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Americans Uncomfortable With Possibility of Ubiquitous Drones, Designer Babies
alphadogg writes: "Americans are optimistic about scientific inventions on the horizon, though are cautious about future uses of DNA, robots, drones and always-on implants, according to the latest Pew Research Center survey on future technology (PDF). Asked about the likelihood of certain advances 50 years from now, survey respondents were most sure that lab-grown custom organs for transplant will happen (81%). Only 19% expect humans will be able to control the weather by then. When asked how they felt about possible near-term advances, 65% thought robot caregivers for the elderly is a bad idea, 63% didn't want to see personal drones in U.S. airspace, and 66% thought parents altering the DNA of prospective children was a bad idea."
Just like 10 years after hiroshima, atom bombs were a fundamental right, right?
Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with the intent and apparent results of the 2nd amendment, but we don't actually enable much of a civilian arms race in the US.
... about replacing the baby-delivering storks with drones.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This is disingenuous, IANAL, but I can't think of a single piece of legislation enacted in the last 50 years that increased our rights. Decreased, sure...
What if eugenics stopped involving depriving people of their right to reproduce, and instead just targeted the actual genes/gene combinations that are "bad"?
Could we get the best of both worlds? Or is eugenics always wrong, on account of pre-judging people on DNA? Regardless of the ethics, I find myself getting strongly behind genetic engineering of that sort being available, at least.
True, but we're already pretty far with personal drones. They don't need to have a gun on them to be dangerous. If the personal drone thing takes off, the government won't need to operate spy drones, the public will do it for them.
Everybody who is not properly trained in their use having a drone is a horrible idea, kind of like giving everyone who is not properly trained in their use a gun is a bad idea.
FTFY. Proper training has a tendency to fix a lot of the issues with people misusing tools, outliers notwithstanding.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Literally nothing in common with Marxs' philosophy= communism. Who cares if the actual ideas you're describing go back more clearly to Machiavelli and Hobbes? Might as well call it communism, since those were the bad guys.
Just like 10 years after hiroshima, atom bombs were a fundamental right, right?
Reductio ad absurdum aside...
To be fair, it would be pretty damn difficult to kill millions of people in seconds with a drone. At least, one that's not carrying a significant nuclear payload.
FWIW, I both support the 2nd Amendment and firmly believe that nobody is responsible enough to have nuclear weapons, governments included.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Lots of things don't need guns to be dangerous.
Oh god, I sound like a gun-nut. But rather than qualify why that statement isn't an implicit defense of guns, I'm just gonna let it stand.
It's funny how reductio ad absurdum is a logical fallacy, and also the name of a literal logical method of proof.
I was just trying to assert that increases in military technology are moderately decoupled from available civilian weaponry. Which I feel can stand on its own.
Fiction isn't reality.
I don't give a fuck about personal ones - but the government use of drones will lead to more intrusion on our lives, more spying, more death and destruction.
It's funny how reductio ad absurdum is a logical fallacy, and also the name of a literal logical method of proof.
Not all that funny, reductio ad absurdum disproves the hypothesis you started with. The fallacy of the hypothesis proves its logical negation.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
Yeah, sure, tell me how that works out for you when you tell a judge that after you buy yourself some yellow cake.
OK, I get that it is currently a bad idea to try to clone humans or modify an embryo's DNA. We essentially do not yet know how do it with an acceptable safety. So, the process is likely to cause harm to humans, and is wrong.
But eventually, it will be safe and probably fairly easy.
At that point, what is wrong with eliminating a mutation in an embryo to prevent a disease during subsequent adulthood. And if there is nothing wrong with that, then what is wrong with making a change to make the eventual adult a smarter person?
The obligitory "Dihydrogen Oxide" reference: ...applies here.
http://www.dhmo.org/research.h...
Hmm, I've seen two cops this week. One traffic stop, one driving through the neighborhood. Hardly "so many security forces on US streets"....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Fiction isn't reality.
Heh, tell that to the 39% of survey respondents who apparently believe teleportation will be "solved" by 2064.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
No, really. I think you've got a mistake
The fallacy goes like this:
As a consquence of this rule you've proposed X is true.
X is absurd
your premise is flawed
the logical version goes like this:
As a consequence of your premises X is true
X is also false
X and not X is absurd
your premise is flawed.(thus the logical opposite of the premise)
The reason the former is a fallacy and the latter is a proof, is usually because the underlying arguments of consequence in the former take an irrational extreme that aren't true logical to arrive at the absurdity.
And in the latter, each step can be verified.
Nominally, if the method by which you reach the absurd conclusion is valid in the original argumentation presented by your opponent, it's a good take down.
It just usually isn't. This fallacy is usually another fallacy in carefully constructed disguise. I defend its usage.
Yeah, sure, tell me how that works out for you when you tell a judge that after you buy yourself some yellow cake.
They can take my twinkies away when they pry them out of my cold dead hands, judge or no judge.
Romanes eunt domus, biches.
Seeding clouds to make it rain is 1950s technology and recently Moscow's mayor made it snow IIRC.
Mostly random stuff.
The 24th amendment to the consitution and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 both come to mind (although the amendment was ratified January 23rd, 1964, so it's a few months over 50 years). I agree with the statement that our laws tend to restrict rights much more than they grant them, though. In theory, you've got the right to do anything that isn't forbidden by law, so the only laws that cause a net gain in freedom are the ones that restrict actions that take away someone else's freedom.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
I don't follow you, both have the ad absurdum label for much the same reason. Both can be applied correctly or not. I fail to see how it is "funny". But we're severely off topic here, so never mind; it's probably some really specific humor deficiency on my part.
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
outliers notwithstanding
Drunk people are not "outliers" and no amount of training is going to fix that particular class of problems.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Heh, tell that to the 39% of survey respondents who apparently believe teleportation will be "solved" by 2064.
And tell that to Jules Verne and his whacky idea that people could to to the moon, or to the nitwit who came up with the fictional idea of "waldoes".
If other countries start creating "tiger kids" en mass, then the USA may be forced to accept the idea in order to economically compete.
Resistance is fu......oh sh8t!
Table-ized A.I.
This is the kind of blatant generalizations that cause unnecessary fear of government drones.
FEMA is a government agency and could use drones to quickly survey disaster areas and send help where it is need.
The Forest Service is a government agency that could use drones to spot for water bombers and keep pilots out of dangerous situations.
The Forest Service can also use drones to survey the health of the forests.
There are many very good uses for government drones.
more death and destruction.
The most government drones that will be authorized for use in US airspace will be surveillance drones. How can surveillance drones lead to death and destruction? The only exception to this I can see would be in cases like the armored bulldozer rampage. Sorry but drones are not going to be shooting Hellfires at speeders.
"...66% thought parents altering the DNA of prospective children was a bad idea..."
Unfortunately, nearly half of Americans still have no problem surgically altering the genitals of their sons in order to suit their own aesthetic and sexual preferences or to satisfy their own religious blood rituals.
I see your point. And much though I admire Verne and his visionary imagination... I was under the impression that he was extrapolating from contemporary science and engineering.
Now, perhaps I'm just hopelessly out of touch, but I'm not aware of any current work, not even any out-of-box blue sky imagineering (eew), toward actual teleportation.
Would love to be wrong though!
Gosh, thanks. That must be why the other ships call me Meatfucker -- GCU Grey Area (Eccentric)
outliers notwithstanding
Drunk people are not "outliers" ...
No, but sociopaths are.
and no amount of training is going to fix that particular class of problems
A properly trained person is far less likely to try and use Dangerous Tool X when inebriated than an untrained person. Even so, we have to learn to accept that sometimes bad people do bad shit, but that's not a valid excuse for limiting the rights of the billions of not-bad people who don't do bad shit.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
If the personal drone thing takes off, the government won't need to operate spy drones, the public will do it for them.
Just look at all the cell phone pictures you see posted around the internet, cats, stupid accidents, and girls butts, etc. I doubt that personal drones are going to garner the kind of information a government spy agency would want or at least make really hard to sift through.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people, who are properly trained to use guns, to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
I am sure you would agree to the idea of a gun license to keep arms, right mate?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I've debated a lot of gun rights supporters, and I get a distinct impression that they are heavily influenced by just what you describe. They seem fixated on scenarios that could come straight out of a movie - they love to talk about how they will defend their family against home invasion, or shoot a mugger, or stop the rampaging gunmen before he kills innocent people.
The gun rights supporters oppose training requirements for the same reason pro-choice supporters oppose any forms of restriction on abortion. They both recognise that regulation can easily be used as constitutional workrounds: The government cannot ban X, but they can require X is only available after filling in form 3940-subsection-C in triplicate and submitting to a federal agency which has an annual budget of $50 and a two-year backlog on processing the paperwork.
This is a very common approach in the US, where various levels of government are often working at cross-purposes and actively trying to subvert one another. Witness things like zoning laws being used to ban sexually orientated businesses, or sexual offender exclusion zones that are intentionally overlapped so entire cities are without a square inch not somehow covered. If there was a requirement that individuals were required to undergo gun training and get a license, an anti-gun administration could deliberately underfund the department or set certification standards so high as to be humanly impossible to pass. In the same way that some states have passed laws which require any doctor performing an abortion have admitting privilidges at a local hospital, in full knowledge that for many clinics there are no hospitals within range that would grant such privledges and thus the requirement is intentionally impossible to comply with.
I am sure you would agree to the idea of a gun license to keep arms, right mate?
I'm not GP, but yeah, actually.
The word "license" is a bit tricky, because it implies a bit of tracking and government oversight which probably won't fly in a business like gun sales. However, requiring some form of in-house training before sale of a gun wouldn't be a terrible idea.
As one option, we could require a certified gun-safety person administer the training (look, I'm making jobs!) Before you purchase a firearm, you and Captain Safety have to spend some time on the range. He/she would observe as you load, fire, clear, etc. Maybe it could even be similar to vehicle certification (i.e. your drivers license) in that there are different flavors. Just like I'm only licensed to drive a car, and not a bus, motorcycle or big rig. I'm only licensed for handguns, not shotguns, rifles, etc.
Just a few idea... but yeah. Having some mandatory training wouldn't be a terrible idea. And if someone is already familiar with firearms, the training would be a breeze. Just another day on the range.
This signature is false.
I am GP, and I could not have said it better myself.
We, the American community, can train each other in the proper operation of the tool known as a "firearm" without the nanny-state looking over our shoulders, as we do with so many other specialized tools. To whit, if one wants to learn how to use the tools needed to build guitars, they apprentice with a luthier, not some government agent.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
A drone is just a remote controlled aircraft with a camera. I had several "drones" in the late 1980's as a teenager, for fuck's sake. Get over the knee-jerk raction equating "drone" with "terminator T-1000" and come back to sanity.
The gun rights supporters oppose training requirements for the same reason pro-choice supporters oppose any forms of restriction on abortion.
This being the second reply apparently presuming that I was referring to some sort of government-approved licensure process, I feel compelled to point out that I by no means meant to imply that either situation should require such approval.
I was merely pointing out the absolute fact that properly trained people are far less likely to misuse a tool than people who are not properly trained.
The government cannot ban X, but they can require X is only available after filling in form 3940-subsection-C in triplicate and submitting to a federal agency which has an annual budget of $50 and a two-year backlog on processing the paperwork.
Proof in the pudding: the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Certification has the same issue as gun licensing, which is not an issue for gun shops as much as it's a concern for being tracked and tagged as a gun owner by the Government.
Make it part of public schools where everyone is a potential gun owner and I'd agree easily.
The common misnomer of the 2nd amendment is that a person owns a gun for self protection. The real purpose of the amendment is so that citizens in mass can revolt against corrupt government. (I don't mean to imply you made this misnomer, just preventing some trolling).
If everyone was a potential gun owner and trained to operate weapons, we are not worse off. Corrupt politicians certainly would not like it, but as far as I'm concerned they should be on trial and/or in jail anyway.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
More free skeet targets.
If you want your robot back, don't send it over my airspace.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Learn Latin you imperitus fool!!
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Are you really stupid enough to think that the bozos in Nevada would have had a chance against a Hellfire missile? You really think that the reason the gov't didn't send in an attack drone is because the loonies were armed with popguns? Damn, the ACs are getting dumber all the time.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
51% agree with the statement: "Computers will be able to create art as well as humans."
I wonder if people realize that this requires an AI so advanced that it's indistinguishable from the human brain, with fine motor skills to match. I see this as highly unlikely.
At least, it's far less likely than controlling the weather, which is something we can do already: http://www.geoengineeringwatch...
At this point I view eugenics as nearly always bad. With most "improvement" we'll most likely reduce our diversity, and that's pretty bad.
I'm inclined to ask why that's bad. Sounds like it would solve race hate problems.
Anyway, I think the problem is likely to be the opposite. More likely that whacky people - the sort that currently name their children things like "Pilot Inspektor" and "Crime Fighter", are also the sort of people who would think it fun to opt for a green baby, one who will grow to 8 ft high, or one with four arms.
Wiki does a horrible job of explaining this fallacy, and only gives one use case and definition. I'd recommend a college Logic book which explains the fallacy very well in numerous ways. My old text book spends a chapter on this one because it's not a simple fallacy.
To your second point, it's not a humor deficiency. People were showing different ways of defining this fallacy. Some of them correct, others not. A fallacy is a logic error, it does not prove true or false. It can surely help to demonstrate the logical errors made in statements, but the reason for calling out fallacies in debate is to reduce an argument to it's simplest terms and invalidate irrational/illogical statements.
Example: "The sky is blue you ass!" may contain an ad hominem and may contain a true statement. I have given no proof as to the color or whether or not you are an "ass". I just presented a fallacy hoping that people believe me.
In Logic we would break that into two statements and choose what's relevant to our debate. If we were trying to determine people's opinion of you, we would keep the later calling sky color a fallacy (it could fit quite a few). If we were debating the color of the sky the former would stay and the later would be called fallacy (most likely ad hominem).
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Most of the world knows that the more guns there are in the hands of citizens, the more shootings and gun crimes there are.
Most of the world _might_ think this, but know it? I've seen evidence for that assertion and it's inverse. I don't know which is sound, nor do I care. Clearly mere legal ownership rates is not the most important factor in gun violence considering you can find evidence to support any position you wish to take on that one.
And I'm pretty sure those people were "properly trained" in the use of the automobile.
By whom? In every state I've lived in drivers license requirements are so lax they might as well just stop pretending and rubber stamp every application. I'm "pretty sure" hardly anyone has been "properly trained" in the use of an automobile in the USA.
Your sarcasm is noted, but misplaced.
It's true that America doesn't yet have a police state to rival the gestapo. Nevertheless there are many troubling developments that have created observable similarities. Furthermore the march of technology has allowed much less visibility of the same degree of surveillance.
The gestapo couldn't have dreamed of a quickly searchable list of every phone call in Italy, its time, related phone numbers, and numbers called by those other numbers. They couldn't have dreamed of being able to know every time a person looked at a map. Yet with modern phone networks, smart phones, connected GPS's, and the internet these things are a reality in today's America.
Not having a person physically looking on doesn't make a surveilled act more private. I would argue that the average member of the public being unaware of these things makes their acts LESS private: The American public doesn't have the luxury of realizing its being watched.
As for the presence of police technology allows much more effective police. Where the Gestapo would have needed a dozen men the FBI needs one. So where there were 12 police stations in Italy here is needed 1 to surveil to the same degree. This leads to less apparent police with the same effect.
You could argue that police don't harass every citizen every morning, that one doesn't encounter a road block every mile. But with the "papers please" automatically mechanized that's not necessary.
And in actual encounters with police a more and more prevalent attitude exists among local, state, and federal police that every citizen is an enemy. It's become very common for police to use intimidation and as much force as they can legally get away with to accomplish their aims.
The constitution is seen as an obstruction by police and citizens who exercise their rights are given the worst possible legal treatment. Furthermore it's well known that even "good" cops lie in court to cover up for bad cops. An "us against them" attitude prevails and gets worse every time an internal affairs cop covers something up to save paperwork.
And what is legal is getting more and more broadly defined as the supreme court chips away at the constitution with ruling after ruling.
Finally, don't confuse prosperity with freedom. If I get into a nice car every morning that doesn't negate the fact that three pictures of the license plate are uploaded before I arrive.
The rights we sell today will be purchased tomorrow by our children -- in blood.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
We, the American community, can train each other in the proper operation of the tool known as a "firearm" without the nanny-state looking over our shoulders, as we do with so many other specialized tools.
Evidence says otherwise!
I agree. Freedom is largely dangerous--and scary. We should seriously work to abolish it. Let's start by whittling away at family ties by associating government with fundamental welfare of individuals....then we can move on to legislating the minute details of people's lives and parlay that into an attack on education by nullifying personal responsibility. I have a website....whitehouse.gov
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Indeed...if you haven't developed heel-toe shifting naturally or you do not know what it is then you are most likely a danger to other drivers--barely competent.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Total Burn.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
You shut your pie hole! I just learned how to build websites from a government training program and....
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Everybody having a drone is a horrible idea, kind of like giving everyone a gun is a bad idea. I expect owning a drone will be a "fundamental right" in the U.S. within 10 years.
Then you can use your guns to shoot your neighbor's drones and all will be well.
Seriously though, this seems unlikely as drones are not even remotely mentioned in the US constitution.
It amazes me how people don't understand that owning weaponry is a right that NO OTHER CITIZEN is supposed to be able to infringe. Every single adult citizen is supposed to be able to own a weapon, regardless of training or qualification. The only true qualification is to be alive. You, me, your waiter, your drycleaner, EVERYONE.
Good-bye
You would be surprised, but sometimes the unlikely movie scenarios do happen. Happened to me recently. Luckily, I had the 'other' lethal weapon with me, which resulted in the other guy having broken bones, not me. You don't need a gun 99.9% days of your life, but when you do, it can decide the outcome between life and death.
Why on Earth would you assume that he's opposed to GMO for other animals, once it's safe enough for humans?
What a bizarre assertion. I certainly would have no problems with that. In fact, if you can modify the animal to grow up without a brain, so that it's no longer an ethical concern for a certain subset of vegetarians and vegans, that's even better.
It amazes me how people don't understand that owning weaponry is a right that NO OTHER CITIZEN is supposed to be able to infringe. Every single adult citizen is supposed to be able to own a weapon, regardless of training or qualification. The only true qualification is to be alive. You, me, your waiter, your drycleaner, EVERYONE.
Um, no. Just like the freedom of speech is not 100% absolute, there are reasonable limits to owning weaponry. Felons, especially with violent crime histories, and people with mental illnesses rendering judgement suspect have NO BUSINESS owning firearms or gaining access to them. The regular citizenry, with a few exceptions, doesn't need to own heavy weaponry (what some people arbitrarily separate into "ordnance").
The truth is, every right, including every constitutional right, has its logical limits. What they are is up for healthy debate. But until the fringe of the gun rights crowd can mature enough to realize that yes, healthy limits do exist, they will be part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Light a fire for a man and he'll be warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
"Then you can use your guns to shoot your neighbor's drones and all will be well." nice sport but its dangerous shooting in a built up area.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
First when they understand they can prevent their children from getting genes that e.g. code for nasty hereditary disease like cystic fibrosis.
Then more people will get on board if they believe they can get genes that reduce the risk of obesity, heart disease, caries, code for better eyesight, a stronger immune system etc.
After that I think we'll see offers for genes that code for needing less sleep, of even a cheery and sunny disposition.
And as to what people "want": that's irrelevant. To paraphrase Steve Jobs: don't ask people what they want ... they're clueless about that ... someone with good taste will have to design something ... and people will recognise it as something they wanted all along and buy it.
Tell me how it works out for you when you try to get on a plane by going through an airport that the TSA manages without having your fourth amendment rights violated. It won't, but that doesn't mean the government isn't wrong. Might doesn't make right.
These comments are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of my employer or colleagues...
Drone are actually at this day, used to kill people in other part of the world. They were not back in then 1980's. Furthermore with the incisingly militarisation of the police in the USA, the two fears are : 1) it will make it very easy to itnroduce massive "eye in the sky" surveillance everywhere in the US 2) that the drone will not stay "passive civilian like" but acquiere first strike capabilities on US soil too.
And seeing the evolution of the no knock raid, and the surveillance society the US is building, either toward the inside or the outside (NSA), I don't think this is that an ungrounded fear.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
'Designer' Drones
'Ubiquitous' Babies
or combine. Anything folded into the cause of 'good parenting', however tenuous, puts it off-limits culturally,
Drone Baby Monitor
Baby's First Drone
Marketing tags revisited,
1950s: Drone-A-Tron, Atomic Baby
1970s: 'Euro' Drones, 'Euro' Babies
1980s: Power Drones, Power Babies
1990s: My Little Drone, My Little Baby
2000s: Green Drones, Carbon Neutral Babies
2010s: 'Flava' Drones, Organic Babies
Perhaps Americans are uncomfortable these days generally. Was there an adequate control? Did Pew select a group to not ask any questions at all, just stare silently to observe for signs of fidgeting or restlessness?
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
If the personal drone thing takes off, the government won't need to operate spy drones, the public will do it for them.
Just look at all the cell phone pictures you see posted around the internet, cats, stupid accidents, and girls butts, etc. I doubt that personal drones are going to garner the kind of information a government spy agency would want or at least make really hard to sift through.
Exactly. How do personal drones equal government surveillience? The cell phones that most people carry provide a huge amount of data for the government. The phone sends its location, autoposts pictures and videos in the internet and stores a ton of data "in the cloud". It has a microphone, camera and the means to send data to an arbitrary place. Phones are nearly ubiquitous and have a ton of data on the person using them.
Contrast this with a drone. It is controlled and transmits video using a point to point system. None of its data ever transits public data networks and is only receivable over a small area. How is the government going to obtain this drone data?
Enigma
That is not what the Second Amendment says, nor was that the intent of its author's. Every citizen has the right to own a gun, what part of 'shall not be infringed' do you not understand? Your 'truth is' statement pretty much is saying 'well i interpret it this way'. The text of teh 2nd is clear, every citizen should be able to own a gun, period. Further, your felon rule is bullshit when felonies are give out like candy. That level of charge is historically reserved for actual true harmful crime, like treason, murder and rape. So your entire argument about felons not being able to own guns is absolutely misguided. The root meaning of the word felony is civil death.
Good-bye
If you are trying to conlcude an argument, it is assumed that all presented statements are part of that argument. Not hard.
Yeah, Civil Rights act was the last one I could think of, which was why I set the bar at 50 years. I was more responding to the hyperbolic allusion to drones being included in the 2nd amendment by the previous commenter.