Re: [Flightgear-devel] To Attacks' Toll Add a Programmer's Grief (washingtonpost.com)

[<Wol...@t-...>]

David F. wrote:

>I don't know why people blame him. Those same people would likely also =
blame=20
>the Wright brothers for inventing the aeroplane.

The Wright borthers surely couldn't have forseen hijackings, if they
could they would have thought we can find sufficient measures against
it. So, the only thing you can try to blame them for is the use of the
airplane in war. Actually, they did forsee the use in war.=20

However, their thinking was:=20
Wars are waged by soldiers on the front to defend the loved ones at
home and bring back the spoils of war to an unharmed "homeland" and
can live without hardship, telling the grandchildren about their
heroism.
However, with the plane, for the first time, you can not completely
defend your home. Therefore the point in waging war will go away.=20

This might sound ludicrous at first, but if you think back to the time
of the Wrights, when wars were fought for land/fortune etc, it makes
sense. It seems the Wrights underestimated the black side of the human
soul. Also, they couldn't know how effective air-defense is.
Even directly before WWII, many (most?) generals thought you can not
stop bombers.

One of the reasons the cold war remained cold is that there was no
defense against rockets. So, the Wrights certainly had a point and
could not forsee what really happened. Even if they could, one can
easily argue that the good effects outweigh the bad ones.

I think everyone is responsible for his deeds and the Wrights
certainly belong to my personal heroes.=20

>David

Bye bye,
Wolfram.