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Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#161

Post by KorematsuFred »

high_priest wrote: post #31
blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

Life is one big war. Just because you live in a pleasant neighbourhood, doesn't mean there are no malevolent people in the world...

Sure but then the US military and its associated establishment surely seems like one of those malevolent people in the world.

US taxpayer money is being spent in protecting Saudi Arabia and Pakistan two largest sponsors of all kind of Salafi terrorism all around the world. Most of the terrorists were funded and armed by USA.

Entire south american political instability has USA behind it.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#162

Post by cryptica »

blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

The military is a great vehicle for cronies to launder large amounts of money to each other... All paid for by the tax payer of course through taxes and asset inflation. Straight from the money printer.

Millennials can say goodbye to ever owning a property. Microsoft executives will own all the real estate (thanks to their bonuses coming straight from the government; taxpayer funded) and we can all rent from them. Millennials love it when the government takes away their earning power to subsidize their own slavery.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#163

Post by fweespeech »

optimiz3 wrote: post #146
blunte wrote: post #18

I don't look like a hippie, but I totally subscribe to the idea of "make love, not war". I imagine what the possibilities would be if we funded general non-military projects with the kind of money that goes into the military. Trillions have been spent on wars or war preparation, and of course the net result is worsening for humanity. What if instead that money were spend on helping humanity? Do we really need a confl…

It's not zero-sum. Having a strong military allows you to pursue your (peaceful) interests without interference from others who disagree with your agenda.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison

Yes but spending as much as the next 10 countries combined is not needed.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#164

Post by chrisseaton »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #157
chrisseaton wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine being given a mission and being able to recreate the target area in VR and walk around while you conduct your estimate, orders, and rehearsals. Or imagine being able to look over a piece of ground and see the location of your people annotated through AR. Or driving a route and seeing your planned route annotated. Yes please absolutely get this into my hands.

Ok, now imagine you have to hump an extra 10lbs of crap in 120 degree heat for weeks on end while the glasses are fogged up and you got a sunscreen smudge on the lens. And your field of view is now greatly complicated with extraneous information you don't need to know like ammo capacity of your current magazine. And you need to low crawl through a drainage/sewer ditch and through a hole in a fence to get to another p…

> You can have my set.

Thanks, I'll take it!

You can say the same as you have about any technology. Why lug around a big heavy rifle when you could carry sharpened sticks? I guarantee you people said exactly the same about the first radios, for example. Now you wouldn't even consider leaving the wire without a radio under any circumstances whatsoever.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#165

Post by bastardoperator »

fweespeech wrote: post #163
optimiz3 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not zero-sum. Having a strong military allows you to pursue your (peaceful) interests without interference from others who disagree with your agenda.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison Yes but spending as much as the next 10 countries combined is not needed.

This ^

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#166

Post by lwansbrough »

remarkEon wrote: post #3

Anyone work this technology and can talk about it (without breaking whatever NDA of course)? I'm a former infantryman and ... let's just say I'm _extremely_ skeptical of this kind of technology for all but the most niche use-cases (think, AR for the driver in the hole of the truck). Obviously for pilots stuff similar to this has been around for a while, but the article is not really clear about how exactly this would…

From the perspective of infantry, the end goal would look like shared information: if any one else (other infantry, air support, satellites, drones) sees an enemy, you'd be able to see them as well, even through foliage, walls, etc. Being able to ping a location for your squad to see, marking targets for air support. I think there are a lot of practical applications to counteract fog of war.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#167

Post by hutzlibu »

Shacklz wrote: post #130
hutzlibu wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Stop the cycle of war and poverty, and then see how naturally malevolent people are." So far it is only a hypothesis, that war can be avoided if people just would not starve anymore. (I don't think there was really hunger in europe pre WW1 for example) Also, assuming we would distribute ressources equally (nevermind the political means to achieve that for a moment): It no doubt would be enough for everyone today. B…

> But the world population is already going steeply up - with people starving. The interesting part is that it is only really going up in nations that have not yet the comfort-level of western civilizations. I don't have the exact numbers at hand but in most European countries, and I guess vast parts of the US too, the population is actually stagnant or even shrinking if immigration is not considered.

Thats the hope, I know. But it might just as well have to do mainly with culture.

Meaning, if peoples culture does not change, but the avaiable food does - we get the "unwanted" result of the ugly word of overpopulation - or birth control. Which is ugly as hell, too.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#168

Post by atoav »

trentnix wrote: post #42
high_priest wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is one big war. Just because you live in a pleasant neighbourhood, doesn't mean there are no malevolent people in the world...

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. - commonly attributed to Orwell

And others die in their bed because rough men stand ready to do violence on someones behalf.

Maybe we don't need rough men, but men who won't let themselves be sold as fools for yet another geopolitical proxy war. A war with questionable (and arguably even negative!) results for our all safety. Because if we look at the last 3 decades of war, I am not too sure if the net result made the world a safer place. Yeah some geoplitical or monetary interests got defended, a lot of people made money, a lot of people lost their lives, many war crimes fuled a entirely new generation of terrorists, but if this would have been about saving lifes the money would have been better invested in healthcare or the prevention of future pandemics.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#169

Post by quickthrowman »

fweespeech wrote: post #163
optimiz3 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not zero-sum. Having a strong military allows you to pursue your (peaceful) interests without interference from others who disagree with your agenda.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison Yes but spending as much as the next 10 countries combined is not needed.

Cool, let’s pull out of all of our military bases globally and really speed up Chinese unipolar hegemony. Sounds fun! We can’t remove ourselves from the position we inherited in 1946 without disrupting the global power balance on a massive scale.

Idealism and global geopolitics don’t mix. There’s no supranational organization to mediate disputes between countries, at least yet. Without that, brute force/power projection is how it works.

Re: Microsoft wins $21.9B contract with U.S. Army to supply AR headsets

#170

Post by xvector »

fweespeech wrote: post #163
optimiz3 wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not zero-sum. Having a strong military allows you to pursue your (peaceful) interests without interference from others who disagree with your agenda.

https://www.pgpf.org/chart-archive/0053_defense-comparison Yes but spending as much as the next 10 countries combined is not needed.

Is it not? It’s possible that the amount of funding required scales exponentially with relative military power, as you have more nations that would be willing to dethrone you, so you must be able to withstand your opponents’ cumulative military strength.

Even with as much as we spend, China is a formidable military threat.

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