this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2024
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Just because a tank is a more powerful weapon than a car doesn't invalidates a car as a weapon. You can take a brick and go on a smashing spree in a populated city, and they will stop you fairly quickly, take a machine gun and you will be able to hurt a lot more people with it. That doesn't mean the brick isn't a weapon when someone uses it to kill people, it's just a different level of weapon.
And yes, a K3 civilization will not consider a 10^15 watt ship trying to attack it as an existential threat like a sub K1 civilisation will, but a modern military won't find a guy with bow and arrow as a threat (unless he is Rambo), still, a bow is a weapon regardless. It won't win a war, but it can still kill.
A bow is usually considered a weapon while a car isn't, but the car has much more destructive power than the bow. It's not the destructive power that makes something a weapon.
But even if you replace the bow with a brick, it is still a weapon when someone smashes people's faces with it.
And a soft piece of sponge is also a weapon when you force it in someone's throat. If you define "weapon" like this, almost anything is a weapon. You lose the distinction between a bow that was designed for killing and a brick which was designed for building.
But more importantly - if everything can be a weapon when used as such, then saying that an interstellar capable spaceship is a weapon says nothing about spaceships themselves or interstellar travel itself.