We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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21st century ray gun plane Many Samizdata thanks to reader FeloniusPunk who pointed out an article in the LA Times on the state of the art in laser weaponry. I must admit to being technologically blindsided and slack jawed after reading it.
I have been following the USAF conversion of a 747 into a chemical laser gunship (below) and I knew great advances had occured in solid state lasers… but nothing like this
Photo: USAF
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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I have little scientific knowledge, but I still found the L.A. Times article rather weak.
What sort of lasers are we talking about here? I would guess not infrared lasers (too puny), X ray lasers are hard to produce (at least mobile X ray lasers are hard to produce), so are we talking about ultra violet lasers?
Paul Marks.
Jest send in your chief and surrender–it’s worse if you fights or you runs: You may hide in your caves, they’ll be only youir graves, but you can’t get away from the guns!.
Woohoo!!!!
That’s mah enemy zapping laser. After all that defense spending by Reagan on Star Wars, we better get some sort of laser.
“What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
Thomas Jefferson
“All your base are belong to us”
I can’t wait until the rest of the world starts worshiping the US. If the technology gap gets any worse, the Euros will be wearing bones through their noses waiting for the great silver birds to come and dispense mana.
I wonder if the enemy could be defeat this by simply polishing their missles, aircraft, etc. to reflect the rays, or use some other type of material that does not absorb the ray’s energy. The story mentions that clouds also reduce the ray’s effectiveness, so could something be devised to provide cover to command and control stuctures?
dammit — that is “…enemy could defeat this…”
Ah, this is great. We’re only a few steps away from living in the future envisioned in 50’s science fiction. Even there, technically Hover Cars, personal jet packs, and house keeping robots do exist, they just aren’t very practical or cheap. But frankly, who wouldn’t get shivers thinking about an F-22 Raptor firing a Laser cannon and blowing apart an enemy missile compound buried a couple hundred feet under ground? Now all we need is to get these down to rifle size, and wear conspicuous red outfits, and we’ll be set!
The argument against energy weapons is that what you gain in speed you lose in puch. It is claimed that there is nothing as good as an object (say a warhead full of high explosive) for smashing another object (say a ship or a tank).
On the reflection point I remember when infrared lasers were being shown off the target had to be painted red for the laser to have a decent effect (someone may correct my memory on this).
I still find it very odd that no one has yet informed us to what type of lasers are being talked about here.
It is hardly a secret that infrared lasers did not work well and X ray lasers are rather difficult (I am told they would have to be rather big), – so are we talking about ultra violent lasers or not?
Paul Marks.
I will use my mirror against your “LAZ”-“ER”.
dr. eevil