Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

sapiens.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 132 posts

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#111

Post by rqtwteye »

hollerith wrote: post #98
grey413 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most domesticated animals that I can think of do just fine when they're released into the wild. In fact, I don't think there's any domesticated animals out there that don't have a feral population running around somewhere.

Cattle?

I think you would be very surprised how quickly animals can adapt. Same for humans. Most of us have no clue how to live without modern conveniences. But I think if we took away these, a lot of people would adapt. A lot wouldn't survive, but a lot would learn quickly.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#112

Post by lukas099 »

sbaiddn wrote: post #103

This is a serious question: In a place like the DMZ, are mines really immoral? Are land mines universally immoral? Anymore than any other weapon of war? Does this immorality extend to naval as opposed to land mines? No one is walking freely in the DMZ. Certainly not children. If land mines are effective (US generals say no, but they don't win too many wars.) they raise the cost of attack almost for free. This stabili…

Would it be feasible for an advanced military to field remotely-deactivatable mines that could be killed after the conflict?

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#113

Post by lukas099 »

themodelplumber wrote: post #24
asimjalis wrote: post #16

They should use AI driven mini robots that go around and blow up mines.

They should develop smart plants with a distributed root system, an overabundance of shoots, a preference for seeking mines, and a high threshold for shoot pain. This would also prepare us with countermeasure systems control for when the AI tries to take over.

Any reason we wouldn't expect these to become invasive?

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#115

Post by PhasmaFelis »

sbaiddn wrote: post #107
penneyd wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land mines persist long after the wars have ended, quietly waiting to maim the innocent.

Ok, thats a strong argument. But, Im not convinced. For starters, if we assume humans have the ability to solve conflicts like the DMZ we should be able to put a structure in place to prohibit people from going to old mine fields. That is, fundamentally, the basis of nuclear waste storage: the belief that society can create a future political structure to keep humans out of a dangerous place. (I doubt that we can, so…

> Finally, the basic question remains unanswered: are the (relatively rare) loss of life and limbs of innocents over decades or centuries worse that a war like the one that would break out between the Koreas? That's not obvious to me.

That is a false dichotomy. There are choices between "all-out war" and "decades of needless innocent casualties," and pretending otherwise does your argument no favors.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#116

Post by sbaiddn »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #115
sbaiddn wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, thats a strong argument. But, Im not convinced. For starters, if we assume humans have the ability to solve conflicts like the DMZ we should be able to put a structure in place to prohibit people from going to old mine fields. That is, fundamentally, the basis of nuclear waste storage: the belief that society can create a future political structure to keep humans out of a dangerous place. (I doubt that we can, so…

> Finally, the basic question remains unanswered: are the (relatively rare) loss of life and limbs of innocents over decades or centuries worse that a war like the one that would break out between the Koreas? That's not obvious to me. That is a false dichotomy. There are choices between "all-out war" and "decades of needless innocent casualties," and pretending otherwise does your argument no favors.

Its not a false dichotomy because, so far, no one has argued against my argument that landmines can increase the cost of war and therefore help avoid it. The argument has been implicitly accepted.

Attack the argument, reject it, and then argue for the third way. Or argue that war is a blast.

However, Ill accept no citations from a US general or RAND corp. Itd be the "appeal to authority" fallacy and they've lost too many wars to claim expertise. You're free to restate their arguments though.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#117

Post by jai_ »

sbaiddn wrote: post #110
jai_ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is less about the casualties of war itself, but the effects of when trying to move on after the war. If people die due to landmines many years after a ceasefire are they a casualty of the war? I think landmines represent a physical device that artifically extends the destruction of war in a time that is way after the parties may have agreed to peace. In that sense, the landmine inflicts death on people w…

War has many generational effects. Russia still has periodic fertility gaps from WW2. In Paraguay blond, blue eyed, natives who only speak Guarani are witnesses of the Triple Alliance's widespread rape (150 years ago?). Europe is littered with unexploded ordinance A landmime is not a pleasant thing to leave behind. But if deployed strategically (not scattered everywhere as a terror weapon), and if it can avoid a war…

This may be a poor analogy:

Imagine, during a war, a missile that has been set to target a city. The casualties will be many, and random, and innocent, but this is wartime and horrible things happen.

Now, imagine that this missile is set to target the city, but will launch at a random time in the future. The missile may launch during the war, or many years after.

Now it's obvious to me that the missile that lauches at the random point in the future is more evil than the one fired immediately.

It's a poor analogy, but the random missile is how I view landmines.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#118

Post by sbaiddn »

lukas099 wrote: post #112
sbaiddn wrote: post #103

This is a serious question: In a place like the DMZ, are mines really immoral? Are land mines universally immoral? Anymore than any other weapon of war? Does this immorality extend to naval as opposed to land mines? No one is walking freely in the DMZ. Certainly not children. If land mines are effective (US generals say no, but they don't win too many wars.) they raise the cost of attack almost for free. This stabili…

Would it be feasible for an advanced military to field remotely-deactivatable mines that could be killed after the conflict?

Itd be theoretically easy too [1] . Put a dead man switch on them. If a landmine doesn't receive a "keep alive" signal at a predetermined, known skipping frequency then self destruct.

Or use a timer and re-lay them periodically.

[1] famous last words. In reality these things don't work and landmines are a terrible legacy of conflict.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#119

Post by 451mov »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #65
asimjalis wrote: post #16

They should use AI driven mini robots that go around and blow up mines.

The rats are already mini, and have real intelligence unlike AI does. They also reproduce cheap. Mines are cheap and numerous, and anything that deals woth them had to be cheap

rats take ages to train and that process is not cheap.

drones + ground penetrating radar + computer vision + machine learning is a viable option.

Re: Using rats to clear land mines in Cambodia

#120

Post by sbaiddn »

sbaiddn wrote: post #110
jai_ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is less about the casualties of war itself, but the effects of when trying to move on after the war. If people die due to landmines many years after a ceasefire are they a casualty of the war? I think landmines represent a physical device that artifically extends the destruction of war in a time that is way after the parties may have agreed to peace. In that sense, the landmine inflicts death on people w…

War has many generational effects. Russia still has periodic fertility gaps from WW2. In Paraguay blond, blue eyed, natives who only speak Guarani are witnesses of the Triple Alliance's widespread rape (150 years ago?). Europe is littered with unexploded ordinance A landmime is not a pleasant thing to leave behind. But if deployed strategically (not scattered everywhere as a terror weapon), and if it can avoid a war…

Cant reply to jai's missile comment:

Targeting cities is already a war crime regardless the weapon.

Nor am I arguing that laying landmines everywhere is not immoral. Certainly not landmines in a city.

Im arguing that a concentrated land mine field across a small strategic piece of land (say a mountain passage, the DMZ) can be militarily effective and therefore help avoid war.

Does this then change the moral calculus of land mines?

Post reply on HN