DrBenway: So... professionals brainstorming with other professionals brings poorer results than some guy wanking it for fun with, at best, a handful of amateurs in the middle of non-specific online forums? Okay, you go with that rationale.

Quite often, yes, in fact it does.

Not always, of course, but consider this:  I've posted this idea in several different Fark threads over at least the last 5 years (earliest I know of from a quick google is 2009).  I'm guessing that hundreds of people have seen it.  People from very different walks of life, different experiences, and different talents.

Contrast that to the exposure it would get from half a dozen or perhaps a dozen "professionals" who could very well likely suffer from group-think, because they are a more cohesive unit.  If your co-worker Bob comes up with a stupid idea, are you likely to critique it mercilessly?

That happens here on Fark.

And that's a feature, not a bug, and one that cuts both ways:  Because if someone tells you your idea is stupid, and can show you a good reason why, that enables you to either drop the idea, or improve it by taking into account something you haven't actually thought of, but someone else has.

Plus, the semi-anonymous nature of a forum like this allows you to engage in speech you probably wouldn't otherwise:  When I come up with ideas like the sniper thing, or the cheap-ass cruise missile, etc., it's not like I walk around telling all my friends about it.  Some are like you:  They'd find it kind of "creepy".  And some quite honestly don't have the intellectual horsepower to understand the implications, both technical and policy-wise.  There are just one or two people I discuss stuff like this in person, unless there is a reason, and they do the same thing also.

But here, I can outline my concepts (and that's what they will always be, just concepts) and see what stands up to scrutiny.

And maybe, just maybe, someone from one of those groups might read one of these threads and say "You know, we didn't really think about that", because they were focused on preventing what had been done before, not what could be done in the future.

hej: I guess we've become a country where it's OK to persecute children.

Oh, come on, you can do better than that.  It's like you weren't even trying.

natas6.0: I won money in the pool because he was a muzzy
nice to hear about him every so often, just like to know he's rotting behind bars

What a Muzzy might look like.