From: "The Fool" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
That's the thing about empires. They squeeze out competitive forces and it's those competitive forces that keep innovation and progress alive. For example there was one point when china was all set to conquer Europe, they had a massive fleet the likes never seen up to that time, and their ships were decidedly better than the ones of European nations at the time. The fleet was on it's way, rounding the horn of Africa, ready to descend upon Europe like locusts. But then the emperor died. The new emperor thought that having a big fleet was not such a good idea. The fleet was eventually scuttled and china is a third world country today. Likewise once upon a time the Japanese made the best guns, but by the mid eighteen hundreds there were no guns in Japan. Japan lost it's guns because the rulers ever so slowly restricted the making of / repair of guns. First they restricted how many guns could be made per year. Slowly they reduced this number eventually to zero. Then they restricted the repair of guns per year. So by the mid 1800's Japan no longer had any guns.
The Idea is very simple and very sound. When you have large empires, popes, etc. they are able to restrict 'taboo' ideas / technology, etc. The other part is that usually no two emperors or popes have the same definition of what is 'taboo', so you get a whittling effect, one whittling this away, another whittling that away. It's not a quick process.
So, would you say that it is bad for the US to participate in the ABM treaty,
nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and/or nuclear test ban? Will doing so lead to
the decline of the US? I'm assuming you'll say no, so my follow up is "Why not?
How does this differ from the China/Japan cases you mention?"
What about these other controversial/restricted technologies, are restrictions
on these acceptable?
- cloning
- neutron bombs
- "frankenfood" research
- human genetic experimentation/modification
- biowarfare research
- human fetal stem cell research
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