Slashdot Mirror
Future Weapons of War in the Works
An anonymous reader writes "Who needs explosive missiles when you can just launch a 3 foot long chunk of metal at near Mach 7 speeds and get the same result? Popular Science looks at weapons the military is developing for future wars including electromagnetic railguns, space darts, superfast torpedos, laser cannons, and a gun that fires a million rounds per minute."
I can understand the need for a good military, but to spend this much money for it.
:(
Personally I think it would be better spent if invested in medical research and to better the relationships with other countries (admit it, a whole big part of the world isn't a big fan of the US, putting it mildly).
Not trying to flamebait people
This is the sig that says NI (again)
I live in South Africa where, not to many years ago, sentiments such as yours were considered to be official government policy. Thus I'm pretty sure that investing money in education, rather that in weapons technology, is a much better investment.
Free Firefox news reader.
Friendly fire always happens in every war. Regardless of what you think from playing SOCOM, war is chaotic and mistakes do happen.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Second - as others have pointed out the electrical charge merely ignites the propelant rather than providing the impetus. Reducing your estimate by another factor of 100.
Third the weapon only fires for milliseconds when at full rate, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.
Fourth - the million rate is developed by a weapon that has about 50 barrels, so the velocity of each bullet can drop accordingly, reducing your estimate by another factor of 50.
Your last sentence was the most correct, it's the assumptions that invalidate our calculations at least by a factor of 2,500,000.
Actually, I have seen otherwise intelligent people readily adopt that stance (that terrorists hate the US because of our freedom, or wealth, or religious beliefs, or basically any non-aggressive act they can drum up).
Well, there actually is a component of religion in the mix. Islamic leaders are very concerned about the corrupting influence that our immoral society is having on their own people. Our sort of cultural imperialism is arguably *more* threatening to them than a few bombs, if you keep in mind that to them (as well as to many serious adherents of other faiths, like Christianity), death is not nearly as bad as damnation.
As a Christian, I look around our society and have to sympathize with them on that point, at least in part. Particularly when I consider that their view of our society is primarily the one portrayed by Hollywood.
And 9/11, of course, was not at all about innocent civilian deaths, it was mostly about trying to get the infidels out of the Holy Land (Saudi Arabia). Bin Laden's major beef is the fact that the Saudi Royal family invited drinking, porn-viewing US soldiers and their flesh-revealing women into Mohammed's sacred land.
In fact, very little of the Middle-Eastern terrorism has been in response to American attacks on innocent civilians. The hatred is largely created by cultural imperialism, support of Israel and various apparently anti-Arab actions taken by the US government over the last 30 years in the process of fighting the cold war and suppressing Iran and Iraq.
Of course, the civilian casualties of these actions just serve to reinforce the perception that America hates Arabs. That plus the religion-based fears plus the political disagreements leads to all of the Great Satan rhetoric and the moral "justification" of terror attacks.
Be careful not to fall into your own groupthink and excessive simplification. The causes of the situation are many, varied and complex, and there is plenty of irrationality, self-serving and blind disregard for human life on both sides of the question.
Overall, I think we need to be more sensitive to the Arab world, and less heavy-handed in our approach to international relations around the globe, but I think that there's ultimately nothing we could do that would erase the fear and hatred. Middle-eastern societies are in the grip of their own great internal turmoil, as they attempt to decide whether they're going to be Islamic or secular, whether they're going to join the rest of the world in the materialism we call progress or whether they're going to stay "pure". America is the ideal symbol for one side of this conflict, and much of the hatred directed our way arises from that struggle, over which we have no direct control.
Over time, the Middle East will eventually join the rest of the world, become secularized, progressive, open and democratic. Why is this inevitable? Because that's what the vast majority of people individually want. In the case of devout and semi-devout Muslims, they also want to honor their religion and obey their religious leaders -- who do not want secularization and progress, and see that openness and democracy lead to empowerment of the common man who will act against his own best interest (in their view). But, over time, the desire for individual freedom and economic progress will push these societies away from religious control.
Just don't expect the change to be painless, or to stay within the Islamic nations' own borders.
Finally, it's also important to realize that everything I've said here is a sweeping generalization. The Arab nations are not a unified whole. Iraq is already very secularized (was prior to Saddam, and during Saddam's reign, although he used religion), Iran is very Islamist, Saudi Arabia is Islamist, but still trying to be progressive, Egypt is a melting pot with lots of factions and counter-factions, and a government that is secular. I don't know enough about Syria and Jordan to comment, but I'm sure they have their own, unique situations.
Really, it's much more complex than just "they want to kill us because we keep killing them".
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There's a large difference between protesting a war unilaterally begun under obviously false pretenses, and not being willing to fight for anything at all.
And while we're quoting:
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"
- Samuel Johnson