"It's a very expensive way to hurt people" has historically never been a real deterrent to motivated nation states to bring costs down

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bawolff an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Countries dont generally invest in shitty weapons when they already have good weapons. Bombs & missiles already exist and are much better than lasers if your goal is to destroy a stationary target.

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wat10000 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

The point is, why would they bother when there’s cheaper and easier ways to do it? A high tech laser system is great for shooting stuff down because it replaces missile systems that cost even more. If you want to cripple people, why would you use it instead of a cheap gun or baton?

“It could be used to hurt people” doesn’t mean much. You at least need “it could be used to hurt people, and it’s better at it in at least one way than what’s already available.”

	▲	noomer2 7 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Does anyone really think the country that spent millions of dollars building explosive-laden pagers that blinded and maimed children, then spent tens of millions of dollars gloating about it in public, gives a solitary thought to the cost-benefit ratio? They have rules that say it's okay to kill 100 civilians as long as a single "operative" is also killed. This is a country whose leadership cares only about executing terror. Just like the USA.