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Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

boingboing.net

11–20 of 160 posts

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#11

I was a bit disappointed not to find any thoughts about the proliferation of smaller, affordable drones and their potential uses in assassinating people (by criminals) in the article. It's not hard to imagine this happening sooner or later and it's scary to think about even smaller (insect-size) and more autonomous (no RC operator nearby) gadgets and their potential effectiveness. How many years till a robotic fly ca…

this is the question to be asking - it's only a matter of time. I think the only way to fight it is if the good guys are smarter and create the tech to protect us from these potential murders just like our immune system protects us from intruders

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#13

More drone bashing, despite the fact drones are less likely to hit innocent people than manned aircraft, because drones can study a target for extended periods of time, where manned jets have just seconds. Edit: from the amount I've been down voted, I'm guess you'd be perfectly happy if a manned jet killed innocent people. If you continue drone bashing, you might succeed in making them use drones less frequently or e…

In one report, "Attempts to kill 41 men [using drones] resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people, as of 24 November [2014]." http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/24/-sp-us-drone-... .

25 innocent deaths for each enemy kill? Is that really enough to justify "less likely" as a defense for drones?

In any case, as hizz pointed out, this specific report is about an attack where the information was gathered by drone, but the killing done by manned helicopters.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#14

I was a bit disappointed not to find any thoughts about the proliferation of smaller, affordable drones and their potential uses in assassinating people (by criminals) in the article. It's not hard to imagine this happening sooner or later and it's scary to think about even smaller (insect-size) and more autonomous (no RC operator nearby) gadgets and their potential effectiveness. How many years till a robotic fly ca…

this is the question to be asking - it's only a matter of time. I think the only way to fight it is if the good guys are smarter and create the tech to protect us from these potential murders just like our immune system protects us from intruders

This is not the question to be asking. Not at all The robotic fly question describes a future danger of unknown magnitude. We, western societies, must ask the same question the article hints at: How can we be murdering innocents in the name of democracy? It's happening now, not in some future, it is actionable by us and it affects innocent lives both directly and indirectly.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#15

I was a bit disappointed not to find any thoughts about the proliferation of smaller, affordable drones and their potential uses in assassinating people (by criminals) in the article. It's not hard to imagine this happening sooner or later and it's scary to think about even smaller (insect-size) and more autonomous (no RC operator nearby) gadgets and their potential effectiveness. How many years till a robotic fly ca…

I estimated 10 years until poison killer drones are wheeling beneath my ceiling light. - I wrote it 2 years ago on my website http://hashsign.co.uk/contact-stephen-winter.html#killer-dro... . (Already in 2009 I looked ahead fruit fly drones dropping plutonium in nasal cavities. http://hashsign.co.uk/notmute/20091129-hans-henny-jahnn.html... ) But yes, 30-40 years is more likely.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#17

I was a bit disappointed not to find any thoughts about the proliferation of smaller, affordable drones and their potential uses in assassinating people (by criminals) in the article. It's not hard to imagine this happening sooner or later and it's scary to think about even smaller (insect-size) and more autonomous (no RC operator nearby) gadgets and their potential effectiveness. How many years till a robotic fly ca…

http://www.proxdynamics.com/home

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#18
If you happen to work for one of the contractors in this program: I kindly ask you to think about your goals and your ideals for humanity.

I used to work for a sub-contractor to the military-industrial complex. I quit for ethical reasons. Never looked back.

Thank you.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#19

And this is how you create more terrorists. When you see an innocent family member being killed and you have nothing around you - no food, no education - hate overpowers you and you hate the people who did this to people you loved.

Not terrorists, but enemies.

Re: Drones and the rise of the high tech assassins

#20

It is always intriguing that people in the West are so sheltered from the fact that this has been going on for over a decade. And they then are, not surprisingly, surprised that the people at the receiving end of this and those that are from the area are very upset about it. What if some other nation had been bombing remote villages in your country whilst attempting to target "terrorists and extremists", but often ki…

but often killing civilians

They can simply be reclassified as combatants. I understand any male "of military age" is an enemy combatant [1]. They must be bad guys or else why would we be murdering them.

I happily admit that if this was happening around me, and I was as powerless as these people are, I'd strike back through terror tactics.

[1]http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/05/29/1095594/-WOW-to-avo...

Yes, of course this is sarcasm (except for the bit where I can understand why terror tactics are what people use; I really can understand that).

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