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Robotic Cannon Loses Control, Kills 9
TJ_Phazerhacki writes "A new high tech weapon system demonstrated one of the prime concerns circling smarter and smarter methods of defense last week — an Oerlikon GDF-005 cannon went wildly out of control during live fire test exercises in South Africa, killing 9. Scarily enough, this is far from the first instance of a smart weapon 'turning' on its handlers. 'Electronics engineer and defence company CEO Richard Young says he can't believe the incident was purely a mechanical fault. He says his company, C2I2, in the mid 1990s, was involved in two air defence artillery upgrade programmes, dubbed Projects Catchy and Dart. During the shooting trials at Armscor's Alkantpan shooting range, "I personally saw a gun go out of control several times," Young says. "They made a temporary rig consisting of two steel poles on each side of the weapon, with a rope in between to keep the weapon from swinging. The weapon eventually knocked the pol[e]s down."' The biggest concern seems to be finding the glitches in the system instead of reconsidering automated arms altogether."
The advantages of faster reaction time of machines and their intrinsic cold blood are too tempting not to continue developing such stuff.
The other big advantage is that the next bush will be able to blame the slaughter of civilians in the next iraq on a firmware update gone bad.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
"Made in China"?
I think you missed a bit. See, they're making guns. Clearly human life means nothing to them. Under the assumption that human life means nothing, well, yes, this is funny. After all, if one equals two, then I'm the king of Armenia.
It's unimaginable to me that we don't just imprison people who make or purchase firearms. Who wants to be shot? What else is a gun good for?
Of course, people act like it makes a difference who is doing the killing. Americans are even fond of the notion that if they own the gun, it's ok, the only problem is when 'criminals' have guns - rather missing the point that by owning a gun they are undertaking a plan to kill somebody - from which it is readily concluded that they are criminals. Even in the civilised world, it is widely held that it is legitimate for agents of the state to be armed. But guess what? A state that plans to kill people is a terrorist state, and has no legitimacy left - dead people, after all, cannot vote.
When you think about it, it's all bloody hilarious.