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Military Robots to Gain Advanced Sight
coondoggie brings us a NetworkWorld report discussing iRobot's plans to include Laser Radar technology in their military robots. Quoting:
"Specifically the robot-maker is licensing Advanced Scientific Concepts' 3-D flash Ladar which uses laser beams to scan and process targets. The system has the ability to create a virtual 3D picture of an entire area. IRobot ... believes the technology will provide new navigation and mapping capabilities for future generations of robots and unmanned ground vehicles and pave the way for autonomous vehicles to lead convoys into dangerous territory, search contaminated buildings for casualties, or enable bomb squads to safely investigate suspicious objects."
Oh, yeah, complaining about wasting our money on war is just "flamebait"
Lose money? Ha.
The US made buckets of money in WW2 for example, it emerged as a world superpower as a result, with more money than a thing with lots of money. Wars require resources that have to be manufactured. Manufacturing those goods makes the companies money, and people get jobs, which gives them money. This helps the economy grow.
I'm not especially pro war, as in you wouldn't catch me joining up, but I am aware of the economic benefits it can bring.
The only time it doesn't is if your country is pwned. Even then its no all bad.
Japan has no military force beyond that required for self defence, and a small navy. That saves them a lot, and they got tons of money from the US post war to rebuild. Same for Germany. Its rebuilding was pretty much funded by the US. Same for the UK, which rebuilt using American money. The resultant trade links and diplomatic relationships have served the US well over the years.
Now the US is pouring money into Afganistan and Iraq. Tht might not be so good for the US fiscally right now, but it may pay off eventually.
War is a great motivator for people to do things, which can force an economy to produce when it's failing, especially if due to labor/management conflicts or disorganization rather than supply chain problems (like no resources or investment money to buy them). It also literally destroys your competition. If you emerge as the source for rebuilding, it can create demand, which can multiply in return if you have enough capital left to invest in growing the destroyed areas' own production, which can repay your investment at interest. War also lets the victor specify the loser's economy, and often the economy of the allies dependent on your helping them recover (eg. the US required Europe to switch from local coal to imported oil to get money from the Marshall Plan). And of course the winner can steal all the booty from the loser.
But all of that has to count against the destruction of capital, and therefore wealth, that is the main activity of war. And count against the destruction of the war materiel capital itself, like the bombs, bullets, fuel, planes, boats, tanks, trucks... all of which consumed wealth to produce, and create nothing, but themselves are destroyed in the process.
None of the upside is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, and all of the downside. Those countries aren't going to be growing into big customers for American industry, because their people hate us now. They'll be much better customers for our competitors, especially China, and probably Russia, which are also their neighbors. Sure, Iraq's oil is booty, but even if American oil corps get it, that's not good for "the" economy: it's good for the American oil corp economy, which is so multinational and crony that it doesn't really help the vast majority of Americans. In fact, it helps the oil corps steal from us.
The US went through a serious recession for several years after victory in WWII. It went through another one after defeat in Vietnam. The Iraq and Teror wars are doing nothing but damage to the overall US economy, and show no sign of any reason for benefit, outside a small crony group like Exxon/etc, Halliburton, Blackwater, all of which offshore their profits and don't even pay taxes on them.
"War is good for the economy" is one of the Big Lies. Unless you're in the war business itself. Which we're not. The rest of us are casualties.
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make install -not war
I, too, worked on the grand/urban challenges. At one of the post-competition conferences Ibeo (owned by SICK) claimed that they would be able to produce their 4-beam LIDARS (with builtin target tracking that works semi-OK in highway-type scenarios) for $300 by two years time. Of course the Ibeo ALASCAs and such still have moving parts and work in only specific situations, but they're getting pretty good.. or at least better.
Having said that, a *huge* problem with LIDARS (like RADARs or any other active sensors) in a military environment is that carrying a LIDAR is the same as carrying a homing device for any basic IR-targeted bomb/missile.
"Where's that convoy, Sam?"
"Put on your IR goggles and look for the huge disco light in the middle of the desert, Bob!"
"Wow, Sam, thats WICKED!"
So I'm not sure how they're addressing that, or if they're hoping for an application niche that doesn't deal with being shot at altogether.
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Now the US is pouring money into Afganistan and Iraq. Tht might not be so good for the US fiscally right now, but it may pay off eventually. You seem to be glossing over the enourmous increases in National Debt that have gone hand in hand with every major military action starting with WWI.
WWI jumped the national debt from ~3 billion to ~25 billion
WWII ballooned the national debt even further to ~260 billion
The USA never payed off all the debt accumulated in WWII & it has only gone up since.
To claim that Afghanistan and Iraq might pay off in the future is delusional at best.
Yes, War grows the economy, but you'd have to be blind not to see that the economy is mortgaged to the hilt because of it.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
It went through another one after defeat in Vietnam. Yes, the 1973 oil crisis, 16 months. Only partly caused by war spending.
Really, the rest of your point is rendered moot because all your supporting evidence is nonsense.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.