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> 1 Do you think China will send drones and attack US citizens? It's not unthinkable, especially if they feel confident that they have a technological advantag

> 1 Do you think China will send drones and attack US citizens? It's not unthinkable, especially if they feel confident that they have a technological advantage that would shield them from detection or in-kind retaliation. They also have somewhat different notions of citizenship/nationality than Western countries, and they have a few diasporas they'd like to control. > 3 If there are enough money in this there will be people going to work on the project, so I am sure the US will have good droning software What makes you so sure of this, or that those people will have the necessary talent? Lower quality software could lead to more collateral deaths. > 4 US brought this on itself with the way they used the drones , like you have the verb "droning" Contemporary drone-strikes are literally just regular airstrikes: for instance, the weapons the drones use were actually developed for other military aircraft [1] [2] and adapted to drones. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-114_Hellfire [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Direct_Attack_Munition The only real difference is that there's no pilot in the plane, so less risk he dies in a crash. And I say crash because most of the drone-strikes happened in places where there were few hostile anti-aircraft weapons to actually shoot anything down. Most of the pilot risk would have been from mechanical problems and human error.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago
No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. We could not and would not deploy manned aircraft to do these jobs. We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. But we've been deploying drones there since 2004. Note that a key issue here is that the drone strikes aren't even military actions: They're controlled by the CIA. There is no technical difference with drones, the issue is entirely in how they are used. This is what makes your arguments about the weaponry being the same mostly irrelevant.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. > We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attained the level of readiness to attempt such a mission.
  - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
    The point is these aren't even military operations, I am fairly confident it'd be literally illegal for the Air Force to assassinate people in the manner we've been using our drone program.
    - kinsomo 8y ago
      > The point is these aren't even military operations I disagree. I would call operations conducted with military equipment and with the participation of military personnel (e.g. USAF pilots) military operations.
      - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan "under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division". Feel free to click in and read what SAD does, these are assassinations, not military actions. Remember that military actions are something a government does officially, and assassinations are something denied and covered up for over a decade.
        kinsomo 8y ago
        The same Wikipedia article states: "The drones are flown by United States Air Force pilots located at an unnamed base in the United States. US Department of Defense armed drones, which also sometimes take part in strikes on terrorist targets, are flown by US Air Force pilots located at Creech Air Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base."
simion314 8y ago
So in your opinion developers and scientists are not "patriotic" enough, I disagree, if there were some threat many would try to help their country but there is no threat, this weapons are used on dubious external missions.
- kinsomo 8y ago
  > So in your opinion developers and scientists are not "patriotic" enough, I disagree Where, exactly did I say that? You're putting words in my mouth.

ocdtrekkie 8y ago

No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. We could not and would not deploy manned aircraft to do these jobs. We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. But we've been deploying drones there since 2004. Note that a key issue here is that the drone strikes aren't even military actions: They're controlled by the CIA. There is no technical difference with drones, the issue is entirely in how they are used. This is what makes your arguments about the weaponry being the same mostly irrelevant.

kinsomo 8y ago
> No, the primary difference is that we deploy drones in areas we are not engaged in warfare, and to assassinate various individuals in foreign countries where we are not at war. The US hasn't been officialy "at war" in a long time. I think the last one was World War II. > We do not deploy F-35s to assassinate people in Pakistan. Of course not: F-35s are more expensive to operate and I'm not sure they've even attained the level of readiness to attempt such a mission.
- ocdtrekkie 8y ago
  The point is these aren't even military operations, I am fairly confident it'd be literally illegal for the Air Force to assassinate people in the manner we've been using our drone program.
  - kinsomo 8y ago
    > The point is these aren't even military operations I disagree. I would call operations conducted with military equipment and with the participation of military personnel (e.g. USAF pilots) military operations.
    - ocdtrekkie 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drone_strikes_in_Pakistan "under the operational control of the Central Intelligence Agency's Special Activities Division". Feel free to click in and read what SAD does, these are assassinations, not military actions. Remember that military actions are something a government does officially, and assassinations are something denied and covered up for over a decade.
      - kinsomo 8y ago
        The same Wikipedia article states: "The drones are flown by United States Air Force pilots located at an unnamed base in the United States. US Department of Defense armed drones, which also sometimes take part in strikes on terrorist targets, are flown by US Air Force pilots located at Creech Air Force Base and Holloman Air Force Base."

simion314 8y ago

So in your opinion developers and scientists are not "patriotic" enough, I disagree, if there were some threat many would try to help their country but there is no threat, this weapons are used on dubious external missions.

kinsomo 8y ago
> So in your opinion developers and scientists are not "patriotic" enough, I disagree Where, exactly did I say that? You're putting words in my mouth.