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Pentagon Video Warns of Unavoidable Dystopian Future for World’s Biggest Cities

45 points by kawera 10y ago

empath75 10y ago
It seems to me that the way armies traditionally conquered uncontrollable cities was to raze them. Assad and Russia are doing that to Aleppo right now. If the us army is ever in a situation where they need to subjugate a megacity, someone has fucked up on an unbelievable scale.
eth0up 10y ago
I watched this video cognizant of the close relationship between the Pentagon and Hollywood, and interpreted it essentially as marketing. I think it's worth wondering where society would be without the DoD's multi-trillion-dollar black-budget-vacuum sucking away at it. I think it would be wise to look elsewhere for solutions to dystopian futures - at least until the DoD opens itself to audits. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1...
- throwaway729 10y ago
  Maybe if we took that money and invested in infrastructure, education, and welfare then we wouldn't have to live in a dystopian future with substandard infrastructure and an under-educated underclass... I mean, while we're spending the money anyways...
icanhackit 10y ago
Looking at the video with the sound muted most of the slides they've chosen demonstrate a common problem: wealth concentration/economic inequality leading to destabilization. If you want to avoid such a future: instead of spending billions upgrading your tanks so that they can fly and shoot lasers from their wheel hubs you should educate your population as well as provide free fundamental health care.
rdtsc 10y ago
> “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” and a “growing mass of unemployed.” ... “Growth will magnify the increasing separation between rich and poor,” I like that those facts are presented as sort of acts of God. I understand it is a video made for the military who is not supposed to ask questions of "why are there slums" or "how come there is such a divide between rich and poor" despite all this amazing technological progress. On the political side, it is funny to imagine an honest US Army Pentagon video: "So years ago we really screwed up and supported this brutal dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of its people. And now the whole region hates and considers us the Great Satan. You'll have to go in there and deal with it". Or maybe the camera pans down to the sewer and a voicer-over starts: "20 years ago the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president and installed one who is friendly to US corporations. One of those corporations (say Bechtel) privatized the water and sewage management. This resulted in people getting sick, dying, unable to afford clean water. Everyone is angry at us but you'll have to go in and extract this and that group of people from the embassy, Good luck"
chillingeffect 10y ago
It's revealing how many times they admit their inability to control everything. And their total blindness to the fact that most of these conflicts are proxy wars for powerful nation-states is obvious to anyone paying attention. The truly beautiful thing is how well people are cooperating in such dense areas. For example, the favellas in Rio are much better off when the corrupt police there aren't selling arms to the residents. The large neighborhoods in Mexico City don't require American intervention to survive, just access to fields to grow food in. The power vacuums where warlords threaten to organize everyday people against Western intervention are where we have destroyed the infrastructure (Iraq), fought decades-long proxy wars (Afghanistan), propped up cruel dictators (Libya), or drained nations of their resources (most of Africa). This video is essentially pumping up the young, underprivileged American "volunteers" (those with no options for success in the industrialized world) to protect the investments of world bankers.

45 points by kawera 10y ago

It seems to me that the way armies traditionally conquered uncontrollable cities was to raze them. Assad and Russia are doing that to Aleppo right now. If the us army is ever in a situation where they need to subjugate a megacity, someone has fucked up on an unbelievable scale.

eth0up 10y ago

I watched this video cognizant of the close relationship between the Pentagon and Hollywood, and interpreted it essentially as marketing. I think it's worth wondering where society would be without the DoD's multi-trillion-dollar black-budget-vacuum sucking away at it. I think it would be wise to look elsewhere for solutions to dystopian futures - at least until the DoD opens itself to audits. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1IG http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-audit-army-idUSKCN10U1...

throwaway729 10y ago
Maybe if we took that money and invested in infrastructure, education, and welfare then we wouldn't have to live in a dystopian future with substandard infrastructure and an under-educated underclass... I mean, while we're spending the money anyways...

icanhackit 10y ago

Looking at the video with the sound muted most of the slides they've chosen demonstrate a common problem: wealth concentration/economic inequality leading to destabilization. If you want to avoid such a future: instead of spending billions upgrading your tanks so that they can fly and shoot lasers from their wheel hubs you should educate your population as well as provide free fundamental health care.

rdtsc 10y ago

> “impoverishment, slums,” “open landfills, over-burdened sewers,” and a “growing mass of unemployed.” ... “Growth will magnify the increasing separation between rich and poor,” I like that those facts are presented as sort of acts of God. I understand it is a video made for the military who is not supposed to ask questions of "why are there slums" or "how come there is such a divide between rich and poor" despite all this amazing technological progress. On the political side, it is funny to imagine an honest US Army Pentagon video: "So years ago we really screwed up and supported this brutal dictator who murdered hundreds of thousands of its people. And now the whole region hates and considers us the Great Satan. You'll have to go in there and deal with it". Or maybe the camera pans down to the sewer and a voicer-over starts: "20 years ago the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president and installed one who is friendly to US corporations. One of those corporations (say Bechtel) privatized the water and sewage management. This resulted in people getting sick, dying, unable to afford clean water. Everyone is angry at us but you'll have to go in and extract this and that group of people from the embassy, Good luck"

chillingeffect 10y ago

It's revealing how many times they admit their inability to control everything. And their total blindness to the fact that most of these conflicts are proxy wars for powerful nation-states is obvious to anyone paying attention. The truly beautiful thing is how well people are cooperating in such dense areas. For example, the favellas in Rio are much better off when the corrupt police there aren't selling arms to the residents. The large neighborhoods in Mexico City don't require American intervention to survive, just access to fields to grow food in. The power vacuums where warlords threaten to organize everyday people against Western intervention are where we have destroyed the infrastructure (Iraq), fought decades-long proxy wars (Afghanistan), propped up cruel dictators (Libya), or drained nations of their resources (most of Africa). This video is essentially pumping up the young, underprivileged American "volunteers" (those with no options for success in the industrialized world) to protect the investments of world bankers.