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Pentagon To Send Robot Soldiers to Iraq
conJunk points out this AP story carried by Salon (also covered by various sources linked from Google News) "about the Pentagon's plan to send robot soldiers to Iraq in March or April. The program, Special Weapons Observation Reconnaissance Detection Systems, uses Foster-Miller TALON robots, and is said to be "years ahead of the larger Future Combat System vehicles currently under development by big defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics Corp." If it's successful, maybe our men and women in uniform will have to team up with the United Auto Workers to fight the robo-threat to their jobs." Note that (whatever other considerations you might have about such deployment), the Rules of Robotics that some readers have linked to don't really apply to remote-controlled drones, which is what these are.
Note that (whatever other considerations you might have about such deployment), the Rules of Robotics that some readers have linked to don't really apply to remote-controlled drones, which is what these are.
Uh, more like note that the "Rules of Robotics" don't apply in real life.
Somehow, I have this feeling that anything which reduces the amount of outrage at a war is a bad thing. Why? Cause wars are bad things. Why? Cause killing people is a bad thing. Why? Well, I don't think anyone knows the answer to that. It's just a given.
How we know is more important than what we know.
They are robots. They'll require soldiers to operate them. In fact, I hesitate to call them robots. They're more like glorified waldoes. I suppose if the mass of hydraulics that assembles cars can be called a robot, so can these.
But they are not soldiers. There's a lot more to being a soldier than combat.
REM Old programmers don't die. They just GOSUB without RETURN.
If only one side has drones, it sanitizes slaughter entirely too much. It would actually distort the meaning of democracy altogether. I would like to think a "democracy" is a nation where its people would be willing to place their lives in danger to protect their freedoms. Robot armys would seem to me to be a tool for empire building, and of tyranny.
Democratic societies seem to abhor seeing their sons and daughters killed in war.
And all societies with different government structures don't???
It's not like wanting your offsprings to live is a basic human trait, or a basic animal instinct common to most critters on earth or anything, no no no, that's specific to democracies!
You can't take the sky from me...
You're joking, right?
A robot could commit war crimes, and it could easily be blamed on a 'technical fault', the manufacturers, or anyone other than the military.
You also forget that a robot would follow every order given to it, without question. Think about that for a moment.
Striking military targets is not terrorist action.
Halle-fucking-lujah!!
Someone who finally understands the definition of terrorism!
Terrorism is not bombing convoys or suicide bombs against mess halls. These are military targets. Even the crashing of a plane into the Pentagon was not a terrorist act, since the point was to attack a military target. The victims families might not like it applied to their family members, but those civilians killed on the plane were what is termed "collateral damage" in what was a military attack by definition.
Taking civilian hostages and killing them if your demands aren't met is terrorism, but much(or most, hard to tell from the watered-down news in the USA) of what the insurgents in Iraq do is not terrorism.
I agree, but I think the side that has the drones will not...
certainly, they will only be used to secure democracy, free enslaved peoples around the world, and protect against WMD's.
Really, I live in the US, I was out at happy hour at Mackies in DC when Bush made the announcement that we were going to invade Iraq.... everyone cheered. They bought rounds of shots for eachother. It was disgusting- you don't celebrate the start of a war, you celebrate it's end. We are already as sanitized to the violence, pain, and suffering of others. Just so long as it doesn't happin "on our soil".
Here's to finally giving Bush his exit strategy in November
So by that logic we should throw out all the body armor, armored vehicles, medics, and anything else that makes our troops safer.
Hell lets throw out all that modern technology and go back to the "good old days" like during the Civil War, where over 50,000 died in one three day battle (thats around twice the total number of deaths in the entire Iraq war). I mean because of the horrors of war back then, people were so peaceful and never engaged in violence to settle a dispute.
Hey, while we are at it, lets stop all those researchers making drugs to help AIDs patients. The more horrible the disease is, the fewer people will engage in reckless sex and drugs.
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
Well, lets see... Who is it that actually LIVES in nature, grows the food you eat and mines the resources for your daily living. Who breathes fresh air and toils to make an honest living?
You do know that food production and mining in the US are inherently and inescapably unprofitable when in direct competition with other regions in the world and survive only by the subsidies given to you by those "city slickers", don't you? A little gratitude to them for preserving your way of life would be in order I think.
But if that is the definition of democracy, then Communist China, and even Iraq are democracys because the population consents to the rule. (Before y'all fling yourselves at you keyboards, I don't believe they are democracies. I am merely questioning what I believe is a flawed definition.)
In Canada, the definition of a democracy is responsible government. They who govern us must answer to us. And it isn't just the election every few years that holds them in check. We also have the fact that the Prime Minister has to answer to his caucus and his cabinet. They can depose him by several political means. He has to answer to the House of Commons every day that it sits and then some.
And who in the countries cited above in the first paragraph could say "Nay" to the leader. That's what made them non-democratic.