The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…
There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…
>> "There's a high cost in both money and American lives"
There's a high cost in both money and human lives - nationality should not be a consideration.
The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…
As a human analogue to the drones, it is not unrealistic to imagine that phones, shovels, or other objects have been mistaken for guns by an observer in a tense situation (for example: a SWAT raid). Granted, one is clear visual cues that are confused by a human mind in the heat of the moment, while the other is bad quality readings. We're talking about two different implementations of the error. This drone project co…
The crucial difference is that drones are used in contexts where they have a very high false positive rate. It doesn't matter how accurate your missiles are if you are operating in an area where it is impossible to accurately identify targets. Considering the total lack of oversight and regulation on these secretive programs, it is unsurprising that they have the latitude to cause large amounts of civilian damage without inviting any limits on their activity.
> "the video provided by a drone is a far cry from clear enough to detect someone carrying a weapon, even on a crystal-clear day with limited clouds and perfect light" I wished she had pushed the questioning even further: Even if it's a weapon, that doesn't mean the person is a threat. I mean it's full of people carrying weapons in the U.S., they are not presumed a threat. And even if the person is deemed a threat, m…
How is a guy two continents away carrying an AK a threat in any sane fashion? He sure as hell can't use the gun to fly over the ocean.
He is a profit centre. Not killing him is a danger to the entire military industrial complex. That would be a threat to national security.
The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…
I think the innocent victims that we make today will get us on track to developing better drones with more resolution and less errors and doubt. I imagine a perfect drone without any human controller, doing it's business by AI, actually making the world a better place. [edit] lots of hate and naive comments. Fact remains that human progress has always come through sacrificing some of us for the greater good. Innocent…
Would would a perfect drone make the world a better place? What would be better about that world?
Yes, I do. The reason is because I think that anyone whose job it is to murder, maim, kill - officially, with sanction from the state - and who chooses to do this as a career is a very, very sick individual. We do not need a military that can deliver a bomb on some individuals head at the drop of a whim - we need an organization that makes peace , for the state, far more.
The usual argument is that such people 'occur naturally' and the army at least directs their activities outwards (it forms the distinction between grunt and officer class in the forces). I don't agree with the premise but it's a nature vs nurture question.
I don't buy the justification. We can choose not to kill people. We can choose to spend our time educating people, instead. Those who join the military, subjugate themselves to others, and stop making choices. This is a contagious disease, not some 'normality' about human existence...
> More often than not, you'll find that the 'official killers' really don't care about human life - or else they wouldn't be devoting their time on earth to the singular purpose of killing, maiming, destroying life. That's not true. Many joined the military because they believe in their version of patriotism. They are also trained to adopt to utilitarianism as much as possible. The part they are missing when they fol…
You've identified the problem - deonotology - but not the solution. Anyone who kills for a living, is violating the most basic rules of human life, that have been taught us since we rose from this Earth: life is sacred. You can't educate a dead man.
The first premise is right: life is scared. At least in our culture that's the case. We believe the natural rights of being a living human. But I argue that the 2nd is not true. The claim is too strong. If life is sacred, we ought not to kill anyone. Capital punishment must not be exercised as a result. Because people are rational animals they can make poor judgements. So we must forgive and give them a second chance, a chance to live behind the bar and be educated behind the bar. People who execute capital punishment order is violating the most basic rules of a human life, right? The prison didn't do anything to the executioner. So we should never kill Hilter even if we caught him alive. Absolutism says we must not kill anyone unless that person is doing some hostile to you (pointing a gun at you, and so you have the right to defend yourself). But if Hilter is just sitting at his desk, and you destroyed his army, will you kill him? One say he was being hostile, but that was his past. And he indeed COULD become a great man again. Who knows?
The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…
There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…
>> "There's a high cost in both money and American lives" There's a high cost in both money and human lives - nationality should not be a consideration.
The feed is so pixelated, what if it's a shovel, and not a weapon? I felt this confusion constantly, as did my fellow UAV analysts. We always wonder if we killed the right people If this question even comes up once, drones should never, ever be armed. Why is is okay to repeatedly kill the wrong person in another country? Can you imagine if that happened even just once in the USA? We need an international ban on armed…
You act as if the alternative to drones (20 year old kids with guns) never kills the wrong person. Yvain's essay asking "what if drones came first" is highly relevant here. http://squid314.livejournal.com/338607.html?thread=9878703
The alternative to drones is counterinsurgency. For example, the wedding party in Yemen, if it were a target of actual importance, would have been captured and interrogated, with suspected insurgents detained for further questioning. The problem is that we don't have the manpower or the political latitude to do that in all these regions, so we send in killer robots instead and hope we hit the right people. This is a recipe for high false positive rates, even with the best equipment, because the HUMINT and SIGINT that underlies target identification is shaky to say the least.
There you go again ck2. One of your classic comments. We used to napalm people. Lots of "wrong people" get killed in all wars. Flying in B-17's and B-52's was pretty ugly too, we just couldn't record the carnage on video. There's probably never going to be a war where innocent people aren't killed. Precision weapons probably kill fewer people but if you want a "clean" war, I don't think that's possible. The real solu…
>> "There's a high cost in both money and American lives" There's a high cost in both money and human lives - nationality should not be a consideration.
But unfortunately, it always is.
American life, and American citizenship is more precious than any other life.
I know it's not the same issue, but throughout the whole NSA snooping revelations, Americans have only been concerned by the legality of spying on their own citizens.
All of us foreigners are fair game.
This is similar. The value of an American life is much more than that of a foreigner's life.