5 ms·

I'm not sure that firing missiles into forests is the most intelligent use of resources...

detritus 6y ago
Why not? You'd likely not need IraqWarII levels of commitment - just a few enthusiastically-delivered missives at 1100kph to get the message across. A few loitering drones and a few dozen more missiles might actually be a highly efficient use of resources. I'm not sure where 'intelligence' comes into play here, beyond condescension of an idea you evidently disagree with.
- smileybarry 6y ago
  Well, causing a forest fire with a missile is one thing we should avoid.
  - detritus 6y ago
    Why then, just use kinetic/fragmentary projectiles - easy peasy!
- glenneroo 6y ago
  Apologies I didn't mean to be derogatory. I was just a little bit surprised at the bravado-military mentality that surfaced on a tech forum. To clarify, there are so many issues here I don't even know where to begin, just some quickies off the top of my head: - the most obvious was mentioned already: forest fires, when missiles explode in a forest you are trying to protect, things tend to burn and fire tends to spread i.e. there might be little forest left to save after you're doing killing everyone who has bad intentions. - where do you even set these up that they arrive on time to actually hit moving targets? - how do you ensure you don't kill innocents? - how do you even _find_ nefarious actors, when forest canopy makes it very hard to find anything, not to mention the Amazon forest is mind-numbingly huge. - AFAIK the military generally has an inventory of weapons they have to keep stockpiled, so the tax-payer will pay for extremely expensive weapons to be used and built again (great if you want to support military-industrial complex). As stated elsewhere, the issue is deeper and not addressable by blowing people up. The people doing this have nothing to lose because they have little or no opportunities for making money, so they take any job they can find. Do you believe we should just murder people who make questionable decisions based on their survival? You and I are sitting comfortably behind a computer having this discussion and I would venture that neither are us are qualified to talk about what it's like to be that close to starving.
  - jcims 6y ago
    It was mostly tongue in cheek but it would be interesting to see how the public reacts to such a declaration. If actually implemented I am fairly confident that countermeasures could be taken to avoid casualties and collateral damage, but historically those things get pretty slippery over time.
    - glenneroo 6y ago
      I suspect public reaction would depend on how media decides to spin it: - poor starving people just trying to feed their families and in order to survive, will take any job and are being exploited to this end by <cartels/greedy corporations/etc> or - dirty scumbags killing innocent animals and cutting down swathes of protected forest just to make a quick buck or any other narrative that sells clicks, not to say all media is corrupt/greedy, but it sure seems like most public reactions are based on media narratives.
  - detritus 6y ago
    Yeah, my apologies - I too was being slightly tongue in cheek. That said, if you entirely removed morality from the equation, I suspect it would actually be an efficient use of resources, to 'surgically' target varying levels of unwanted enterprise to make a somewhat dissuasive point.
jcims 6y ago
You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest. The only challenge I see is that the folks running the saws and the skidders aren't the ones profiting from the operation. So maybe you take some extra precautions to avoid killing the crew, but destroying the equipment seems like a perfectly acceptable use of resources.
- DoingIsLearning 6y ago
  > You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest. You seem misguided, rainforest is not equivalent to high humidity or rain all year round, you absolutely have wildfires and it is not a 'pretty low' risk. [0] Also most of these operations are lead by organized crime and explore poor people in their day-to-day operations. Killing desperate and poor people that work on these illegal operations seems like a very disproportionate colateral for anyone that cares about upholding rule of Law, or you know just general ethics. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfires#/media/File:Amazon_fire_satellite_image.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfir...

Why not? You'd likely not need IraqWarII levels of commitment - just a few enthusiastically-delivered missives at 1100kph to get the message across. A few loitering drones and a few dozen more missiles might actually be a highly efficient use of resources. I'm not sure where 'intelligence' comes into play here, beyond condescension of an idea you evidently disagree with.

smileybarry 6y ago
Well, causing a forest fire with a missile is one thing we should avoid.
- detritus 6y ago
  Why then, just use kinetic/fragmentary projectiles - easy peasy!
glenneroo 6y ago
Apologies I didn't mean to be derogatory. I was just a little bit surprised at the bravado-military mentality that surfaced on a tech forum. To clarify, there are so many issues here I don't even know where to begin, just some quickies off the top of my head: - the most obvious was mentioned already: forest fires, when missiles explode in a forest you are trying to protect, things tend to burn and fire tends to spread i.e. there might be little forest left to save after you're doing killing everyone who has bad intentions. - where do you even set these up that they arrive on time to actually hit moving targets? - how do you ensure you don't kill innocents? - how do you even _find_ nefarious actors, when forest canopy makes it very hard to find anything, not to mention the Amazon forest is mind-numbingly huge. - AFAIK the military generally has an inventory of weapons they have to keep stockpiled, so the tax-payer will pay for extremely expensive weapons to be used and built again (great if you want to support military-industrial complex). As stated elsewhere, the issue is deeper and not addressable by blowing people up. The people doing this have nothing to lose because they have little or no opportunities for making money, so they take any job they can find. Do you believe we should just murder people who make questionable decisions based on their survival? You and I are sitting comfortably behind a computer having this discussion and I would venture that neither are us are qualified to talk about what it's like to be that close to starving.
- jcims 6y ago
  It was mostly tongue in cheek but it would be interesting to see how the public reacts to such a declaration. If actually implemented I am fairly confident that countermeasures could be taken to avoid casualties and collateral damage, but historically those things get pretty slippery over time.
  - glenneroo 6y ago
    I suspect public reaction would depend on how media decides to spin it: - poor starving people just trying to feed their families and in order to survive, will take any job and are being exploited to this end by <cartels/greedy corporations/etc> or - dirty scumbags killing innocent animals and cutting down swathes of protected forest just to make a quick buck or any other narrative that sells clicks, not to say all media is corrupt/greedy, but it sure seems like most public reactions are based on media narratives.
- detritus 6y ago
  Yeah, my apologies - I too was being slightly tongue in cheek. That said, if you entirely removed morality from the equation, I suspect it would actually be an efficient use of resources, to 'surgically' target varying levels of unwanted enterprise to make a somewhat dissuasive point.

jcims 6y ago

You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest. The only challenge I see is that the folks running the saws and the skidders aren't the ones profiting from the operation. So maybe you take some extra precautions to avoid killing the crew, but destroying the equipment seems like a perfectly acceptable use of resources.

DoingIsLearning 6y ago
> You just time the operation to minimize risk of wildfires, which is already pretty low in a rainforest. You seem misguided, rainforest is not equivalent to high humidity or rain all year round, you absolutely have wildfires and it is not a 'pretty low' risk. [0] Also most of these operations are lead by organized crime and explore poor people in their day-to-day operations. Killing desperate and poor people that work on these illegal operations seems like a very disproportionate colateral for anyone that cares about upholding rule of Law, or you know just general ethics. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfires#/media/File:Amazon_fire_satellite_image.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Amazon_rainforest_wildfir...