4 ms·

I think the scariest part of this drone trend is the opportunity to wage war without losing human life. This shift in risk will dramatically reduce the barrier

by brd 15y ago

I think the scariest part of this drone trend is the opportunity to wage war without losing human life. This shift in risk will dramatically reduce the barrier to starting a war and will further reinforce the power of those already on top.

prodigal_erik 15y ago
The problem is that lives will still be lost, just not by our side. If we could have war without losing any lives, that sounds cool—stick in some cameras and we'd happily pay to watch.
- Eliezer 15y ago
  Yeah, the horror of war without lost life is something I think the survivors of, oh, say, the Hundred Years War, would call (in the modern parlance) a First World Problem.
  - baltcode 15y ago
    But lives ARE lost, aren't they?
  - Anti-Ratfish 15y ago
    War is becoming much safer. The world is too. Fascinating article on it here. http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker However I'd love to see any evidence showing drones keep deaths down in war. Maybe in the future, but right now they make life very unsafe in places like Pakistan, which given it's allied to America is bizarre. Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to Boltcode.
- tsotha 15y ago
  >The problem is that lives will still be lost, just not by our side. I have no problem with this part. When you're in a war, having the other side doing all the dying is what you're striving for. The decision to go to war is a weighty thing, but once made you don't hold back.
  - spacemanaki 15y ago
    "The decision to go to war is a weighty thing" Made weighty in large part by the risk to your soldiers' lives. Drones make the decision a less-weighty one, which is a problem, I think.
    - tsotha 15y ago
      No, not really. Drones aren't any more effective than precision air power. How many people did NATO lose in Serbia or Libya?
      - spacemanaki 15y ago
        That's a pretty good point but are there no situations where drones are used instead of "boots on the ground"? For instance, would the US use "precision air power" instead of drones against targets in Pakistan, if we didn't have drones? I really have no idea though, I can't even pretend to be informed on this.
        tsotha 15y ago
        What drones give you cheaply is persistence. Let's say you identify this week's Al Queda #2. You know where he is, but he lives in a compound with 20 other people. Drones are slow, use little fuel, and you can swap out the people flying them, so (depending on the model) a single drone can loiter over the guy's compound for up to 24 hours. You watch him until there aren't any innocent people around, then you shoot a missile. All this can be done with manned aircraft, it's just a bit more expensive because you have to refuel them every four to six hours and the pilot will eventually be too tired to continue. The real change isn't automation, but rather the targeting pods that allow you to see what's happening on the ground from miles away at 10,000 feet and precision weapons (like laser-guided bombs and missiles) that allow you to hit exactly what you intend to hit. Whether the aircraft is manned or not manned really doesn't change anything from the perspective of capability. It just changes the cost. None of this is a substitute for boots on the ground - the conflict in Afghanistan would have over years ago if we could put soldiers in Pakistan. There's just no substitute for having a guy on the ground with a rifle when it comes to enforcing your national will.
- ars 15y ago
  Read Kiln People by David Brin. They make short lived clones of themself (including memory), then the clones fight a full war. The winner of the war gets to do whatever it was they were fighting about, and no real people get killed. It's a full spectator sport in the book, and the combatants enjoy it too - they have special helpers (will full battlefield immunity by both sides) who collect the recently dead to upload their memory back into the host (i.e. real human).
  - 0x12 15y ago
    > and no real people get killed. That's a matter of definition. If a clone is created (assuming for the moment that is possible) with full memory then the clone is a person, and therefore real people. The fact that in that book they have defined such people as 'not real people' conveniently bypasses the fact that they actually are, they're just not originals. See Bladerunner.
    - Confusion 15y ago
      I find it rather ironical that you oppose an implicit philosophical position from some book by explaining another philosophical position, solely supported by another book.
      - 0x12 15y ago
        That's not just supported 'by another book' but it matches what I feel about how we should treat clones. After all, if a clone is identical you'd have to come up with some pretty contorted reasoning to argue that they are 'not people'. Also, as long as we're not able to actually do this we are bound to find our examples in fiction rather than in real life. How people think about such issues can be revealing, even if it is mostly theoretical. But you could make a case for dolphins or primates being 'people' without too much effort.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        15y ago
epoxyhockey 15y ago
The mission for a drone loaded up with missiles is to kill people, not to get into some chess match with your enemy's drones.
- shabble 15y ago
  It's theoretically possible (although definitely implausible) that drone/remote warfare will play out on the economic battlefield, rather than the human one. In the same way that the space race was an economic proxy of the Cold War, and fairly successfully bankrupted and toppled the USSR. If you play drone vs drone, eventually someone is going to run out of drones, and the means and funds to build more - they are the de-facto losers. It'll be nigh-impossible to keep this contained though, when the enemy realises that for a modest loss of their drones, they can take out your C&C bases or level your munition factories. One of the most recent Culture novels by Iain M Banks -- Surface Detail -- explores in part a similar issue, where two factions agree to settle their differences in a virtual-reality war simulation, but those losing decide to escalate it into the physical realm.

by brd 15y ago

prodigal_erik 15y ago

The problem is that lives will still be lost, just not by our side. If we could have war without losing any lives, that sounds cool—stick in some cameras and we'd happily pay to watch.

Eliezer 15y ago
Yeah, the horror of war without lost life is something I think the survivors of, oh, say, the Hundred Years War, would call (in the modern parlance) a First World Problem.
- baltcode 15y ago
  But lives ARE lost, aren't they?
- Anti-Ratfish 15y ago
  War is becoming much safer. The world is too. Fascinating article on it here. http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker http://edge.org/conversation/mc2011-history-violence-pinker However I'd love to see any evidence showing drones keep deaths down in war. Maybe in the future, but right now they make life very unsafe in places like Pakistan, which given it's allied to America is bizarre. Edit: this was supposed to be a reply to Boltcode.
tsotha 15y ago
>The problem is that lives will still be lost, just not by our side. I have no problem with this part. When you're in a war, having the other side doing all the dying is what you're striving for. The decision to go to war is a weighty thing, but once made you don't hold back.
- spacemanaki 15y ago
  "The decision to go to war is a weighty thing" Made weighty in large part by the risk to your soldiers' lives. Drones make the decision a less-weighty one, which is a problem, I think.
  - tsotha 15y ago
    No, not really. Drones aren't any more effective than precision air power. How many people did NATO lose in Serbia or Libya?
    - spacemanaki 15y ago
      That's a pretty good point but are there no situations where drones are used instead of "boots on the ground"? For instance, would the US use "precision air power" instead of drones against targets in Pakistan, if we didn't have drones? I really have no idea though, I can't even pretend to be informed on this.
      - tsotha 15y ago
        What drones give you cheaply is persistence. Let's say you identify this week's Al Queda #2. You know where he is, but he lives in a compound with 20 other people. Drones are slow, use little fuel, and you can swap out the people flying them, so (depending on the model) a single drone can loiter over the guy's compound for up to 24 hours. You watch him until there aren't any innocent people around, then you shoot a missile. All this can be done with manned aircraft, it's just a bit more expensive because you have to refuel them every four to six hours and the pilot will eventually be too tired to continue. The real change isn't automation, but rather the targeting pods that allow you to see what's happening on the ground from miles away at 10,000 feet and precision weapons (like laser-guided bombs and missiles) that allow you to hit exactly what you intend to hit. Whether the aircraft is manned or not manned really doesn't change anything from the perspective of capability. It just changes the cost. None of this is a substitute for boots on the ground - the conflict in Afghanistan would have over years ago if we could put soldiers in Pakistan. There's just no substitute for having a guy on the ground with a rifle when it comes to enforcing your national will.
ars 15y ago
Read Kiln People by David Brin. They make short lived clones of themself (including memory), then the clones fight a full war. The winner of the war gets to do whatever it was they were fighting about, and no real people get killed. It's a full spectator sport in the book, and the combatants enjoy it too - they have special helpers (will full battlefield immunity by both sides) who collect the recently dead to upload their memory back into the host (i.e. real human).
- 0x12 15y ago
  > and no real people get killed. That's a matter of definition. If a clone is created (assuming for the moment that is possible) with full memory then the clone is a person, and therefore real people. The fact that in that book they have defined such people as 'not real people' conveniently bypasses the fact that they actually are, they're just not originals. See Bladerunner.
  - Confusion 15y ago
    I find it rather ironical that you oppose an implicit philosophical position from some book by explaining another philosophical position, solely supported by another book.
    - 0x12 15y ago
      That's not just supported 'by another book' but it matches what I feel about how we should treat clones. After all, if a clone is identical you'd have to come up with some pretty contorted reasoning to argue that they are 'not people'. Also, as long as we're not able to actually do this we are bound to find our examples in fiction rather than in real life. How people think about such issues can be revealing, even if it is mostly theoretical. But you could make a case for dolphins or primates being 'people' without too much effort.
      - deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
      - 15y ago

epoxyhockey 15y ago

The mission for a drone loaded up with missiles is to kill people, not to get into some chess match with your enemy's drones.

shabble 15y ago
It's theoretically possible (although definitely implausible) that drone/remote warfare will play out on the economic battlefield, rather than the human one. In the same way that the space race was an economic proxy of the Cold War, and fairly successfully bankrupted and toppled the USSR. If you play drone vs drone, eventually someone is going to run out of drones, and the means and funds to build more - they are the de-facto losers. It'll be nigh-impossible to keep this contained though, when the enemy realises that for a modest loss of their drones, they can take out your C&C bases or level your munition factories. One of the most recent Culture novels by Iain M Banks -- Surface Detail -- explores in part a similar issue, where two factions agree to settle their differences in a virtual-reality war simulation, but those losing decide to escalate it into the physical realm.