Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

I am reminded of a Hollywood grade-B movie where it depicted a small foot-long air-to-surface missile that can assassinate by identity. I don’t recall the name of the movie there.

Much like the 1976 movie “Drive-In” showed how an airplane can crash into a skyscraper, such inspiration is misguided.

“Drive-In” IMDB: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0074433/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0

Re: Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

#6

Post by imtringued » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 11:16 AM UTC

It's been a century of carpet bombing, 6 decades of ICBMs and conventional guided missiles, 4 decades of cruise missiles and somehow it's the collateral damage minimizing drones that are breaking the camels back?

A lot of modern military tech is built around killing less and less, only as much as necessary but the fear density (fear per victim) keeps going up. My guess is that the lack of deaths makes each death more significant and visible. It becomes much easier to connect to those deaths than to the 140000 nameless Japanese citizen living in Hiroshima who died from a single bomb.

Re: Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

#7

Post by cryptica » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 11:17 AM UTC

Scary. Anonymized assassination will be good for cryptocurrencies because it will create incentives for powerful people to further hide themselves. To do this, they will have to disconnect themselves from centralized financial systems which are easily traceable (due to their reliance on laws which identify them by name and profile photo).

Power is going to become even more hidden than it already is; not only will powerful people need to hide from the public, they will need to hide from each other.

Re: Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

#8

Post by api » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 11:19 AM UTC

cryptica wrote: post #7

Scary. Anonymized assassination will be good for cryptocurrencies because it will create incentives for powerful people to further hide themselves. To do this, they will have to disconnect themselves from centralized financial systems which are easily traceable (due to their reliance on laws which identify them by name and profile photo). Power is going to become even more hidden than it already is; not only will pow…

The cyberpunks were by far the most prophetic sci-fi writers.

Re: Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

#9

Post by api » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 11:21 AM UTC

imtringued wrote: post #6

It's been a century of carpet bombing, 6 decades of ICBMs and conventional guided missiles, 4 decades of cruise missiles and somehow it's the collateral damage minimizing drones that are breaking the camels back? A lot of modern military tech is built around killing less and less, only as much as necessary but the fear density (fear per victim) keeps going up. My guess is that the lack of deaths makes each death more…

On the flip side, carpet bombing or nuking cities is something that instantly raises the stakes and can't be done in secret. When fewer people are killed, there will be less consequences.

The same issue applies to non-lethal weapons. In theory they represent great moral progress, but by reducing the stakes their use for totalitarian repression becomes less controversial and no longer produces martyrs.

Re: Killer Flying Robots Are Here. What Do We Do Now?

#10

Post by mosselman » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 11:28 AM UTC

egberts1 wrote: post #5

I am reminded of a Hollywood grade-B movie where it depicted a small foot-long air-to-surface missile that can assassinate by identity. I don’t recall the name of the movie there. Much like the 1976 movie “Drive-In” showed how an airplane can crash into a skyscraper, such inspiration is misguided. “Drive-In” IMDB: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0074433/?ref_=fn_al_tt_0

> such inspiration is misguided.

Are you saying that the movie "Drive-In" inspired people to fly planes into skyscrapers?