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> "If we ever return to peacetime, will this technology be used against American citizens?" The follow-on to this line of thought is: for how long will the ope
by roc 15y ago
> "If we ever return to peacetime, will this technology be used against American citizens?"
The follow-on to this line of thought is: for how long will the operators even reasonably know who they are actually using the technology against? Would a drone pilot from, say, the US gulf coast have any ability to distinguish between North Korea or Northern China? Or Iran and Afghanistan? Or a Taliban compound in Afghanistan and a somewhat-remote domestic compound a la Ruby Ridge?
To say nothing of what is possible when augmented reality overlays can turn real-time video feeds into essentially fully-CG interpretations of the battlefield and targets.
- dinkumthinkum 15y agoI guess I don't see where you're going with this. Let's say the government wanted to trick a soldier into thinking he was killing a North Korean but he was really killing a Chinese soldier. What goal would that serve? Presumably, China would let the world know pretty fast what happened. Let's say the soldier thinks it's Afghanistan but it's really Scottsdale, AZ ... It seems like it would be hard to keep that a secret so why bother?
- hrktb 15y agothe gp might be alluding to operations where it would be pretty hard to find someone staff for. You'd need very motivated people to kill a journalist in Scottsdale, but you could rely on any operator if you could make it look like a terrorist in Afghanistan.
- roc 15y agoYeah, that was the gist of it. Not that you could wage a full-scale war with deceived pilots never finding out. But that you could quite likely staff an operation that would otherwise be illegal/unconscionable, with soldiers who wouldn't even realize they were party to it.