Forget the zombie apocalypse, here's the real danger coming: DRONES!

[Onkel Neal]

Man, this is Hand of God stuff
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/03/opinio...tan/index.html

All told, the 307 drone strikes launched by the United States in Pakistan between June 2004 and June 2012 have killed an estimated 1,562 to 2,377 suspected militants, according to news accounts.

Can you imagine living like this? I mean, I support this President and his war on terror, just like I supported the last one (how many of you can say that? ). But, I know the Pakistanis can't like it, from a nationlist point of view, it must be brutal knowing a foreign power is trolling your land with drones you can't see or do anything about, launching fire from the sky. Stay away from militants!

Some day, in the near future, drone tech will be so available, we will probably have drones everywhere, run by the military, local law authorities, drug cartels, mafia, nerds with rage, and crazys. You'll be walking to work or driving to the store and you'll see small drones buzzing everywhere. Who owns them? What are they up to? Imagine one of these with a air gun firing poison darts...or an explosive This could be the big threat of the 21st century. Lawyers and ex-wives everywhere won't be safe.

[nikimcbee]

Yubba, what have you done to Neal?



Here's your drone repellent:

[magic452]

I have real deep concerns about this technology being used here at home.
There may be a real benefit to Boarder Patrol and Police but at what cost to privacy. This kind of thing opens a door that should not be opened.
I could see paroling the boarder in a very narrow corridor under strict regulation but not much more.

I even have issues with the military use, "suspected militants", they're killing people that they don't have any idea of who they are.
A "suspected militant" is any male of military age that happens to be in the area. If that quote said definite militants I would agree.

There is no doubt that these strikes put the fear of god into them but again at what cost? They don't seem to mind dieing (72 virgins) and there are plenty to take their place so are we really gaining anything? If we get the leaders yes, just average militants, not so much. Might be doing more harm than good?????

However it would be a real shame about those lawyers and ex-wives.

Magic

[Catfish]

You are right, this is acting like god, without any trial, in countries abroad. I have always wondered how this kind of "warfare" [sic!] can be allowed, in the US.
Let's not forget the "collateral damage". It is killing civilians, plain and simple.

" ... have killed an estimated 1,562 to 2,377 suspected militants"

So they were not really sure whether they really were militants, nor how much they really killed.
"Some room for improvement"

Also to consider:
- The cost for drones is getting down, and it is not that difficult to build. It is the chance for small countries. You do not even need national markings on it.
- This kind of "warfare" fuels terrorism. A child who loses his parents or just witnesses such a strike, may later consider to retaliate with the means at hand.

[Skybird]

Drone warfare is a double-sided thing.

You can monitor for very long time a suspect and an area, and if what you have seen, and gained also from other intel, makes you think you are dealing with an enemy,you can take the target out of play.

The easiness of operation lowers inhibitions, I can imagine.

However, "suspected militant" is a technicality in term only. As long as the other is not shooting at you, you can argue you never know for sure whether or not he/she is a real militant/enemy. But wars do not get fought out in courtrooms, not the shooting part of them at least.

Drones leave no resting areas and no timeout to the enemy. They also save own troop'S from taking risks. That is good. But still not easy: some may recall that over a year ago I linked an article I do not find again anymore, about the stress level for drone pilots. Surprisingly, it is as bgreat for them and sometimes greater than for fighter pilots coming from combat missions. That is because drone pilots see in detail anbd from close range (via camera) what is going on. They are with there troops when they get ambushed. They see what their pushing of a button does on the ground. They are closer to it than real pilots. And after their shift the leave the office, open their doors, and immediately are back in another world, a totally different world, they go home to their families and it is as if they were coming from an alternate reality. Some pilots said that this extreme changes from here to there, and back, also is stressful to their psychic wellbeing.

Anyway, if the place would not be so totally FUBAR, and if these regimes and people wouldn'T jhave breeded and tolerated these ideology-driven stoneage fanatics, we would not be there to fight a war. Mind you, Pakistan complained over the the chase for Bin Ladne in the end haviung been successfulk, and it took revenge against the informant giving the Amerians the needed info.

On drones in our own homes, well, we are all steering into a total surveillance society, and you all know that since long, and you do not react,m you just accept it since it promises to come with so much consummation candy, video gimmicks, and fun stuiff, as many of you see it. You know that your governments are your enemies, and that democracy for powerhungry people is nothing toi crave for, but is an unwanted annoyance. You let yourself getting trcked via your smartphones, you let others collect charcater profiles and consumer behavior profiles of yours, an d when oyu read that there are visions of iris-scanners in shopping malls that send you individualised adverts every 20 meters, you think it is cool technology and what good the future holds. Apple and Facebook and Google get you all used to letting all this happen, and make you allowing to be turned into a glas person that can be scanned and seen through in all detail. Government offices also will combine their computer networks and allow "officials" legally or illegally to access this database to learn more about you by their own random decision. The perfect computer world is the world where total surveillance not only is possible, but even unavoidably takes place. And since you have accepted before to let it come so far, and the young ones have been trained to even like it since they are uzsed to it by their living style from teen years on, even childhood on, it is no surporise that these things will come.

Drone traffic in our own home countries is just one small piece in the great puzzle.

Think of these things next time you applaud somebody wants to lower street crime or tax evasion by banning cash money and make it mandatory to use plastic money for every buy you do, from chewing gum to Ferraris. It means that every buy you ever do, will get recorded, will get saved and later can be tracked, even decades later. The big fishes of tax fraud, companies and the like, will find ways to beat the system, they can afford hackers and the like - you cannot. The ordinbary man will find himself living a life where he more and more gets strangled, supervised, and monitored.

And I do not even touch the issue of thought crime and political correctness here, the tyranny of the crowd sending you to the stake or criminalising you if you do not think ther way you should, in their opinion. I also do not mention the future riot control when life in the cities becomes grim and ressoruces became rare and the places will be overcrowded and street crime will skyrocket.

As you have learned to expect from me, I'm full of lovely expectations for our future. But what goes up, must come down again, and everything in life runs in cycles, it rises, it culminates, and then it falls again. What once was in your favour, later will turn against you, and the force you inflict, inevitably returns.

It seems this does not make us act with greater foresight and care. Not at all. Seen that way, we just fulfill our self-made karma, then. So what'S our complaint?

[Oberon]

It's all fun and games until someone hacks your drone:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18643134

[Jimbuna]

Like most weapons it's only a matter of time before 'the other side' acquires them by one means or another then the fun and games will really start.

[Onkel Neal]

Yah, no kidding, Jim!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

It's all fun and games until someone hacks your drone:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18643134

Funny, I mentioned that risk in a thread two, three years ago, on drones, and half of the people were laughing about me, calling me somebody wanting to go back to the stoneage. That was even before the drone incident in Iran (whatever that incident really was...).

[Onkel Neal]

Will we ever learn?

[Catfish]

I guess no.

And, of course, the germans were first:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argus_As_292

[AVGWarhawk]

Once the call is determined there is a answer.

Raytheon Missile Systems

Anti-drone systems have been studied and in the works for quite some time now.

[Bilge_Rat]

I am not really worried about the technology, after all we have all grown up in a world which could self destruct in 15 minutes of nuclear war.

What I find more worrying is the fact that the President now has the power of life and death over anyone, even American citizens, who he deems to be a threat to "national security", based on whatever secret information he deems acceptable. He also refuses to release the legal opinions/memo which sets out the legal basis for this power.

Yet everyone, Congress, the media, the public seems to be accepting this evolution without much debate.

We are way beyond Richard Nixon and his domestic break ins. What happened to Due Process?

To me, this is the real constitutional issue, not the Health Care Circus.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Funny, I mentioned that risk in a thread two, three years ago, on drones, and half of the people were laughing about me, calling me somebody wanting to go back to the stoneage. That was even before the drone incident in Iran (whatever that incident really was...).

Very real threat as you stated Sky. You are not alone. Others have been studying the problem and backed by dollars to remedy the situation.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

Will we ever learn?

Ask again the next time I say something unpopular, or something critical of technology.

Imagine you would have listened to me when in a angry dispute with Subman back then I said that as an emergency treasure for hard times, solid gold beats stocks, paper and coins hands down, always, and since always. The value you would have invested in buying real gold back then (some years pre 2008), by now would have almost increased five-fold, the price since then went from 450 or so, to 2000. You would possibly be a rich man today.