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US Military Builds MMO Earth Simulator
transient writes "BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth with help from There. At the moment, only Kuwait City has been modeled, but the ultimate goal is to model the entire Earth using existing terrain data and a super-accurate physics model. While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"
If you don't understand another culture, talk to people who do. The gov't ignores those people, and just decides that it will decide things with an imaginary, "faith-based" approach. It doesn't work, guys!
This may a little off subject but why does the BBC report first about the US Militarys earth simulator?
Evolution or ID?
the US military is creating a second Earth.... the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.
Riiiiiight. Why would the military whant to model the earth for combat training? It's clearly for human interaction. Or did they mean squad-level interactions?
When they later place us into the pods, there will only be a brief moment in time lost as we switch to a virtual existance.
The more they understand the role society plays in terrorism, the better they'll be able to counteract it Firstly my two cents... You have Santa who controls the presents delivered around the world for millions of kids, and then
You're forgetting that it would not be in the military's best interest to live in a Utopia because the world would not need armed forces. Aside from that, when it comes to the US military, put your filtered Americanized book down and learn the truth for once. If you look at the majority of conflicts in this world, you would know the US played a major role through clandestine actions. Take the cold war for example. The United States engaged Russia to implode. Certainly their researchers had to have known about the nuclear factor that would come out of it concerning a splinter of countries with nukes. It would be moronic to think the collapse of the Soviet Union would make their arms disappear. So what do we have now, nukes on the black market. Irrelevant here, but you should know the role of the MIC (mil. ind, complex) a bit better from an outside perspective before you believe that the army is doing this in order for all of us to sing "I'd like to teach the world to sing...".
The ambitious project aims to help the US Army plan future conflicts which are unlikely to involve set-piece battles and instead be smaller in scale. Translation, lets simulate different combat scenarios here, so we'll know how to fight/kill (INSERT YOUR TERM HERE), when the time is appropriate.
MoFscker
so how many hospitals, text books for schools and environmental research does this giant Quake server costs?. You can put a price in dollars, but surely cant in terms of the damage is doing to your society. War is so destructive that just prepairing for it is bad for all of us.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
Pretty much useless, if you ask me.
What are the UN for? Isn't it supposed to serve the purpose of finding peaceful solutions for conflicts? At least in theory...
It boils down to the point of pure animal instinct: until you realise that your instistence in trying to win is going to inflict some serious phisical harm on you, there is no way in the world you, as a human, will stop fighting to get to the top of the food chain.
You could say "OK, and we just accept it as final", but if you lost, I bet you'd get the little guns again and call the simulation void...
Lay
Weakly typed languages will bring us armageddon
Does this bring to mind, for anyone else, that nifty piece of software Hiro had in Snow Crash ? I mean, of course, the model of Earth updated in real-time with satellite imaging data, etc...
Eerie.
OK,
- B
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
.. when destruction could be so much more fun. I wonder how far the sim will allow people to take this. Will players be allowed to get their hands on nuclear weapons, or will the scenarios be strictly regulated. If the former, I suspect there'll be Clans set up to see who can cause the most destruction to the virtual world. And what would happen if significant parts of world got nuked? Would it be reset, or would the simulation continue? Now, I'm off to watch 'The Thirteenth Floor' so I can completely break my brain.
Morpheus said that he didn't know what year it was, but some time early in the 21st century the war with the machines takes place...at least now we know how the Matrix is started.
Ok, that was an obvious observation. But they're making an online world that mirrors our own world. It reminds me some years back when I went to Siggraph in Chicago and Virtual Reality was the "next big thing". Someone showed a demo on a virtual world where you could walk in, pick up a book and flip through it. Someone remarked wouldn't it be cheaper just to buy a book...
So wouldn't it be cheaper to build a fake city with actors playing a part for the people being trained to interact in? Be employed by the US Army for acting in a simulated city so they can better understand how to weed out terrorist and help people in need, yet do so in a safe environment. Also, working with actors trained themselves in certain ways AND with the ability to actually "think" would be WAY better than AI in a game.
Just a thought, but probably a stupid thought on my part.
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
The nastier questions begin at the point at which an 'earth simulator' like this could have the control mechanisms tied to reality unbeknownst to 'pilots' within the sim.
You thought you were running through the sim... you had no idea you just took a UAV on a live mission and actually killed 2 dozen people. Missions take place, with perfect human guidance - and not even the soldiers involved knew it actually happened.
Worse yet - consider the game world altering the appearance of targets. Your strike deep in the Tora Bora mountains may have been a cover for an FBI raid on a militant compound in Colorado. The four phillipino terrorists you just greased with an armed unmanned terrestrial rover... well who in the hell were they?
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Well, it's nice that for once they at least TRY to understand people from other cultures. However, I'm not sure a simulator is the best way to do it (no, I didn't RTFA.. yet, I'll do it when my boss leaves the office :).
I'd send some anthropologists to do that job, but hey, that's just me.
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
The paranoid among us would start to worry real bad if they were trying to simulate the United States --- instead, here they are doing their initial simulation in an actual hotspot of genuine concern: the Middle East.
But maybe they should try to simulate the US, and make an accurate prediction as to US election results later this year! If one had a good model for prediction, one could make scads of cash at the bookmakers!
"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance."
If the US army is behind this, then you can guarantee that there is a strategic element behind the decision making that went into OKing this project, much like America's Army.
Perhaps this will all turn into a real-life version of the episode of Star Trek (original series) that had a centuries old war all played out on computer...and the citizens in the killed areas would disintigrate themselves as it was more clean (and real bombs have the habit of destroying the structures--which is never fun.)
China 1945-1946, 1950-1953
Korea 1950-1953
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-1969
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-1961
Vietnam 1961-1973
Congo 1964
Laos 1964-1973
Peru 1965
Cambodia 1969-1970
Lebanon 1983-84
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Bosnia 1995
Sudan 1998
Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 1998, 2001-2003
Iraq 1991-2003
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
"...in that Empire, the Cartographer's art achieved such a degree of perfection that the Map of a single Province occupied an entire City, and the Map of the Empire, an entire Province. In time, these vast Maps were no longer sufficient. The Guild of Cartographers created a Map of the Empire, which perfectly coincided with the Empire itself. But Succeeding Generations, with diminished interest in the Study of Cartography, believed that this immense Map was of no use, and not Impiously, they abandoned it to the Inclemency of the Sun and of numerous Winters."
No, fuck you... I don't need people to invent enemies so they have someone to protect me from. I've read Michael Moore's book and while I don't agree 100%; there is a lot of shit to answer for. When you all can learn to engage the public without making shit up and using scare tatics, I change my opinion.
As somebody who has worked in the Pentagon and with the policy makers (though not one myself), here is a big FUCK YOU to you and your total lack of knowledge as well as to the mods who gave you an insightful. I was in that building during the Clinton admin and the current Bush admin, and it is FULL of people doing their absolute best to protect you and the United States no matter who is in the White House.
As someone who happens not to be a citizen of the United States, here is a big FUCK YOU to you and your belief that the protection of the United States is the most important thing in the world. IT IS NOT. If God appeared before the world, and gave everyone a vote as to whether he should destroy the United States of America, or wipe out the rest of humanity instead, the USA would be a sea of glass within seconds.
As a spokesman for the world outside the USA, may I cordially request you get your fucking heads out of your fucking arses and take a look around you? How the FUCK do you figure that your "national security" is so important that "protecting yourselves" against a vague and unspecified threat is the only justification you need to drop cluster bombs on third world hospitals?
For what it's worth, I'm not a hardened anti-American zealot. Yet. But if America wants me to hate it, it's damn well going the right way about making sure I do.
These are actually 2 very good arguments. The parent to this poster (the AC) posts that violence DOES work, and he's right - but only to an extent. His point about the Romans & Carthaginians is very apt, and proves the point exactly - that violence solved the dispute, but that's because it was COMPLETE AND UTTER destruction of not just a subset of people, but an entire culture. They didn't just take out the military - they took out civilians, too. With a passion, they took out men, women, children, the elderly - no mercy for anyone. That's how that was solved.
That's the problem: the US & other like-minded states lack the lack of heart & conscience to do what the Romans did. They're not into genocide, they're not into complete and utter violent domination of cultures. That's what they stand for - everyone getting along, and removing those who don't want to get along.
As the parent rightly mentions, you can't just kill the one person - you have to kill them all. I'll go out on a limb here and say that we will never see the entire Middle East wiped out of existence by any military force.
The approach of working smarter and not harder fits better with the goals set out in search of a free world. Bullets work, but since we don't want to do that anymore and because we really probably CAN'T, this might be a better approach.
i'm amazed that i survived - an airbag saved my life.
Your russia comment is a straw man. Of course they knew the arms wouldnt dissapear. It was a calculated risk. It was play against one large country that you will(it was only a matter of time before some hardliner got in and descided that Europe needed to be under the control of the USSR) fight one day and the world will end, or break that country up and take your chances against the many smaller nations that wont be able to stand individually against your military. I dont know if that calculated risk is paying off, only time will tell with that.
;-)
Also, your argument about the Utopia is a bit suspect as well. Even if the military wanted no wars anymore Im sure they wouldnt get it as there will always be greedy people in the world who want more than their share(including the people who control that same MIC). Conflict is a fact of human existance, and the only way to hold on to what you own is to be willing to defend it.
Though, I would have to admit that you are right that the MIC does have a vested intrest in conflicts continuing around the world as opposed to the US seeking diplomatic solution. But I must say that 8 years of Clinton diplomacy has left the world in shambles and Im sure that 8 years of Bush warmongering will leave the world even worse off. What we need is a happy medium where the world can agree on a course of action with out the influence of a profit motive, but that will never happen. Hmm, maybe I should run for president.
"We Don't Need No Truthless Heros!" - Project 86
The only thing I'd point out is that most of the time, countries are not at war, which is why we have war-games. If field-commander X has had all his training tightly integrated to a computer-simulation that looks sufficently similar to a computer game that (s)he can't tell the difference, then when a real war comes around I believe problems will arise due to that.
:-]I'm aware of the military's needs, the connections between games and war (or more generally, conflict) and the works of Orson Scott Card :-) In retrospect I ought to have signed the original comment 'Ender' or possibly Bean.
I don't know if it's clear or not, but I wasn't arguing against wargames. I'm all for them: the military have to practice, in order to successfully practise. I was arguing against the use of an environment similar to a gaming one as a teaching tool. IMHO they should get out there and do it, not sit in front of a computer. I wonder if the computer will simulate the trucks getting mired in mud because someone drove it too fast... etc.
[Not aimed at you in particular, just on reading responses
ATB,
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
You're forgetting that it would not be in the military's best interest to live in a Utopia because the world would not need armed forces.
ok, flamebait, I'll bite.
Ludicrous statement - mankind has proven that since inception, no matter how much the libs think (or try to mandate) otherwise, mankind won't tolerate Utopia (in so far as everyone is nice, fair, and all things tolerant to everyone else so that we are all one big happy human family and weapons are not needed). Invariably, somebody decides he can better his position by taking advantage of all the unarmed, believing suckers and -snap!- no more Utopia (see Marx, Lenin, etc... )
Therefore, while you're statement may be true, it's ridiculous because Utopia is, by humankind's historic example, unattainable and impossible. Hence, the world does need armed forces. And, in my case, I want as many of the best, most devestating weapons surrounding me and mine as possible so as to deter and/or kill the other guy (preferably before he kills me [read: preemption]).
Trust, but verify : Peace through strength. The only things that work. Thos who believe otherwise are already dead.
(mod- because I'm a stinking, rabid conservative)
Why would anyone need this and how this is supposed to improve the interaction of personnel any more than real excercise is beyond me. Sure, launching rockets and stuff is cheap in a simulator, but they will NEVER make it as accurate as the real life, by definition. Thus the soldier mostly trained in the simulator (for cost reasons) will be unprepared for the real action.
I'd rather see my tax money invested into helicopters that don't crash into each other and cannons that can't do "friendly fire".
FYI, I spent 4 years in the US Navy. How about you?
As for attacks by foreign powers, can you specify which ones? Is Castro bothering me? Is there some reason I don't know that Cuba has to be quarantined but not China?
How about Iran, whose current govt only came to power because they finally got fed up with the govt which had been foisted on them by the US?
How about the many central American countries who had govts controlled by US banana companies and backed up by US Marines?
I dare say 90% of the foreign relation problems the US govt has are the direct result of something the US govt has done, allegedly on my behalf.
I am sick and tired of people in power, non-elected people, doing things on my behalf, and when the inevitable backlash comes, they start new nasty programs on my behalf.
Infuriate left and right
Huh? Are you calling me a liar or Peter Molyneux? I'll scan the magazine in if you'd like.