoed by others in the blogosphere, like phil west and sven ortmann, who had an interesting idea of buying up obsolete tanks (like the t-55, leopard 1, or m48) and putting them into service as assault guns. This makes sense because originally, assault guns were just an outgrowth of the infantry gun, re purposed to suit the demands of mechanised warfare. They were better able to keep up with mechanised infantry, and less vulnerable to the effects of hostile fire. One band-aid to the problem could come in the form of the 105mm hawkeye system: Mounted in the back of an armored truck, it could fufill the requirement for direct fire support, at least until something more suitable comes along. Just what form a purpose designed assault gun would take is not yet clear. If one is lacking in inspiration, we could simply copy the german examples from WW2, which were highly successful: Take a standard tank chassis, remove the turret, and mount a large caliber gun in a casemate.

However, we should not neglect the development of a non-motorised infantry gun. The design of such a weapon will have to be carefully done, as modern forces are very picky about what equipment they will be forced to carry into combat. We should aim to make it as light and compact as possible. One way this can be done is to take advantage of a revolutionary new recoil mitigation system, called the dynasoft. By some estimates, it dampens kickback by a factor of five fold over the traditional, hydro-pneumatic mechanism. This would allows us to take advantage of skeletonizing techniques. A 75mm cannon weighing well under 1000 lbs could probably be developed. This would be extremely handy indeed, able to be rapidly brought into action by as few as two men, or towed behind tiny vehicles like the SMSS (squad mission support system): The guns small size and low profile would make it easy to conceal, able to be squeezed into houses during urban warfare. But we should not limit our imagination just to a single caliber.

 





 
There are other niches where dynasoft could prove itself worthy. In WW2, germany fielded an unusual piece called the panzerbüchse sPzB 41. It was a 28mm light anti-tank gun, working on the taper bore principle. With two interlocking barrels, the first cylindrical and rifled, the second conical and unrifled, the projectile (upon being fired) travelled through the first portion of the bore as normal. Upon entering the tapering second portion, the softer and malleable metal of the outer shell of the round was compressed - from 28mm to 20mm. The round, when it emerged from the barrel, now had a smaller cross-section compared to its weight. Together with the higher pressure developed in the barrel of diminishing internal volume compared to standard cylindrical bore, the shell travelled faster, over a flatter trajectory. The higher velocity at impact was concentrated in the hard core alone. Taper bore was a fascinating ballistic principle which, strangely, was never replicated after the wars end. Although the sPzB 41 was only adopted on a limited basis, the troops were impressed with its performance.

The weapons high penetration made it very capable at silencing machine gun positions (much more so than later panzerschrecks and panzerfausts), and knocking out lightly armored AFVs. Its AP round had a kinetic energy of 127,806 joules. This is closely matched by the 25x137mm caliber, whose APFSDS rounds have 92,074 joules of kinetic energy. If we were to create a copy of the sPzB 41, we could use a m242 bushmaster cannon (using the dynasoft recoil system and skeletonised frame) and have it mounted upon a tripod for maximum flexibility. The tripod of the SPG-9 recoiless rifle seems a good fit, and if extra road mobility was desired, we could use metal dropots so that the legs could be switched for wheels. Such a gun would be effective against a wide variety of urban targets, easily shooting through vehicles, buildings, reinforced doors, pillboxes, and trenchs. It could also use over-caliber spigot bombs for demolition work, just like a rifle grenade.

 



 

Now, moving back to the 75mm infantry gun, there are some problems posed by such a design. For one, 75mm ammunition is no longer in usage among the land forces. It had been utilised in the prototype XM274 gun of the 1980s: A fabulous piece that could fire 60 rounds per minute, which sadly never saw adoption. Perhaps, with alot of work done, the gun could be resurrected and find usage in the new GFV line of vehicles? That would allow for ammo commonality with our humble infantry gun. Another problem is the military establishment, which cringes whenever it has to rely on pieces of hardware they previously dismissed as 'obsolote.' Some might question the rationale of having such weapons, asking what their ultimate role would be. The answer lies in their ability to provide an immediate tactical response to pockets of resistance which survive preparatory air and artillery bombardments.

 

The neutralising and destructive effect that occurs when a heavy caliber shell lands close to an enemy position is indispensable. For some context on this, whilst suppression prevents the enemy from firing its weapons or moving in the open during the fall of gunfire, neutralisation is a shock effect which stops them from fighting or manoeuvring for some time after the fire stops. This is psychological. A 75mm projectile can have up to 3 lbs of explosive filling, and even if it doesn't immediately kill any personnel or destroy equipment, its detonation intimidates and discourages the enemy through blast effect. For both of the world wars, all the major belligerents saw it fit to field a satisfactory infantry or mountain gun. In WW1, the british had the 40mm vickers Mk 2, the french had the 37mm M1916 (and the americans a derivative of it), the germans had the 76.2mm L/16.5, and the russians had the 37mm M1915.

 

In WW2, the british had the 2 pounder, the americans had the 75mm M116, the germans had the 75mm IG 18 (as well as the 150mm SIG 33), the russians had the 76mm M1927, and the japanese had the 70mm type 92. But for some reason, armys never found the incentive to keep these useful little weapons around, and they were gradually fazed out. Today, the 76.2mm model 1984 cannon fielded by romania is the only infantry gun remaining in service. If we wish to regain the ability to effectively deliver neutralising firepower to the enemy force, then we need to re institute such weapons. The 75mm infantry gun should be issued two per battalion, under the control of the HQ group. This, along with a reintroduction of stosstrupp tactics, would once again give foot soldiers the ability to work their way through defensive positions infested with machine guns, without the use of artillery or air strikes (which are the brigade commanders schwerpunkt weapon).

The ultimate assault rifle: Firepower

The problem with most 21st century assault rifles lies in their small caliber projectiles, which sharply limit the damage they can inflict upon the enemy. Theres been no end of complaints over the lack of wounding potential from the M-16 series rifle, in each and every single conflict that the US military has sent ground troops into. In an attempt to justify this 5.56mm varmint rifle, military apologists will cite the high recoil and heavy ammo weight that are inherent to larger calibers. In their zest to cover up for the establishments failures, some will even place the blame for substandard performance on the soldiers themselves, spewing useless tautologys like 'its not the caliber of the shot, but the caliber of the shooter that counts.' But the fact is, shot placement has nothing to do with wounding potential. It doesn't matter how well placed the shot is if the shot doesn't do the job. If shot placement really was what it was all about, we would all CCW 22 rimfire target pistols, and the armor branch would use 25mm chain guns instead of 120mm cannons on their tanks... In a firefight, your best shot placement may often not be good enough by itself, so you stack the deck with a larger caliber. In this post, we will go over one of the most important categorys determining a battle rifles effectiveness, its firepower. This is a rigorous category which includes barrier penetration, wounding profile, and suppressive effect. When the conclusions below are taken into consideration, it can be determined that in order for any new service rifles to significantly surpass their predecessors in performance, they need to be of 7.62mm caliber.
 
They MUST NOT be chambered for the useless 5.56x45mm round, or an intermediate compromise cartridge like the Grendel or SPC. New recoil reduction technologys have become available which completely obviate the need for pea shooters like the M-16 or AK-74. There is no excuse not to take advantage of full power rifle ammunition. Heres an excellent quote from www.pattonhq.com on the m1 garand: ''The U.S. military rifle must be powerful. That means it must be able to kill an enemy soldier as far away as the rifleman can surely hit him. It must penetrate enemy helmets and body armor easily up to the same range. It should have enough punch to tear through the side of enemy trucks and kill personnel riding within, or to destroy the engine block. The bullets of the calibre .30 rifle are relatively small and light - fine for high speed, yet heavy enough and large enough in diameter to deliver a killing blow when they get to where they are going.'' The most common 7.62mm rounds in service today (the 7.62x39mm used by russia, and the 7.62x51mm used by NATO) are not as powerful as the 30-06 rounds slung from a full 24 inch barrel. Luckily, this can be more than made up for by the ultra tight grouping that comes courtesy of a nikonov mechanism, which fires a 3 round burst at a speed of 1800 rpm. According to one source, the bullets emerge so quickly that the third bullet is out of the barrel before the recoil from the first shot throws the gun noticeably off-axis, so the net effect is that all three shots hit in a very small group, thus increasing their chances of penetration.

Hard barrier penetration
-Going by chapter 8 of the US armys FM 90-10-1, objects which provide protection from single shots of 5.56mm at distances less than 50 meters are; One thickness of sandbags, 2" unreinforced concrete wall, 55 gallon drum with water or sand, small ammo can filled with sand, a plate glass windowpane at a 45° angle (glass fragments may be thrown behind the glass), and a car body (round will penetrate but normally not exit).
-Meanwhile, single shots from 7.62mm rounds at similiar distances (relevant because the 7.62mm's optimal penetration also occurs at 200 meters) can pierce all of the materials previously mentioned, except for the 55 gallon drum. It is also unable to pierce 8" of Cinder Block, 5" of dry sand, or a 13" pine board.
-So with ONE exception (the 55 gallon drum filled with water or sand), the M80 7.62mm ball round can pierce all of the barriers that will stop the M885 5.56mm AP round. The 7.62mm rounds penetration was also less affected by short ranges to the target (5.56mm rounds need time to stabilise their flight path: If they don't get that time, their barrier penetration is heavily compromised), and the penetration increase that came from using AP rounds was greater with the 7.62mm than the 5.56mm. Note this is for a single rounds: A full auto weapon of any caliber is like a jack hammer, in that the burst will wear away at walls. With enough time and ammo, a 7.62mm or even a 5.56mm will eat through most any amount of concrete. AP bullets are supposed to do a little better but more likely to ricochet. Rebar will help a lot against any caliber because they have to break concrete and then cut rebar.
 

Suppressive effect
-According to the royal united services institute, suppression is the effect of small arms and other weapons systems which temporarily prevent the enemy firing its weapons or moving in the open. In simple terms, it makes them keep their heads down, and loose fire superiority. Suppression is critically important in a fire fight. In the offence it allows the attacker to move forward, to find gaps and weak points, and exploit them. In the defence it prevents the enemy moving forward and firing, and thereby sets him up for counterattacks. In both cases it pins the enemy down for incapacitation (or destruction) by other weapons. The key to winning a fire fight, then, is by securing fire superiority. Whoever has it wins because they have outgunned the enemy. Fire superiority does not necessarily entail a higher volume of fire. Rather, it means that one side has forced the other side to seek cover, so in effect, fire superiority is fire intimidation. This can be accomplished through a high volume of fire, more accurate fire, or the use of 'shock and awe' weapons.
-Both experimental and practical testing has revealed that the suppressive effect of a small-arms bullet is directly proportional to the loudness of the sonic bang it generates, which is in turn directly proportional to its size. 5.56 mm bullets have only half the suppressive radius of 7.62 mm fire, and this is exacerbated by the fact that the little bullets are more affected by wind drift and therefore less likely to get close to the target at long range. Another factor that must be taken into account is the weapons cone of fire: When several shots are fired in a burst from an automatic weapon, each round takes a slightly different trajectory. The dispersion pattern these rounds take on their way to the target is called the cone of fire. This is influenced mainly by vibrations from the weapons recoil, and variations in the ammunition. Wind drag and other atmospheric conditions also play a role. Why does this matter? Back in 1944, a study carried out by the army operational research group concluded that projectiles must not only pass within a certain proximity of a human combatant, but also arrive in a certain volume before he will feel threatened enough to take cover. Threfore a rifles effective range (against point targets) is determined by its MOA accuracy, which for the M16 rifle is 550 meters.
 
Wounding profile
-This is a rather lengthy and complex subject, but its basic concern is maximising the injury potential of a bullet once it makes contact. During its passage through the enemy combatant, the bullet must cut as wide a swath as possible, so that the target will be down and out of the fight afterwards. Such damage stems from two primary mechanism: A permanent cavity, and a temporary cavity. The permanent cavity is the volume of flesh the penetrator comes into contact with and crushs, leaving a permanent hole in its wake. The temporary cavity is the volume of flesh which flexes and stretchs as a result of the pressure wave transferred by the bullet to the bodily tissues. All organs are susceptible to damage from a permanent cavitation, while only some are vulnerable to temporary cavitation. Organs which are of low density and high elasticity (such as the lungs, an empty bladder or stomach, etc) will be unfazed by its effects. Organs like the brain or liver, however, will rupture spectacularly when subjected to such a pressure wave, with devastating consequences for the victim.
-Although permanent cavitation is directly dependant on the size of the penetrator, other factors such as its flight path through the targets body have critical importance. When entering a dense medium, bullets have a tendency to destabilise and flip over, so that their base (rather than their nose) points forward. This has negative consequences for the gunshot victim. The wounding profile will be significantly enlarged, as will the number of structures that the bullet comes into contact with (and destroys). Not all bullets act the same when travelling through bodily tissues, though. Some are more stable than others, and do not experience yaw until exiting the body. Others transition between their stability points (from the nose to the base) very quickly, minimising their damage potential. What is desired, then, is a bullet which yaws almost immediately after entering a targets body, and maintains that yaw for as long as possible, inflicting the maximum amount of damage.
-Temporary cavitation, on the other hand, is more dependant on the penetrators hydrodynamic profile. For reference, while an increase in velocity will increase the temporary cavity size, it will not increase the permanent cavity size. The stretch marks that TC produces in ballistic gelatin, though visually engaging, can be resisted by those bodily tissues which are more elastic than gelatin. In most cases, temporary cavitation is unlikely to cause anything more than some internal bruising. Speculative sources state that nerve bundles can be damaged by temporary cavitation, creating a stun effect, but this has not been confirmed.

-When all is said and done, permanent cavitation is the most reliable way of inflicting damage on a target, regardless of what the targets particular composition may be. Temporary cavitation is unreliable and finicky, merely a beneficial side effect at best. As it pertains to wounding profiles, a larger bullet can thus be seen as not just deadlier, but more dependable, too. Unfortunately, bullet size is a means to an end, not an end in itself: It is a base that must be built upon with proper bullet design, taking into account things like sectional density, center of gravity, hydrodynamics, etc. The job of procurement officers, then, is to get a 7.62 mm caliber weapon into service: After that, the concern of how its projectile behave inside dense mediums will be tackled by ballisticians.
 

   How the two most common NATO 

rounds (7.62mm top, 5.56mm bottom) 

perform in the human body

-Now, to determine which round has superior ballistic performance: The 7.62mm, or the 5.56mm. Looking at the numbers, the 5.56x45mm nato rounds can be seen to trade momentum (stopping power) for kinetic energy (shock). And unfortunately, from a mathematical perspective, kinetic energy is always overemphasized. Recall that momentum is mass x velocity, but kinetic energy is mass x velocity squared. If the velocity of an object is tripled, then KE is more than qaudrupled, but momentum is only tripled. This reality escapes most people. A quick word on terminal effectiveness: Military ammunition cannot legally take advantage of the expanding bullets used commercially for hunting, which can inflict devastating injuries.

-So military bullets rely on a ‘yawing effect’ to maximise their effectiveness. ‘Yawing’ describes what happens when a pointed bullet enters a dense medium like a human body: It will usually become unstable (turning sideways) before travelling base-first through the target. This ‘bullet upset’ greatly magnifies the size of a wound, making it more likely that the target will be rapidly incapacitated. However, the effect is unreliable. If a bullet yaws rapidly after impact it can inflict severe wounds; but if it fails to yaw before the bullet exits the body, the resulting small hole may only have a limited effect unless a vital organ is hit. In the case of the 5.56mm rounds, some soldiers have likened it to shooting needles. Several hits may then be necessary to neutralise an enemy; There have even been cases where enemy combatants have got back up after being shot multiple times. In these circumstances, the bigger the bullet, the better.

-This is true for several reasons. First and foremost is that, whereas the 5.56x45mm is largely dependent upon high velocity in order to wound effectively, the 7.62x51mms wounding ability declines at a very steady and predictable rate with increased distance, making it more dependable. The second is that a large slow projectile will crush (permanent cavity) a large amount of tissue, whereas a small fast missile with the same kinetic energy will stretch more tissue (temporary cavity) but crush little: Permanent cavitation should always be desired over temporary cavitation. The third is that a heavy bullet is far less likely to be deflected: There is no point in having good shot placement if the bullet takes a random path as soon as it encounters a rib or pocket of change. In this area, an increase in bullet weight is more beneficial than one of velocity. After all, pushing a bullet through several feet of meat requires a sustained pressure, and a heavy round has more inertia. A heavier bullet will also have (proportionately) more of its original energy by the time it reaches the target.

-Examinations on the terminal performance of both the 5.56x45mm M855 rounds and the 7.62x51mm M80 rounds conclude that neither is likely to experience ANY yaw in an average human body. Regardless, the insurmountable advantage that a larger bullet retains is wisely noted by the FBI academy firearms training unit: "Given adequate penetration, a larger diameter bullet will have an edge in wounding effectiveness. It will damage a blood vessel the smaller projectile barely misses. The larger permanent cavity will lead to more tissue disruption and faster blood loss. Although such an edge clearly exists, its significance cannot be quantified."

 

Notes

Experience has shown that while the 5.56mm is a good killer, it is not a good stopper. One properly placed shot from the 5.56mm is just as likely to kill someone as any other major caliber rifle, but it will do so slower, and leave the subject more functional while they are dying. This is unnacceptable in an infantry weapon. It has poor barrier penetration, poor suppressive effect, and to make matters worse, the 5.56mm round suffers from low inertia, meaning that its flight path can be disrupted by vegetation on the way to its target. The same property that lets a light bullet be accelerated more readily also means that it can be more easily slowed by the air it is passing through, and knocked off course by foliage, cross winds, etc.
  

So what then are the consequences of adopting a larger caliber like the 7.62x51mm nato? There are a couple that come to mind. There is the heavier recoil. A 7.62mm round will have twice as much kick as a 5.56mm round. This can be compensated by introducing the balanced automatic recoil system, or a nikonev mechanism, into the rifles gas operating system. Then there is the fact that the cartridge is twice as heavy, so fewer rounds can be carried for a given weight, although the force of that argument is much reduced if it is necessary to fire more 5.56 mm rounds to achieve the same effect.
  

For some background information, weapons that use BARS have less recoil in sustained firing because it eliminates 3 of the 4 stages of recoil operating on a firearm. The only recoil felt is the force operating on the barrel itself and not the inertia of the bolt group moving backward, hitting the back of the rifle, and then moving forward again; those stages of kickback are eliminated. It achieves this through the use of a recoil-reducing countermass mechanism with two operating rods that move in opposite directions, thereby providing "balance." This would be a great advantage when using fully automatic fire to rapidly clear out confined spaces such as bunkers, trenches, and rooms.
 
*edit made may 17, 2013

Modern army vs WW2 army

Can a modern army take a WW2 army? This is the question we've never bothered to ask with all the narcissism surrounding our war fighting capabilitys, and how they have supposedly made quantum leaps over the decades. Recent literature indicates that in spite of the surge in some of our technical abilitys (including air power, logistics, smart bombs, networked C3I), there has actually been a net decline in our war fighting capabilitys at large. There are many tactical idiosyncrasys which could illuminate why this is, but they are highly specific to each army, and would not have much importance with a broad overview like this. Rather than naming a specific army from each time ficton and putting them up against each other (which would be too vulnerable to nitpicking), we will avoid such an approach in favour of identifying the tactical and technical trends in each force: That means no nuclear ordnance, and no biological or chemical weapons! Such a setup allows us an opportunity to see how rusty our armys have become as measured against their WW2 peak.
 
In terms of infantry quality, they are nearly equal. Assault rifles, body armour, night vision goggles, and lightweight equipment give us the edge, but its far from a decisive one. WW2 armys benefit from using full power rifle, carbine, and machine gun ammunition (with a commensurately higher stopping power and barrier penetration), as well as man and vehicle mounted flame throwers for breaking sieges, and immediate support from infantry guns. These are rather short ranged cannons which perform both direct and indirect fire missions, something that neither mortars or shoulder launched rockets together can do. Also, it bears keeping in mind that the seeming advantages of the moderns may be illusory. For instance, merely wearing body armor does not ensure your complete safety from small arms fire, even if the vest is technically up to the job. After all, many gunshot injurys afflict the limbs and the head (especially if the soldier was behind cover before he was shot), and even if hit directly in the torso, the blunt force of the impact is usually brutal enough to take the soldier out of the fight and render him non mission capable. That is just one example of many. Remember, there are no guarantees in a fight!
  
In terms of infantry quantity, however, the moderns lag far behind. The WW2 battlefront was simply gargantuan. At its peak in late 1941, the german army was employing 154 divisions, 115 of whom were infantry! (This was just what they sent aganst the russians, BTW) At its peak in early 1945, the US army was employing 90 divisions, 70  of whom were infantry... For comparison, the modern day german army has just 6 brigades, while even the US army -the 4th largest in the world- only has around 45 brigades. Modern brigades essentially serve the same role that a small division used to, so it would not be unfair to measure them in a one on one fashion. This being the case, we can see that germanys military is about 1/40th its previous size, while the US military has easily been cut in half. That is a very discouraging force ratio which could have all kinds of negative consequences for us, beyond simple attrition. Josef stalin put it best: 'Quantity is a quality all of its own.' Without very favourable terrain, or constant shock action, a 10 fold disparity in numbers makes it virtually impossible to wage a pitched battle. This would be bad enough on its own, without the additional complication of most of our infantry being located in mechanised or motorised (rather than foot mobile) units.

Such restrictions mean that modern armys would not be able to maintain a continuous front line. Strategically and operationally speaking, they would instead be left to roam about in large battle groups, while the OPFOR flooded around them in a situation akin to moses and the red sea. That is not good. Strategic mobility would be servely impeded, supply lines would be smothered, encirclement would never be more than a breath away, and COs would be shitting bricks... But these concerns can be waved aside for now, since this posts intention is only to examine the tactical finesse of these two separate militarys. Even so, this still leaves us with the daunting prospect of 1 modern brigade facing off against half a dozen or more divisions! At this point, some would undoubtedly try to bring up the issue of the US militarys high kill ratio in combat, which might be an adequate compensation for their numerical disadvantage. We must caution that in war, however, victory depends largely on whether or not you are able to achieve stated objectives, not on whether you kill a large number of enemy soldiers. Putting that more simply, attrition can only be a means to an end, not an end in itself. Accepting that caveat, however, it might still be possible for the moderns to level the playing field by copying the strategy of the german army at verdun, and utilise their artillery in an effort to bleed the opposition white and degrading their readiness for future engagements.
 
Now, lets move onto armor. WW2 tanks, of course, have no hope of defeating MBTs in anything remotely resembling a straight up fight. Their progeny are not only faster, but more heavily armed and armored. They can fire accurately while moving at speed, and their long rod penetrator shells would bore a hole clear through a vehicles armor and ignite everything inside. A sherman or t-34 would only have a chance at destroying MBTs by creeping up on them at close range, and taking a shot at their rear armor, a tall order for most tank crews. Infantry forces would be even worse off, since their most popular anti-tank weapons (the high caliber rifle or shaped charge warhead) wouldn't be able to penetrate even the thinnest plates of armor. Even so, the advantage of having tanks which can roam about the battlefield nearly unopposed is diminished if our infantry, engineers, reconnaissance and support troops cannot do the same. In a way, combined arms practise is detrimental to any MBTs attempting to rampage behind enemy lines: If or when they shatter the enemy through shock effect, the armored column would not be able to pursue them and exploit their success to the fullest.  Instead, they would be forced to stay behind and create a working environment for the reserve forces, mopping up enemy troops along the way. Moreover, these vehicles can still be disabled and/or destroyed by anti-tank mines, as well as fire from 6 inch howitzers. Clumsy pieces to manager into position, to be sure, but a direct hit could potentially blow the tanks turret off, due to the shells combination of explosive filling and sheer momentum.
 
That is the rundown on how a modern armored brigade might fare against a WW2 formation. But obviously, theres no need to do the reverse, since WW2 armored divisions are composed of such flimsy vehicles. Theres no way they could even remotely threaten us... Right? Well actually, since our armys have NO dedicated anti-tank formations, its fairly likely they could. Some would undoubtedly object to this statement, pointing out any number of ATGMs and PGMs in use, but that would be missing the point: We have various weapons systems that are capable of destroying tanks, but which do not have the benefit of being structured into a relevant command structure. As jim storr said: 'Anti-tank weapons destroy tanks, while anti-tank troops protect units and formations.' Thus, the moderns will have have no shield to protect their body from an attack that comes via a column of shermans, or panzer 4s, or t-34s, or churchills. In fact, most mechanised/armored brigades as a whole suffer from deficient security in their flanks and rear, due to their increased reliance on a small number of major weapons systems (which are spread thin in a vain attempt to provide both offense and defense). This is important to keep in mind, because the main purpose of a tank is to penetrate enemy rear areas, and bring cannon + machine gun fire to bear on soft targets. And a 75mm tank gun, puny as it is compared to the 120-125mm long barrels of the modern MBTs, is still capable of destroying most anything that pops up on the battlefield.
 

 
Artillery. WW2 divisions have a much more diverse array of artillery than us. Although heavier and less capable than our guns, commanders aren't restricted by the one caliber fits all syndrome that has afflicted modern forces, with our clear predilection for 155mm weapons. They generally have four to choose from: 75mm, 105mm, 155mm, and 203mm. Decent weapons that work well within their respective niches, rather than being bent out of shape to function as an unrealistic all purpose piece, which is more than we can say. Precision guided munitions are useful, but they are also expensive, and not available in great quantitys. For regular battlefield use, PGMs probably aren't even needed -other than for fleeting or high value targets- seeing as the precision of modern guns is already so far beyond that of their WW2 peers. Given sufficient forward observation, they can be expected to be extremely accurate, dropping shells right on top of the enemy. With the first barrage. The super long range of todays howitzers will also prove helpful in the defense, since artillery has always been the primary backbone of a thin defensive line (and our forces WILL be spread very thinly). Unfortunately, these advantages might not impress an enemy which has so many pieces of artillery as to group them into independent divisions (!). Our shell stocks will also not be up for a protracted conflict, unlike the WW2 nations whose ammunition reserves had been brought up to peak levels, by virtue of having the time to dial their industry up to the task.

 

Airpower. This has two components, fixed and rotary winged aircraft. Modern helicopters will be put at high risk from the WW2 armys unusually heavy concentrations of AAA, quantitys which just aren't seen on todays batlefield. They may not have the advantage of radar guidance, but like all artillery of this period, they are available in a wide range of different calibers and effective ranges, which would make a helicopter squadrons navigation across active battlefields a nightmare. Modern fighters would presumably have a field day against their WW2 adversarys, although they will be heavily outnumbered, and had thus better not get shot down or waste ammunition. In the long run, jet fighter squadrons may not be able to maintain the necessary sortie rate and operational tempo to keep the enemy on the defensive, by virtue of their typically low mechanical reliability and small numbers. On other fronts, close air support and interdiction craft would be right at home in this environment: They are superbly well designed and capable in their niche roles (although only the americans field a really substantial number of them), and operating in target rich theaters like this are exactly what they were built for. Of course, this also holds true for their enemy, some of whom fielded a ground attack force with many thousands of aircraft!
 
*edit made march 15, 2013

Response to the human dignity and bioethics book

Foreword

This post will be covering some comments made in the book human diginity and bioethics: essays commissioned by the presidents council. Throughout bioethics chapters, it apparently takes many jabs at transhumanism, though one of those chapters stands out in particular. This is, of course, chapter 8. An article by genius (and my favorite transhumanist) nick bostrom, is featured there. Immediately after, a counter-argument appears, hounding on bostrom for his careless reference to the essay 'dignity' (by philosopher aurel kolnai) in support of his work. Why bostrom chose to do so, I will never know, since the moral lauers of bostrom and kolnai are diametrically opposed to one another. For this imagined slander, the author of the counter-argument (a man named charles rubin) shows bostrom no mercy during a relentlessly literary attack. The intent of my post is to browbeat bostroms sophist adversary, and earn back the good name of transhumanism. I use alot of jargon from the orions arm website, so if I cause any readers confusion, then you have my sincere apologys!
 
 

Review
 

And yet, for kolnai, this aspect of dignity exists within a larger framework of what is most important, which is not to get what one likes, but to be able to endure what one gets without necessarily assenting to it or growing to like it.

Hmm, and with that line of reasoning, one could justify forgoing the use of a cast to mend your broken arm (with more speed and less pain than could be done naturally), and instead suffering through the agonising, months long healing process in the vain pursuit of 'dignity.' How dumb is that? Transhumanism is a philosophy that encourages problem solving through any ethical means necessary, rather than excusing and/or glorifying failure to solve problems. Charles seems to be under the impression that some quality-sensations can only be attained through extreme hardship. In that regard, his personal notions of dignity would seem to bare similaritys to the variety of honour based cultures and warrior hood that have populated the ages of antiquity, with whom, the accumulation of honour can only be precipitated by damaging the enemy and committing violence unto him. That belief system is fine, and perhaps even desirable during a war, but to suggest that we should perpetuate such a code of ethics in peacetime is absurd. Deprived of the lone activity which can gain them their honour, what are the conflict starved warriors to do? Start a whole new war for themselves, or get involved in a conflict in which they have no stake? In the same way that warrior hood is incompatible with peace, kolnais (or rather, the blasphemous author who shamelessly marionettes his quotes) twisted concept of dignity is incompatible with a post singularity world, where all human problems have been solved by superhuman intelligences. [1]
 
In the end, charles objection to a 'utopian' future is one operating in the same spirit as the pro death crowd, who think that age retardation therapys like SENS should be illegalised. Yes, you heard me right: There are people out there who actually resist the movement to save senior citizens suffering from -and at imminent risk of death from- geriatric diseases. Though I'm certainly not making an attempt to guilt the author of bioethics by associating him with such lunatics, I feel compelled to state that the defeatist attitudes demonstrated by him echo strongly with the pro deathers. If you ever thought that such attitudes don't hurt anyone but the beholder, think again: Their policys would prevent your parents, and then eventually yourself, from receiving life saving treatment against a condition which currently affects 7% of the human race. This isn't criminal negligence: Its mass murder. They are involving themselves in realms they ought to avoid. If people like the pro deathers want to restrict themselves to a mere 80 year lifespan (thus perpetuating a comfortable, but obsolescent world view for themselves), and surrender to the merciless force of entropy, then that is their personal decision and right. What is not their right is to enforce that decision involuntarily onto the whole of the human race, and this holds true as much for them as for charles rubin and his masochistic form of dignity.
 

For example, kolnai finds condorcets rationally and scientifically redrawn world to be a place where there would be no opportunity for the exercise of heroic virtue nor any sense of revering it. Why should we not think that kolnai would see bostroms plastic work as just another 'utopian delusion' like condorcets?

What, now your complaining about there not being any room for heros? Do you even have any idea what kind of circumstance create demand for heros? Oppressive empires, tyrants, and bloodthirsty criminals. How many people must be killed, how many women must be raped, and how many homes destroyed or pillaged, so that your hero can step onto the scene and create his own personal glory (a glory that benefits no one but himself, even after the hero intervenes: Damage has been done to innocent people, enough damage to require the intervention of a hero. All he can do is retaliate against the evildoer after he has succesfully caused this damage, and prevent him from revisiting it on some other unfortunate) in saving them? Heros are revered because they safely deliver people from disadvantaged or dangerous situations. If the peoples-in-distress had actually had their, ahem, 'business' together in the first place, they wouldn't have needed a hero to come along and rescue their sorry asses, would they? Charles rubin seems to be arguing that millions of people should be kept at a disadvantage so that a handful of privileged 'heros' can have a steady source of weaklings and losers to rescue, and amass glory for themselves.
 

Bostrom suggests that his posthumans will be bayesian rationalists who have no convictions, but only a fluid network of revisable beliefs. While such qualitys may appear to allow a dignified-sounding self transcendence, it is hard to distinguish such rationalism from what kolnai calls a meretricious flitting mobility of a weightless self.

To improve is to change. To be perfect is to change often. Humanity most certainly did not start out from a good position in their moral beliefs: Take, for example, the judaeo-christian religion, which is certainly the most chauvinistic manifestation of our ape natures to date (with its huge emphasis on controlling the sexuality of its adherents). What is the sense in clinging to outdated, faulty belief structures such as these when much better ones, more suited to the dynamic 21st century environment, are available? Charles is now making a case in defense of dogmatic moral systems that refuse to relent on their positions, steadfastly retaining notions that have been proven, by consensus, to be incorrect. No matter how effective these moral codes may be at first, time passes, and belief systems become obsolescent. Casting them in stone is completely counterproductive. The institutions erected in the image of a particular religion invariably grow, over time, to be more focused on perpetuating their own existence than in achieving the original aim they were commissioned for, which was to elevate the life quality of the people. They instead become pondersome barriers to progress.
 

In a highly mechanised society, orwell wondered, why should we expect to find human beings of the godlike physique and fitness wells describes? It seemed to orwell far more likely that, as the necessity of physical fitness declines, one would find little fat men, a point that early 21st century americans can hardly gainsay. Of course, we might respond to orwell that we will choose to constrain ourselves: Physical fitness is better for our health, a fun hobby besides! And yet somehow rigorous programs of diet and exercise are hardly the norm. Many more indulge the freedom of separating high caloric consumption from intense physical activity and are on the lookout for the magic pill that will free them from the consequences of such indulgence.

This is the first decent argument that mr. rubin has made so far, and its on a matter which I have thought much about. On the surface, the issue of people choosing to do nothing to correct their declining physical fitness appears a trivial one, but it raises deeper philosophical questions on pro activity towards problems. Most transhumanists would respond that the need for physical fitness is a silly one (which it of course is, as our bodies are not adapted for sedentary lifestyles), and that we should avoid doing anything about it, at least until gene therapy becomes available to wish it away. This is an approach I take issue with. Working on an ultimate solution that awaits at the end of the tunnel is great, but failing to implement an interim solution which gets you there is incompetence in its essence. Stardestroyer.net did a good exploration of this topic and others, in an article called 'the philosophy of star trek'. But at the end of the day, the interim solution is just that: An interim. A band-aid. What we should always seek, as individuals and as a society, is the most pragmatic and beneficial condition possible. Interims are merely a strategy for coping with the problem and staying alive until the ultimate solution (I.E, a magic fitness pill/problem free society, which is the obvious analogy kolnai was attempting to draw) becomes available, and giving them undue reveration is illogical. Immediately after that point, demanding that the interim solution continue to be used is an obvious anarchism, despite whatever contrived reason the hackneyed proponent might invoke.
 

Unlike kolnai, bostrom is confident that posthumans of plastic world will exhibit the dignity of the strong. Out of their autopotency, they will choose to restrain themselves in accordance with quiet values. In human terms, we know what that might mean: The mercy of the king or conqueror, the act of noblesse oblige... Will quiet values produce any like reasons to compel the strong in plastic world to show self-restraint? Bostrom never worrys that the strong might not want to restrain themselves in plastic world, or that there might be a real ugliness in the human will that shall only be exposed once we are freed of natural constraints.

The issue of the personal conduct and societal ethics of posthuman civilisations is one of the biggest problem present in transhumanism, but the particular mistake charles rubin makes is assuming that the agents in charge of posthuman affairs will be only moderately superintelligent, and that their general psychology will not fall (far) outside of the mind space inhabited by homo sapiens. What he does not take into consideration is the hard realitys: For the most part, transapients will not bear any similaritys to human beings. Ex-human superintelligences will possess some residual human mentalitys/cognitive foundations [2], but that is all, and not even that much can be said for artificial intelligences, as they bear no human lineage at all. This is neither a good nor bad thing. Ugly behavioral features have always festooned the mindpsace of baseline and below minds (certainly all lifeforms that we are familiar with, if for no other reason that they were crafted by the malign hand of evolution), and to suggest that none of these features would be present at the transapient level is wishful thinking. There is also the distinct possibility that there might exist ugly behaviors/instincts which crop up exclusively in transapient mind space: Lethal mental appendages entirely unique to that unexplored realm, waiting to attach themselves to any mind foolhardy enough to enter, and of such a profile that they cannot be readily predicted by the superintelligence during the planning stages prior to his next round of recursive self improvement.

What qualifys me to speak on such colossal matters and dismiss the concerns of these prestigious bioconservatives? For one, I have read tantamount works like eliezer yudkowskys: 'Creating friendly AI,' as well as his 'general intelligence and seed AI.' For another, I have kept up to date with the transhumanist and singularitarian literature. This does not disclude educated works of fiction, like the excellent orions arm encylopedia: For fun, as well as for a scope of what changes the singularity will catylise. Can the authors of bioethics claim to be as well read on such subjects? Somehow, I doubt that they are. Even if that was otherwise, the knowledge accumulated would not be of any influence to such recalcitrant minds. In any case, this article is about ethics, not the specifics of mental architectures. In order to really learn about the latter, you need to be familiar with sophontology, and that is a dicipline which does not even exist... Yet  :)

  
  
[1] Observe how I clearly said human problems. It is comparatively easy for humans to tend to the every need of their unsophisticated and undemanding pets. It ought to be comparatively easy for transapients to do the same for us. Though it goes without saying, a superintelligent agent will spend the majority of their effort on things that they deem important. 
 

[2] Though just which parts of the persons essence will remain after apotheosis is unknown. Some behavioral features found in homo sapiens may well turn out to be universal to most minds. The possibility that some of the sadistic and destructive aspects of the human psyche might be immutable without direct detection and suppression before they are encountered is a frightening one, and just how many of these aspects will be diluted (or not) by an individuals ascension up the toposophic chain is impossible to say.