Jun 17, 2016 | By Benedict
In an interview with British newspaper the Daily Mirror, US presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan has warned that weaponized 3D printed drones could be used by terrorists. Istvan, leader of the Transhumanist Party, entered the presidential race to raise awareness about transhumanist politics.
Which 2016 US presidential candidate has the most outlandish ideas? For many people, the answer is obvious—and it isn’t Hillary Clinton. One man, however, is doing his best to compete with Donald J. Trump in the crazy stakes. That man is Zoltan Istvan Gyurko, an American writer and philosopher running for presidency as leader of the Transhumanist Party, a group of people who believe that technology could let humans live forever.
But while technology could, according to Istvan and his followers, potentially eradicate death, it could also be used for more troublesome purposes such as terrorism. Unfortunately for us, that technology includes our beloved 3D printing, which Istvan believes could accelerate the development of DIY weaponry. In a recent interview with the Daily Mirror, a British tabloid newspaper, the presidential hopeful warned that 3D printed drone armies pose a serious threat to national security.
“You can 3D-print 100 drones for about $30,000 or $40,000,” Istvan said. “That means at least half of adult Americans can come up with the money to create a drone army. It’s really easy to arm these drones—you go to Walmart, you buy a bullet, you put the bullet in and you can shoot it pretty easily.”
While the idea of a drone army is not, in itself, so farfetched—the Pentagon recently released footage of its own 3D printed drone swarm launched from fighter jets—Istvan perhaps undermines his argument by suggesting that drones could be loaded up with buckets of acid to pour on unsuspecting enemies. “It's not just drones carrying bullets,” he cautioned.
The risks posed by 3D printing probably aren’t severe enough to warrant governmental action against printer manufacturers, but Istvan does make another argument concerning another, more deadly form of technology: guns. The transhumanist believes that American gun laws need to be changed to prevent the kind of tragedies which already occur on an all-too-frequent basis in the States, and which could soon occur on an even larger scale.
“When they wrote the constitution they were writing with quill pens and they were talking about single-shot guns,” Istvan said. “They were not talking about drones that can fire multiple bullets at once at crowds and have hundreds of them swarming.”
The US presidential candidate made headlines last year when he began driving the “Immortality Bus”, a converted single-decker bus shaped and painted like a coffin, while on the campaign trail. The self-acknowledged publicity stunt was intended to raise awareness of transhumanist beliefs; an outcome that Istvan hopes to build upon in the lead-up to the election.
“We really need a legal and a governmental organization—maybe even a brand new institution—to deal with how fast and how far science and technology is developing in the United States," Istvan said. “Because people just don’t realize that there are multiple ways of using technology to harm citizens, and without some type of increased security measures, we’re going to have tragedies happen.”
While Istvan does not believe he has a chance of actually winning the election, he hopes that his involvement will spark debate on issues of technology and weaponry.
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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"US presidential candidate Zoltan Istvan" ... The candidate for people who think the Libertarian party doesn't have enough crazy.
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