U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
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Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#2Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#3Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
If there were a pilot in a plane flying over Yemen or Pakistan bombing people, the outrage would be far worse. I don't see a difference, but many people seem to. Either way, we shouldn't be doing it.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#4This reminds me of the, TOM THE DANCING BUG: "Hello! You've Been Targeted For a Drone Assassination!" cartoon.
http://boingboing.net/2012/03/14/tom-the-dancing-bug-hello.h...
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#5Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
Maybe because it's so impersonal to pilot a remote-controlled toy on a screen thousands of miles away that when you see little black and white pixels moving on your TV, you have less moral qualms about pushing the little red button on your joystick?
Maybe because you're so far away from that reality -- literally and figuratively -- that you're not experiencing your conscience and the fear of consequences quite the same way, making it easier to take reckless actions that you would otherwise think twice about had it been coming directly from the barrel of your gun, so to speak?
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#6Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
Maybe because it's so impersonal to pilot a remote-controlled toy on a screen thousands of miles away that when you see little black and white pixels moving on your TV, you have less moral qualms about pushing the little red button on your joystick? Maybe because you're so far away from that reality -- literally and figuratively -- that you're not experiencing your conscience and the fear of consequences quite the sa…
Good question, but seriously, no.
You can actually test that hypothesis yourself very easily. Go look at some of the more gory scenes from Saw, or the Aliens movies. If you're like many typical internet people they won't even phase you. Now go and find some of the typical rotten.com / liveleak content and see how much you can stomach of that. Likely not a lot and not easily at all.
Knowing that something is real makes a MASSIVE difference.
Further, being on the ground with a gun, facing armed and active enemies² makes you more likely and less inhibited to recklessly kill people, because while there may be consequences to killing, the consequence to being killed is FAR greater.
Soldiers need to be trained to not go full auto with their rifles for a reason.
² Just a note to make clear that i edited that part in as clarification.
vvvv For one, that book doesn't seem to cover direct vs remote combat, which is the comparison i was making, and further: Read the reviews underneath.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#7Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
Because they're concerned that the lack of a pilot, and thus, pilot risk, means the US is more willing to order attacks, since there is no political risk to themselves should something be shot down?
Because they're concerned with the change in warfare this heralds, that we're moving to using technologies that explicitly and autonomously target civilian areas, and deciding who 'enemy combatants' are based on presidential mandate, rather than military engagements, thus setting a terrible precedent for future wars (i.e., if we ever were to find ourselves at war with another country, or even not at war, just that one of our citizens did something against a country, and that country decided to use drones to attack civilian sites, claiming they were attacking enemy combatants, what recourse would we have on the international stage)?
Because they're concerned not so much with drones, but with the precedent set by presidentially ordered assassination, and through means known to cause collateral damage (unlike most alleged assassination attempts prior)?
Because the entire policy has led to intense fear in the areas we're flying drones over; not only are we now inspiring terror in our attempt to find and kill terrorists (...), but we're hurting our chances at winning over 'hearts and minds' and such, and likely raising up a generation in these countries that hates and fears us.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe because it's so impersonal to pilot a remote-controlled toy on a screen thousands of miles away that when you see little black and white pixels moving on your TV, you have less moral qualms about pushing the little red button on your joystick? Maybe because you're so far away from that reality -- literally and figuratively -- that you're not experiencing your conscience and the fear of consequences quite the sa…
Good question, but seriously, no. You can actually test that hypothesis yourself very easily. Go look at some of the more gory scenes from Saw, or the Aliens movies. If you're like many typical internet people they won't even phase you. Now go and find some of the typical rotten.com / liveleak content and see how much you can stomach of that. Likely not a lot and not easily at all. Knowing that something is real make…
"...being on the ground with a gun makes you more likely and less inhibited..."
It's actually the exact opposite. Seeing the person you're about to kill makes it harder to pull the trigger (given a normal psychology, for whatever that's worth). If you're interested, the book linked to below goes into great detail about this.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#9I wonder what happens when a non-US entity flies a plane to kill US citiz ..
At least OBL had a valid reason ( for ppl who don't know this - he did it as a revenge to what israel was doing in Lebanon ). Killing civilians without reason is genocide and history will judge US appropriately.
Re: U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes
#10Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.
I dunno, I guess it's because people don't understand that drones aren't autonomous, and think Skynet or robot overlords fly them and pull the trigger.