Character designers are really amazing. As technology advances, asymmetric warfare becomes increasingly potent. Through human history, tools have facilitated the empowerment of humans beyond the physical capabilities we've been given genetically–that is why we bother with them, after all. We use tools so that we may plow fields, forge metals and build houses. Tools have lent us an increasing amount of power over time as we've improved upon some and supplanted others, resulting in our current industrial (and in some parts of the world, post-industrial) status, a point in human history wherein technology underpins most aspects of our lives. It should come as no surprise then, that the capabilities of asymmetric warfare have risen alongside the formation of a highly technological society. By empowering the everyday person with the use of internet and air travel and so on, we empower the asymmetric.

Millenia ago, if a single, weak person wanted to kill two strong people, he would have to face them in close quarters. Maybe try to kill them in their sleep, or use a rock to gain advantage over them. But it would be risky and unlikely to succeed. A little later and he could use a sword or bow and arrow–easy to pick people off with a bow. Then a musket. A bomb. An automatic machine gun. Where killing two might've once been a great challenge for a single weakling, killing several dozen is now very achievable: as we develop technology, the barrier to entry continues to lower and the potency of asymmetric methods rises.

So as technological progress continues forward, no doubt the asymmetric will too, until perhaps one day the level of technology of humankind is so high that all actors, whether state or individual, are equally threatening and capable in warfare.

As the potency of asymmetric methods rise, so too does the level of infrastructure necessary to facilitate the technology involved. A single person with a stone is one person, but a person with a gun comes with a designer and inventors and manufacturers and retailers and so on, all needed to create the gun. We invest more into technology and, by extension, the individual. When we talk about capabilities, when we talk about lifestyle and lifespan, humans are effectively an artificial species. That we know of, no homo sapien of yore could match the abilities of a gun or live to be as old as we may. Taking this view, however, would suggest that we are not just individuals but also fundamentally aspects of a communal technological apparatus. Considering the influence of sociocultural factors on individuals, however, and this idea appears to be very natural. Technology is just one of the countless means of mimetically passing on information. Thus the meme genome (memome?) of our species keeps improving, trying, and growing larger. One wonders if there is a limit to our memetic capacity.

But at times like these, one wonders how successful a possible 'meme genome' has been. Perhaps these are early days, if one would only persevere...