Re: poly: Re: the destruction problem (was: singleton)

From: Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se>
Date: Mon May 04 1998 - 08:37:31 PDT

"Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com> writes:

> Anders Sandberg writes:
> > The Teller-Ulam mechanism would work on a terrestrial planet, but at
> > the present technological level it doesn't seem likely that anybody
> > could implement it without everybody else taking notice and preventing
> > it. Even with advanced nanotech it would be noticeable that somebody
> > is stockpiling deuterium,
>
> How, exactly, would anyone notice the stockpiling of deuterium? It is
> slightly present even in ordinary water, and given that it is twice as
> heavy as hydrogen it is actually reasonably easy to separate.

To really blow up the planet you would need to extract a significant
amount of it from the seas, making others notice the decrease in
deuterium (and increase in atmospheric oxygen?). Hmm, I see a flaw in
my argument here: this only works if you are really literal about
blowing up the planet, if you would settle for making it uninhabitable
for most life it would be much easier to do and less likely to be
discovered.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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Received on Mon May 4 15:40:24 1998

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