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by teawrecks 1182 days ago
We would see decisions being made that aren't physically possible with current technology. Also the number of people who would need to keep something like this a secret would be on par with that of a fake moon landing.

If their application of the technology were so secret that we couldn't tell it existed, then it wasn't worth whatever they paid.
3 comments
mynameisvlad 1182 days ago
Presumably it would be used in the case where a split-second decision is the difference between success and failure.

> If their application of the technology were so secret that we couldn't tell it existed, then it wasn't worth whatever they paid.

I would posit that, were a system like this feasible and already implemented by the military, we wouldn’t hear about this until the football has to be activated.

There is no single other decision as monumental and requiring of extremely precise timing. And it’s not a decision that is used very often or would be obvious if something “not physically possible” were done since it happens in secret. It’s pretty much the perfect usecase for such a technology.

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teawrecks 1178 days ago
That's fair. The original post was suggesting corporations were actively using it for lower trade latency. That seems very unlikely. But having the technology in our back pocket for military use? That's believable.

Though I think everyone secretly knows that, in the Mexican standoff that is a nuclear stalemate, if one side launches all their nukes, the best outcome for everyone is for the other side to just let it happen. This would afford any survivors the best chance at rebuilding. The important part is the threat of what you can do, not what you actually do.

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codetrotter 1182 days ago
What is the football?
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mynameisvlad 1182 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_football
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dragonwriter 1182 days ago
> We would see decisions being made that aren’t physically possible with current technology.

Or we wouldn’t, because it would only be used where an alternative information cover story could be concocted or where the decision and action itself could be kept secret, to avoid exposing the capability.

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serf 1182 days ago
>We would see decisions being made that aren't physically possible with current technology.

i'm not aware enough of what any world government is doing at any given time to confidently assert that so easily.

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