Scannerpunks versus the Empire

[Tim May]

On Thursday, December 27, 2001, at 05:45 PM, Dr. Evil wrote:
> Sniffers are one way to detect things, but as you point out, it is
> possible to get emissions so low that they cannot be detected.
> However, the new methods are based on other exotic things like neutron
> scanning and mass spec, which can detect chemical composition, right?

Tough to do NAA on a living person. Likewise for getting a sample from 
the inside of someone for mass spec.


> Also things like CAT scan X-rays and maybe even ultrasound can detect
> different material types; ie, bone and flesh look different, so
> perhaps C4 has a different X-ray opacity than other things?  With
> things like neutron scanning, it should be possible to detect stuff
> anywhere in the body, perhaps?  That's why boobs are the perfect place
> for this.  A big homogenous-opacity shape in a body cavity or the
> abdomen is suspicious, but boob implants are "normal".

All of these scanning technologies are ultra-expensive. Even for 
hospitals, where such scans routinely cost thousands of dollars. While a 
security scan may be faster (less analysis by doctors...), and while 
there may be economies of scale (as the number of scans jumps from 
hospital-type numbers to airline-travel-type numbers), the math is 
clear: deploying an arsenal of NMR scans, x-ray body scans (lawsuit 
issues, too), etc. will not be economically feasible. People will stop 
traveling by air unless absolutely necessary, which will accomplish  the 
effect the terrorists sought.
>

> I know little or nothing about these things.  Maybe someone can give
> us a summary of the different super-scanning technologies?

There are dozens of explanations on the Web. I can't imagine anyone 
knowledgeable will write such an article for you, though I could be 
wrong. For one thing, time. For another, relevance, as we are not 
scannerpunks.
>
> Interesting stuff.  At the beginning of the 20th Century, four
> countries had the opportunity to become empires: The US, the Russians,
> the Germans and the Japanese.  After much bloodshed, the US won (I'm
> glad about that, especially when you look at the alternatives).  Now
> the US is having to put up with some of the unpleasant aspects of
> being an empire, and that's why we're even discussing neutron scanning
> to detect explosive boobs (aka "booby traps").

Speaking of the U.S. having "won" the opportunity to become an empire, 
why not think about alternatives?

I can imagine that a North American continent operating as roughly 5-15 
regional states, each trading freely with each other, with none of them 
sending gunboats to far off shores and none of them sending taxpayer 
monies to prop up dictatorships and satrapies would be an improvement. 
My own state, California, is already the sixth largest economy in the 
world. (Before someone jumps in with a claim that the only reason 
California thrives and can trade with China and Japan and Mexico and so 
on is because the U.S. government intervened in past European and Asian 
war and now sends $5 billion a year to prop up Israel, I don't believe 
it. We can debate one specific war, WW II, as a separate issue. Even 
that war could have been fought from this side of the oceans with 5-15 
regional states, if necessary.)

Empire is not necessary. Empire brings on precisely the foreign 
engagements that Washington warned us to avoid. Empire  brings on "peace 
keeping troops" in far-away lands...and attacks like 911. Empire will 
eventually get us nuked.


--Tim May
"Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid.  But 
stupidity is the only universal crime;  the sentence is death, there is 
no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity." 
--Robert A. Heinlein