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I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

theguardian.com

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Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#381

Post by Houshalter »

lemmsjid wrote: post #291
jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

I try to put myself in the shoes of the potential drone targets. I live in Los Angeles, which seems to be the official city of the police helicopter (always followed closely by the news helicopter, because the possibility of violence is entertainment). Over the years it's gotten to the point where multiple times a week they're buzzing around the neighborhood, stabbing the backyard with their searchlights. I've never…

Your argument is about the psychological fear of it rather than any rational reason to be afraid. The deaths caused by them (or prevented because of them) should be the main issue.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#382

Post by Houshalter »

alextingle wrote: post #237
sneak wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of attitude is not really constructive discussion, and I personally feel it's out of place here on HN. So, personally: please don't do that.

He disagreed with the grandparent's skewed analysis, and explained why. Why don't you do the same rather than conflating "things I don't agree with" and "not really constructive discussion"?

The comment was sarcastic and hostile and dismissive of his point. It may not be incorrect, but it's the kind of thing I'd expect to see on /r/politics and come to HN to avoid.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#383

Post by danielharan »

Houshalter wrote: post #381
lemmsjid wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I try to put myself in the shoes of the potential drone targets. I live in Los Angeles, which seems to be the official city of the police helicopter (always followed closely by the news helicopter, because the possibility of violence is entertainment). Over the years it's gotten to the point where multiple times a week they're buzzing around the neighborhood, stabbing the backyard with their searchlights. I've never…

Your argument is about the psychological fear of it rather than any rational reason to be afraid. The deaths caused by them (or prevented because of them) should be the main issue.

Constant fear is a nice breeding ground for resentment and creating extremists.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#384

Post by tzs »

fit2rule wrote: post #138
mikeash wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...we need an organization that makes peace, for the state, far more." What does such an organization look like, and how does it work? It's very easy to say that we should just stop killing people and instead make peace. It's extremely difficult to put forth a realistic plan that accomplishes that.

Imagine if the resources being used to develop drones and bombs and other killing robots were instead being used to develop tools that would improve the lives of your average Afghani child. This would be a far more honorable investment than the current situation. Yes, I'm not sure I know what it would look like, but I'm pretty sure that its possible to develop the "B1 bomber" of education systems. I'm quite sure that…

> Imagine if the resources being used to develop drones and bombs and other killing robots were instead being used to develop tools that would improve the lives of your average Afghani child

The improvements would very likely violate Taliban law and the improved children and their parents would be targeted for accepting the improvements.

Humans do not work the way you think they do.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#385

Post by Houshalter »

So this affects people's lives and involves politics, but I can't help but feel like it's an engineering problem that could be solved. Measure how accurate information is from drones and how confident they are, calculate (even if roughly) how much is gained or lost by taking action. And then do whatever maximizes expected utility.

I feel like merely having access to another tool should never make things worse unless the leaders are incompetent.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#386

Post by Houshalter »

philwelch wrote: post #123
sleepyK wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not an American thing. It's the human condition. I don't care where you live, if someone who lives down the street from you and looks like you gets killed, you care more about that than about someone on the other side of the world. That's how people work.

But there is no reason it has to be that way. For most of human history we lived in small tribes of a hundred people or so, and everyone pretty much cared only for the people in their own tribe. But then we moved on to entire cities of thousands, where you likely didn't know everyone else, but it was still possible to care for strangers because they were still part of your "tribe". Then we moved on to nations with millions of people, and nationalism still proved to be effective.

So maybe we can someday go to globalism. Putting the whole of humanity inside your circle of concern, not just your friends and members of your tribe.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#387

Post by ack006 »

fatca wrote: post #377
allochthon wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as an American I do live with a particular type of fear, which is that of the DEA and SWAT team escalations. I disagree that this is something to be all that worried about. It detracts from the rest of your argument.

The Bombay terrorist bombings are indeed -- like so many terrorist attacks -- a false-flag operation, organized by the United States' intelligence services.

Source (link) please, or I'll proclaim that the tin foil hat brigade has now thorougly infiltrated HN.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#388

Post by pyre »

jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

> Today if we make a mistake we bomb the wrong home and kill everyone. 25 years ago we bombed the entire village.

The (supposed) ability to make surgical strikes leads to different decision-making than when dropping bombs meant wiping a while village off the map. It makes it easier to call for more bombings increasing the likelihood of more false-positives (i.e. bombing the wrong house). Hell, SWAT teams have a horrific record of storming into the wrong house guns-blazing, and they are not in life or death situations (i.e. they have enough time to plan / make sure that the address is correct).

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#389

Post by nationcrafting »

Scary as current drones are, they are nothing compared to how crazy things are going to get very quickly.

Think of completely power-autonomous drones, the size of a wasp, swarming by the millions in the sky. The swarming feature alone would render most people helpless against an attack, or their sheer presence. To this, add distributed intelligence features, and networked control. The swarm becomes something akin to an intelligent, flying, all-seeing liquid.

Then think of the drop in price that will enable this to become the dominant method of surveillance, policing, and military operations. There will quickly be nothing stopping dictatorships from buying billions of them, making them ubiquitous and all-pervasive. Killing, threatening and controlling billions of people suddenly becomes quite cheap, efficient, easy and cost-effective. Don't like those people demonstrating in your city? Send the swarms.

Re: I worked on the US drone program. The public should know what really goes on

#390

Post by pyre »

avenger123 wrote: post #195
jusben1369 wrote: post #112

We need to make sure we're not being manipulated. Here the Guardian is just serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion. I'm not sure how this is different to much of the chest beating I'd see on Fox News. I'm not here to argue for or against the drones. Just that if we pride ourselves on being educated and critical thinkers that we apply that to all sources of data we read. We all kno…

Thank you so much for reminding me that I should care about not being manipulated. Your comment is so full of really good unbiased views that I just wanted to tell you how much non-manipulated I felt by your comment. I especially enjoyed your notion that the Guardian is "serving up an emotional, unsubstantiated, one sided view of this discussion." You are so right. I always fell that the White House and the American…

You make the assumption that his 'attack' on the Guardian's reporting is in essence support of the American military's / White House's position.

To use a loaded example, would you say that someone railing against Stalin was a supporter of Hitler? Probably not.

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