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What Happens In Vegas Happens In Afghanistan
theodp writes "After the morning commute from his Las Vegas apartment, Air Force captain Sam Nelson sits in a padded chair inside a low, tan building in Nevada, controlling a heavily armed drone aircraft soaring over Afghanistan, prepared to kill another human being 7,500 miles away if necessary. Welcome to the surreal world of drone pilots, who have a front-row seat on war from half a world away. 'On the drive out here, you get yourself ready to enter the compartment of your life that is flying combat,' explained retired Col. Chris Chambliss. 'And on the drive home, you get ready for that part of your life that's going to be the soccer game.' No wonder why the Air Force is interested in the Xbox LIVE crowd and the Army's opened a new arcade recruitment center!"
Remembers me of the movie Toys (1992), A military general inherits a toy making company and begins making war toys, and recruiting kids to "play" a war simulation game that was in fact a remote control of the real thing. It took less than ten years to make it happen.
My other signature is a car
The rules of war have changed... the enemy isn't a state, it's a force of people loyal to a cult that believes a corrupted religion.
Corrupted religion? Lets see here we have Muslims on one side and Christians on the other so which side are you talking about. They both seem pretty corrupted to me.
The irony of military robots is that we are using them to enforce a global economic system that is based on forcing humans to do labor in exchange for the right to consume the fruits of industry. Why not just build robots to do the work directly instead? Why not use global networks to freely share information about how to make the world a better place that works for everyone? The same is true for nuclear missiles intended to fight over oil and land instead of using the same technologies to build nuclear power plants (or solar ones and wind ones) or to create self-replicating space habitats or seasteads for endless new land. We need to start thinking in 21st century terms now that we have 21st century technology. Otherwise, we will likely accidentally kill ourselves with the tools of abundance.
As Albert Einstein said:
http://rescomp.stanford.edu/~cheshire/EinsteinQuotes.html
"The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker."
Or further:
http://www.aip.org/history/einstein/nuclear1.htm
"""
"Concern for man himself must always constitute the chief objective of all technological effort -- concern for the big, unsolved problems of how to organize human work and the distribution of commodities in such a manner as to assure that the results of our scientific thinking may be a blessing to mankind, and not a curse."
"""
Or more on how Einstein was more than the disconnected absent minded professor he is made out to be:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/sep2002/eins-s03.shtml
http://www.sacred-texts.com/aor/einstein/einsci.htm
It is not the nukes and drones that may kill us all eventually, it is the unrecognized irony.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
RC airplane flyers already have planes with real-time video feeds and some of them even have head-tracking goggles. Of course, they tend to be much smaller and short-range than a military drone.
You can search Youtube for 'fpv flight': http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=fpv+flight&search_type=&aq=f
One guy already weaponized one for the 4th of July: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBn1h0x-37E
I didn't say i blamed them. Piracy is and always will be an economic problem. A somali Pirate works for say 1 year, attacks a half a dozen ships captures one and his cut out of the bounty of several million is ~$100,000 dollars. it is the kind of money many in the USA wish they were making. The best part is if you are attacked and can't get away you put down your weapons, they capture you feed you better than you have eaten in months, and set you free.
as I said piracy is an economic problem. If taking a freighter hostage earns you more money easier than fishing in water polluted and over fished by others then people will go for it. An intelligent solution would be to setup fish farms under Somali control and to buy the product from them at current market price, People will go for the legitimate option if given a fair chance. it must be fair though.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.