Dangerous Technology and Common Sense

Remember the Peloponnesian War?

Chemical weapons aren't all that new. Sparta employed a sort of napalm analog at Plataea, in 429 BC. Wood, pitch and sulfur don't sound all that dangerous - but they produce quite a lot of heat. And toxic fumes.

See:

• "Incendiary Weapons - History"
  GlobalSecurity.org

The Peloponnesian War almost certainly had an economic angle to it - but it was also an armed struggle between two radically different political philosophies: Athens' version of democracy, and Sparta's oligarcy.

Athens apparently didn't use the sort of (for the time) high-tech weaponry that Sparta had.

Athens lost.

Related post:

• "Obama Limits Nuclear Weapons: That's Nice"
  (April 6, 2010)