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Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

nytimes.com

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Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#251

Post by throw2016 »

masonic wrote: post #247
throw2016 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropping a nuclear bomb on a civilian population is an act of madness, doing it twice is is beyond ethical discourse. We are just 70 years out but these crimes against humanity will haunt for generations to come.

Conventional bombing killed far more on the Japanese mainland than both atomic bombs combined did.

You do not see the difference between conventional warfare between armies and dropping untested new weapons on mass destruction on civilian populations?

This is a deliberate calculated war crime. Hundreds of thousands of people were burned, suffocated and boiled to death in seconds let alone the radiation for no good reason. No educated person is unaware of the horror of launching a nuclear bomb on a civilian population. This is an act of evil.

How many countries have used nuclear weapons? Why do you think nuclear weapons are controlled and treated as a separate class of weapons under strict control?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#252

Post by darawk »

detaro wrote: post #155
darawk wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you believe that those outcomes were the intent of the person that authorized these missions?

If you're merely incompetent to use the tools available to you appropriately (instead of maliciously misusing them), I can see why people don't want to give you sharper ones anyways.

Why do you think they are incompetent?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#253

Post by darawk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #248
darawk wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The term "village" is used repeatedly. If you think that--when there's an explosion in a village--it's reasonable to assume that the only people who rush to assist are terrorists, then you need to provide proof of that, not ask me to prove the opposite. Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Do you believe that the CIA is purposefully targeting random villagers for drone strikes? If yes...why? If no...…

> Do you believe that the CIA is purposefully targeting random villagers for drone strikes? Of course not. I believe that the CIA doesn't care who dies as long as they get their guy, and if they make everyone afraid to help drone strike victims, then it's much more likely that any terrorists who survive the initial attack will bleed out on the ground. (Innocents too, but they don't care about them.) This is hardly an…

> Of course not. I believe that the CIA doesn't care who dies as long as they get their guy, and if they make everyone afraid to help drone strike victims, then it's much more likely that any terrorists who survive the initial attack will bleed out on the ground. (Innocents too, but they don't care about them.)

So, your supposition is that the CIA is purposely killing civilians to deter them from giving aid to possible terrorists?

> This is hardly an unusual claim. You can't be unaware that the CIA is infamous for decades of murder and abuse.

The CIA has certainly assassinated people over the years. They've certainly fomented revolutions and meddled in geopolitics in myriad ways. I'm unaware of any explicit campaign to target civilians, though. Are you?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#254

Post by darawk »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #250
darawk wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you bomb an outdoor wedding party with dozens of visible women and children, and then return to fire again when ambulances are on the scene, that's not an "unfortunate accident". That's deadly negligence at the very best. You're trying to twist the second example into the framework of the first. Is it? Do you have a sense of what went into that particular decision? Was the wedding party the target, or were they…

Someone looked through a drone cam at a crowd of women and children, and authorized the drone to fire. If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're supposed to use in those circumstances. If he was told it was all right to fire…

> Someone looked through a drone cam at a crowd of women and children, and authorized the drone to fire.

No they didn't. Cite a source for that. Don't just editorialize nonsense.

> If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're supposed to use in those circumstances. If he was told it was all right to fire without being able to see the target clearly, that's bad policy. If he was told it's all right to knowingly kill women and children, that's also bad policy. If the drone was authorized to fire without any human in the loop somewhere, that's really bad policy, and also bad tactics--there's no point in wasting a missile on an empty field that you expected a terrorist to be standing in.

> There is no circumstance where someone wasn't lethally and unnecessarily careless with innocent lives. Whether it was due to malice or incompetence is not really relevant.

People like to make silly statements like this, maybe for rhetorical effect. Whether or not something is attributable to malice or incompetence is always relevant. Mistakes happen in war. This may well be an instance of that. But it is not evidence that the policy is net bad. There are hundreds of these strikes. Some of them will kill civilians, but sometimes it's worth killing a few civilians to kill some unusually bad actors. We have people who's job it is to make that tradeoff. Do you have evidence that they're doing so poorly?

> Yes. You've already been linked to relevant articles in this thread. Do your own homework.

Firstly, the wedding that got bombed twice was not by drones, it was by jets. So, if the point of this thread is to discuss drones, it is irrelevant. There have been many wedding strikes, which one are you referring to?

> You are not going to Socratic-method anyone into admitting that, yes, it actually is okay to blow up a wedding if we think there might be a terrorist in there somewhere.

What, exactly, is the terrorist density of a wedding that makes it bombable? 50%? 80%? 99%? Do you know what the terrorist density of these particular weddings were?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#255

Post by drb91 »

ucaetano wrote: post #47
discoball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he's right about humanity having to solve its problems but he's forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people The world is complicated, and things are never as simple as that. Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing? It is always too easy to ignore the world as it is and focus on a utopian case. War will happen, with whatever tools are available.

> Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing?

That’s a false dichotomy. You could do neither.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#256

Post by voidhorse »

albertgoeswoof wrote: post #214
voidhorse wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're certainly correct that the major problem is social, economic, and structural, but I do think there are some technologies that are inherently tricky to justify regardless of the economic structures they arise in. The atomic bomb is one obvious example of a technology that seems to be inherently bad not only for humanity, but for biological life itself. You could argue that the problem of the bomb is more-so a p…

The atomic bomb is a bad example- the reason we haven’t had ww3 is due to nuclear weapons. MAD basically means that no rational actor will fire a nuke at someone else who also has one, so we’re all paralysed and need to fight wars in other ways (the Cold War, proxy wars eg Syria, trade wars, cyber warfare, propaganda etc), all of which are less impactful than the world wars we would have without MAD

But this is a counter factual argument and unsound. You don’t know we would have necessarily had more wars/ other world wars without deterrence theory kicking into effect. You’re also not accounting for the arguably inhumane weapons technologies that have been developed because of the deterrence situation, or that the bomb hasn’t prevented us from developing (eg, drones, and in some nations biological weapons). Furthermore, you’re really cheapening the lives of all of those who were victims to the bombs in Japan, and also diminishing the horrible humanitarian crises that have arisen out of the very proxy wars you’ve cited.

Just because it has “prevented ww3” is not a very adequate or admirable reason to ignore the other negative effects that you yourself admit have been caused by the bomb. This is the fundamental weakness of utilitarianism, which turns human life into a commodity and effectively nothing more than a calculable value which is not a very dignified image of mankind.

I’m open to arguments about the positive effects of the bomb, but not counter factual as that ignore the very real conditions of pain, war, and violence that are still occurring. The bomb’s effect as a deterrent being a positive thing is not very convincing—really the only thing it protects us from is the bomb itself, which wouldn’t be a problem had the bomb not been invented. Sure major economic powers are less gung-ho to engage in war directly but I’d argue the proxy wars they engage in now are more morally questionable then direct action against each other as they now use lesser developed countries as pawns of sorts, and the civilians and economies of those nations suffer while the big boys get to play an even “safer” (for them) little war game.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#257

Post by antgiant »

darawk wrote: post #226
antgiant wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. “over the past 15 years. Increased US efforts are correlated with a worsening of the overall terror situation. Statistical modeling indicates for every additional billion dollars spent and 1,000 American troops sent to fight the war on terror, the number of terror attacks worldwide increased by 19 (data available from the author). Furthermore, the model finds up to 80 percent of the variation in the number of wo…

Of course the countries we invade will have more terror attacks. We've put targets there for them to hit. This does not prove that US intervention causes terrorism. What it proves is that when you move their targets thousands of miles closer to them, terrorists will attack them more frequently.

I think you misread that. Drone strikes which don’t provide something for terrorists to attack cause a significantly greater increase in terrorism attacks than troops on the ground do.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#258

Post by PhasmaFelis »

darawk wrote: post #254
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone looked through a drone cam at a crowd of women and children, and authorized the drone to fire. If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're supposed to use in those circumstances. If he was told it was all right to fire…

> Someone looked through a drone cam at a crowd of women and children, and authorized the drone to fire. No they didn't. Cite a source for that. Don't just editorialize nonsense. > If he didn't bother looking closely enough to identify his target, that's negligence or incompetence. (Middle Eastern women are noted for dressing distinctively.) If he didn't care, that's intentional murder, or whatever euphemism we're su…

> No they didn't. Cite a source for that. Don't just editorialize nonsense.

I'm...not sure how you think attack drones work? There is always a human in the loop, at least for now. Humans pick the targets and authorize weapon release.

> Whether or not something is attributable to malice or incompetence is always relevant.

It's relevant to the discussion of how and why these things happen. It's not relevant to the question of whether or not a wrong has been committed. If you drive drunk and kill four people, you certainly didn't mean to, but you still go to prison.

> We have people who's job it is to make that tradeoff. Do you have evidence that they're doing so poorly?

Do you have evidence that they're not? They've certainly had limited success in stopping international terrorism.

We discussed earlier how extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you believe that a goal was achieved here that outweighed 50 or so innocent lives, it's on you to demonstrate that, not on me to falsify it. Do your own homework.

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#259

Post by PhasmaFelis »

darawk wrote: post #253
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do you believe that the CIA is purposefully targeting random villagers for drone strikes? Of course not. I believe that the CIA doesn't care who dies as long as they get their guy, and if they make everyone afraid to help drone strike victims, then it's much more likely that any terrorists who survive the initial attack will bleed out on the ground. (Innocents too, but they don't care about them.) This is hardly an…

> Of course not. I believe that the CIA doesn't care who dies as long as they get their guy, and if they make everyone afraid to help drone strike victims, then it's much more likely that any terrorists who survive the initial attack will bleed out on the ground. (Innocents too, but they don't care about them.) So, your supposition is that the CIA is purposely killing civilians to deter them from giving aid to possib…

> So, your supposition is that the CIA is purposely killing civilians to deter them from giving aid to possible terrorists?

That's what I just said, yes.

> I'm unaware of any explicit campaign to target civilians, though. Are you?

There's been enough evidence presented so far that I believe it's now on you to demonstrate that it's false, if you can.

Maybe this has worked for you before, demanding indisputable evidence for every fiddly detail, hoping that your opponent takes the bait and gets bogged down in minutiae?

Re: Sundar Pichai: ‘Technology Doesn’t Solve Humanity’s Problems’

#260

Post by A2017U1 »

ucaetano wrote: post #47
discoball wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people and China to be more oppressive until its workers protested. So he's right about humanity having to solve its problems but he's forgetting that Google, the corporation, is opting to make it harder for humanity to solve its problems by enabling those who do not have humanity's best interest in their heart.

> Google was enabling the DoD to be more efficient at killing people The world is complicated, and things are never as simple as that. Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing? It is always too easy to ignore the world as it is and focus on a utopian case. War will happen, with whatever tools are available.

> Would you consider drones and smart bombs bad when the alternative is carpet bombing?

That's the only alternative?

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