Whether these claims are real or not, they do illustrate one of the crazy things about technological progress. Capabilities that are difficult for states to develop eventually become something corporations can easily implement, and from there they become affordable for private citizens, first to buy, and then to DIY.

Two obvious and concerning corollaries are that state capabilities eventually become easy to obtain for non-state terrorist groups and, later on, unbalanced individuals. Consider what ISIS would have done with these, and then think about what the unabomber would have done.

I'd fully expect this particular company to face multiple hurdles in actually exporting any of these missiles. They might not be able to actually deliver at the quoted price-point. China might not permit it, due to the political blow-back. Israel and the U.S. obviously have an interest in making sure none of these missiles wind up in Iranian hands. The execs of this company are probably feeling a bit like a target has been painted on their heads right now.

However, controlling technology like this is ultimately a game of whack-a-mole. If this company fails, gets regulated, decapitated, sucked up by the Chinese military, etc., ten other companies will pop up all over the place that can produce the same thing or better, cheaper. There's also a supply chain of components behind this company that can now export critical parts to those building their own. We've simply reached (or are about to reach) the point where missiles of this sort can be made very cheaply.

Here's hoping missile defence gets better and cheaper fast.

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fasterik 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Relevant philosophy paper: "The Vulnerable World Hypothesis" by Nick Bostrom [0].

In that paper, Bostrom floats the idea that it might be in humanity's best interest to have a strong global government with mass surveillance to prevent technological catastrophes. It's more of a thought experiment than a "we should definitely do this" kind of argument, but it's worth taking the idea seriously and thinking hard about what alternatives we have for maintaining global stability.

[0] https://nickbostrom.com/papers/vulnerable.pdf

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Barrin92 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Cheap hypersonics don't threaten global stability, they threaten global hegemony. Which is really what I suspect irks most people afraid of them.

We've seen a shift towards cheap offensive capacity that gives middle powers or even smaller actors the capacity to hit hegemons where it hurts, very visible in Ukraine and the Middle East now. This leads to instability only temporarily until you end up in a new equilibrium where smaller players will have significantly more say and capacity to retaliate, effectively a MAD strategy on a budget for everyone.

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fasterik 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

GP's point was broader than that, it was about technological progress and the possibility of terrorist groups or mentally ill individuals getting their hands on weapons that can easily kill millions of people. That's also what the paper I linked is about.

Consider a future where individuals can relatively easily engineer a pathogen or manufacture a nuclear weapon. It's not hard to imagine how that would threaten global stability.

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denkmoon 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

History would seem to show that hegemony is stability? Pax Romana etc

	▲	vkou 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Nothing about that time period was stable for Rome's neighbours and targets. Nothing about it was stable for the Romans either, with 10 major civil wars, and ~100 'minor' ones.

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throwaway85825 19 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The US won the cold war because the expensive defense programs were subsidized by the consumer market. The USSR lost because it wasn't. They cloned a lot of western ICs but never cost effectively because they only ended up in military products.

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octoberfranklin 20 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah after seeing what tiny DIY "racing quadcopters" can do I am really amazed that we haven't seen a swarm of them used for a non-state-actor ("terrorist" or otherwise) attack.

These things are way faster and more maneuverable than in the slaughterbots video. Those were like birds. These are like hummingbirds on meth.

They are totally noncommercial hobbyist/DIY products -- there's no firmware lockdown or geofencing like on the commercial products. You can fab the PCBs yourself.

Firmware controls on drones were always a silly strategy anyways.