5 ms·

The Second Amendment in Iraq, Combat Robotics, and the Future of Human Liberty

50 points by pchristensen 17y ago

DanielBMarkham 17y ago
There's a legitmate point in there somewhere, so I think the article deserves to be voted up. And before I start my critique: I'm a libertarian. I agree that there is a real problem that needs attention. But the delivery was awful! First he picks Iraq as an example to make a point that people of both political spectrums can understand -- not a good choice due to all the controversy of what's going on there. Fred the AQ operative from Libya blowing up a Shi'ite mosque is not really fighting for self-determination. Some are, no doubt. But picking this example really screws up the argument. It sounds like "we won in Iraq so something really evil must come out of it!", kind of reasoning. Ugh. Then we have the premise that robots can be used for counter-insurgency. While I agree that there are many pointy-headed folks at DoD who think this, it's not the way counter-insurgency works. The whole idea is to get real, live troops out into the field and interacting with the local population, protecting it. Protect the people first. Killer robots hosing down random houses with tear gas and tasers really don't meet that criteria. At some point after the first few paragraphs, I pictured the author as waving their hands around in the air wildly and screaming "The robots are coming! The robots are coming!" Probably not fair to the author, but dude, you lost me. Calm down a bit and make a cogent point with supporting evidence. Tell a story. Do something except rant on for so long. Towards the end I was just skimming. You'd made your point and life is short. "By globally respecting the right to self-defense recognized in America as the Second Amendment we can avoid an entire set of grossly negative and destructive futures." But the Second Amendment is titled "The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution". It all kind of fits together as one huge compromise (the Bill of Rights) added on to the Constitution to get ratification. Other countries have already disarmed their populations and are very good at oppressing them and preventing change without robots. Even the U.S. took the ability of most people from owning combat firearms away in the 1930s as a way to prevent crime. As a world, we've already mostly lost our ability to enact forceful change. Those days are gone. You're late to the party, and while it's great this robot thing has woken you up, robots are just another tool in a very large toolbox that states use to keep the folks in line. Finally, this is technology. It's not just the U.S., or DoD. This is the incredible, wonderful, terrible, and awful march of progress. You'd have a better chance stopping a freight train with rubber bands than to make a dent in the inexorable advance of new ways to control people. So less ranting and more analysis and recommendations, please?
- RobGR 17y ago
  I wish to nitpick your discription of the 1930s federal gun law as taking away the ability of most people to own combat firearms. That law was rather carefully crafted to try to avoid taking away the right to own "combat" firearms, because those firearms are exactly the ones to which the 2d amendment would apply. Rather, it focused on cannons and bombs, which they could argue were not personal arms, and on what it called "tools of assassination", silenced weapons and automatic weapons. Automatic weapons were not common combat firearms at the time, most soldiers would have rifles that were bolt action, a few semi-automatic. At the time the law was passed the New Dealers were fighting the Supreme Court, which was overturning a lot of their grand plans, so the gun law was crafted with that in mind. It doesn't even technically ban the "class III" weapons, it just requires an excise tax which is difficult to pay. It is still probably an unconstitutional law, and it's benefits in fighting crime are probably not very big -- the old tommy gun gangsters of the 1930s were not driven out of business by lack of automatic weapons, they were tracked down and killed and arrested by traditional police work (some of which was unconstitutional in other ways). A larger objection I have is to your claim "we've already mostly lost out ability to enact forceful change. Those days are gone." I think the general trend from 1776 to now, has been towards a more just, more democratic, more ideal society. There are major deviations on the way, and we are currently regressing, but still ahead of where we were in 1960, I think. I also think robot technology will not always benefit just the rich and powerful in conflicts. Hobbiests can already build model aircraft which carry a WRT54G and do auto-pilot; when Palestinians hack a cell phone onto a model plane and send a few ounces of incendiary or a grenade on a long, slow trip to be fairly precisely delivered via GPS or cell tower positioning, then you will know the temporary imbalence is ending.
  - DanielBMarkham 17y ago
    I think you misunderstood me. I agree that society is more just now -- a lot of progress has been made. By "forceful change" I meant the government is no longer so afraid of armed civilians as it was, say, during the Whiskey Rebellion. Jefferson's quip that "A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." hardly seems apt in its original meaning. Very interesting piece of history regarding the 1930s laws. Thanks for the correction.
krschultz 17y ago
I see his point, but I think we are already powerless against the government militarily. What does the average American have that can stop a tank, or an armored personnel carrier, or a jet, or a helicopter. Iraq disbanded its military, all those guys went home with AK-47s and knew where the ammo depots were. The IEDs beating our guys are up often artillery shells wired to a cell phone. We all have cell phones, who knows how to get artillery shells in the US? Not nearly enough people to make a decent fight. The only way it could happen here is if a significant portion of the US military sided with the revolutionaries - ironically what happened in both the American Revolution and the Civil War. There is no example of a successful revolution based solely on civilian soldiers. A lot of the people in the US army during the revolution were civilians prior to the shooting, but they were led by men who had fought in the French & Indian war for the British. So if some of the military is joining the breakaway sect, robots or not will not change the situation since both sides will have them. I'm still more worried about chemical, biological, or nuclear attack.
- ovi256 17y ago
  So if some of the military is joining the breakaway sect, robots or not will not change the situation since both sides will have them. But it is not a given that the military may not break apart. Supporting the population tends to happen in conscript armies. The US army is a professional army. They are loyal to the USG, and to the Army itself.
  - gaius 17y ago
    But the oath says (emphasis mine): "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign *and domestic*" Not the government, not the Army itself or even the President, the Constitution.
    - anigbrowl 17y ago
      Don't be naive. A majority of people are sufficiently flag-simple that they'll do whatever they're told to do, including rounding the dissenters if necessary. Do they give tests and/or classes in constitutional law and the limits circumscribing the behavior of superior officers in the military? I think not. But we do train all children of school age to pledge their allegiance to a flag every morning, a level of indoctrination which I find both bizarre and troubling. I don't mean this post to be anti-military or anti-American, but your faith in symbols seems naive to me. Christianity and Islam both lay claim to being peaceable religions subservient to a merciful deity, and yet the history of both is drenched in blood. Besides which, there's a history in the US (as in many other countries, to an even greater degree) of just suspending bits of the constitution as and when 'necessity' demands it.
jacquesm 17y ago
earlier today on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740959 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740959
caffeine 17y ago
To sum up: "If crushing resistance doesn't require blood, what's to stop an epidemic of resistance-crushing?" Nothing. Already, there's nothing. Resistance has been crushed. On some other thread, they're about to lock a guy in a cage for an eighth of his natural life span - for circumventing video game copy protection. All we can do is fucking blog about it. It's crushed, and there's nothing we can do about it, and robots will just make it a little more crushed.
- rw 17y ago
  "As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." -- John Dewey
- wooby 17y ago
  There have existed, and do exist, cultures which value human lives lost in combat the same way we will view robots lost in combat. In a sense, our enemy already thinks this way. Each Jihadist's death, to them, is a victory in itself, and but one of many to come; a mark of progress in what is certainly the most glorious and successful guerilla campaign of all time. I thought the author's arguments were heavily culturally-bound, and I don't think the use of robots in combat will change anything about the nature of war. Killing can be automated; war, and winning wars, cannot. There will always be repercussions the belligerent's society will be able to understand as "loss." Our current definition is lost troops. Our future enemies will figure it out if it changes, and make it as clear to us as possible in terms we can understand why we will not win. Nowadays, their tools are insurgency and domestic terrorism. Who knows what they will be in the future. Preventing the start of future wars doesn't have anything, in my view, to do with stopping the Pentagon from further automating killing. As long as we as a country feel the need to maintain a military, we must continue innovating with the tools and techniques of war. A larger and scarier problem with our country, in my view, is our society's perspectives - on itself, on the world, on the meaning of life and death in general. It is this perspective, and collective awareness, that will guide the way we use both our military and its robots in the future to solve problems and protect ourselves. The average American has never served in the military, seen directly or even heard second-hand the nature of war or the military. The average American hasn't even ever left the country, nor spoken another language. How can our leaders, products of such a society, be expected to make decisions about the application of war? It's a question that saddens me because I don't think there's an answer, and this post has turned into a rant. Forgive me, back to coding!

50 points by pchristensen 17y ago

There's a legitmate point in there somewhere, so I think the article deserves to be voted up. And before I start my critique: I'm a libertarian. I agree that there is a real problem that needs attention. But the delivery was awful! First he picks Iraq as an example to make a point that people of both political spectrums can understand -- not a good choice due to all the controversy of what's going on there. Fred the AQ operative from Libya blowing up a Shi'ite mosque is not really fighting for self-determination. Some are, no doubt. But picking this example really screws up the argument. It sounds like "we won in Iraq so something really evil must come out of it!", kind of reasoning. Ugh. Then we have the premise that robots can be used for counter-insurgency. While I agree that there are many pointy-headed folks at DoD who think this, it's not the way counter-insurgency works. The whole idea is to get real, live troops out into the field and interacting with the local population, protecting it. Protect the people first. Killer robots hosing down random houses with tear gas and tasers really don't meet that criteria. At some point after the first few paragraphs, I pictured the author as waving their hands around in the air wildly and screaming "The robots are coming! The robots are coming!" Probably not fair to the author, but dude, you lost me. Calm down a bit and make a cogent point with supporting evidence. Tell a story. Do something except rant on for so long. Towards the end I was just skimming. You'd made your point and life is short. "By globally respecting the right to self-defense recognized in America as the Second Amendment we can avoid an entire set of grossly negative and destructive futures." But the Second Amendment is titled "The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution". It all kind of fits together as one huge compromise (the Bill of Rights) added on to the Constitution to get ratification. Other countries have already disarmed their populations and are very good at oppressing them and preventing change without robots. Even the U.S. took the ability of most people from owning combat firearms away in the 1930s as a way to prevent crime. As a world, we've already mostly lost our ability to enact forceful change. Those days are gone. You're late to the party, and while it's great this robot thing has woken you up, robots are just another tool in a very large toolbox that states use to keep the folks in line. Finally, this is technology. It's not just the U.S., or DoD. This is the incredible, wonderful, terrible, and awful march of progress. You'd have a better chance stopping a freight train with rubber bands than to make a dent in the inexorable advance of new ways to control people. So less ranting and more analysis and recommendations, please?

RobGR 17y ago
I wish to nitpick your discription of the 1930s federal gun law as taking away the ability of most people to own combat firearms. That law was rather carefully crafted to try to avoid taking away the right to own "combat" firearms, because those firearms are exactly the ones to which the 2d amendment would apply. Rather, it focused on cannons and bombs, which they could argue were not personal arms, and on what it called "tools of assassination", silenced weapons and automatic weapons. Automatic weapons were not common combat firearms at the time, most soldiers would have rifles that were bolt action, a few semi-automatic. At the time the law was passed the New Dealers were fighting the Supreme Court, which was overturning a lot of their grand plans, so the gun law was crafted with that in mind. It doesn't even technically ban the "class III" weapons, it just requires an excise tax which is difficult to pay. It is still probably an unconstitutional law, and it's benefits in fighting crime are probably not very big -- the old tommy gun gangsters of the 1930s were not driven out of business by lack of automatic weapons, they were tracked down and killed and arrested by traditional police work (some of which was unconstitutional in other ways). A larger objection I have is to your claim "we've already mostly lost out ability to enact forceful change. Those days are gone." I think the general trend from 1776 to now, has been towards a more just, more democratic, more ideal society. There are major deviations on the way, and we are currently regressing, but still ahead of where we were in 1960, I think. I also think robot technology will not always benefit just the rich and powerful in conflicts. Hobbiests can already build model aircraft which carry a WRT54G and do auto-pilot; when Palestinians hack a cell phone onto a model plane and send a few ounces of incendiary or a grenade on a long, slow trip to be fairly precisely delivered via GPS or cell tower positioning, then you will know the temporary imbalence is ending.
- DanielBMarkham 17y ago
  I think you misunderstood me. I agree that society is more just now -- a lot of progress has been made. By "forceful change" I meant the government is no longer so afraid of armed civilians as it was, say, during the Whiskey Rebellion. Jefferson's quip that "A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." hardly seems apt in its original meaning. Very interesting piece of history regarding the 1930s laws. Thanks for the correction.

krschultz 17y ago

I see his point, but I think we are already powerless against the government militarily. What does the average American have that can stop a tank, or an armored personnel carrier, or a jet, or a helicopter. Iraq disbanded its military, all those guys went home with AK-47s and knew where the ammo depots were. The IEDs beating our guys are up often artillery shells wired to a cell phone. We all have cell phones, who knows how to get artillery shells in the US? Not nearly enough people to make a decent fight. The only way it could happen here is if a significant portion of the US military sided with the revolutionaries - ironically what happened in both the American Revolution and the Civil War. There is no example of a successful revolution based solely on civilian soldiers. A lot of the people in the US army during the revolution were civilians prior to the shooting, but they were led by men who had fought in the French & Indian war for the British. So if some of the military is joining the breakaway sect, robots or not will not change the situation since both sides will have them. I'm still more worried about chemical, biological, or nuclear attack.

ovi256 17y ago
So if some of the military is joining the breakaway sect, robots or not will not change the situation since both sides will have them. But it is not a given that the military may not break apart. Supporting the population tends to happen in conscript armies. The US army is a professional army. They are loyal to the USG, and to the Army itself.
- gaius 17y ago
  But the oath says (emphasis mine): "I, _____, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign *and domestic*" Not the government, not the Army itself or even the President, the Constitution.
  - anigbrowl 17y ago
    Don't be naive. A majority of people are sufficiently flag-simple that they'll do whatever they're told to do, including rounding the dissenters if necessary. Do they give tests and/or classes in constitutional law and the limits circumscribing the behavior of superior officers in the military? I think not. But we do train all children of school age to pledge their allegiance to a flag every morning, a level of indoctrination which I find both bizarre and troubling. I don't mean this post to be anti-military or anti-American, but your faith in symbols seems naive to me. Christianity and Islam both lay claim to being peaceable religions subservient to a merciful deity, and yet the history of both is drenched in blood. Besides which, there's a history in the US (as in many other countries, to an even greater degree) of just suspending bits of the constitution as and when 'necessity' demands it.

jacquesm 17y ago

earlier today on HN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740959 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=740959

caffeine 17y ago

To sum up: "If crushing resistance doesn't require blood, what's to stop an epidemic of resistance-crushing?" Nothing. Already, there's nothing. Resistance has been crushed. On some other thread, they're about to lock a guy in a cage for an eighth of his natural life span - for circumventing video game copy protection. All we can do is fucking blog about it. It's crushed, and there's nothing we can do about it, and robots will just make it a little more crushed.

rw 17y ago
"As long as politics is the shadow cast on society by big business, the attenuation of the shadow will not change the substance." -- John Dewey
wooby 17y ago
There have existed, and do exist, cultures which value human lives lost in combat the same way we will view robots lost in combat. In a sense, our enemy already thinks this way. Each Jihadist's death, to them, is a victory in itself, and but one of many to come; a mark of progress in what is certainly the most glorious and successful guerilla campaign of all time. I thought the author's arguments were heavily culturally-bound, and I don't think the use of robots in combat will change anything about the nature of war. Killing can be automated; war, and winning wars, cannot. There will always be repercussions the belligerent's society will be able to understand as "loss." Our current definition is lost troops. Our future enemies will figure it out if it changes, and make it as clear to us as possible in terms we can understand why we will not win. Nowadays, their tools are insurgency and domestic terrorism. Who knows what they will be in the future. Preventing the start of future wars doesn't have anything, in my view, to do with stopping the Pentagon from further automating killing. As long as we as a country feel the need to maintain a military, we must continue innovating with the tools and techniques of war. A larger and scarier problem with our country, in my view, is our society's perspectives - on itself, on the world, on the meaning of life and death in general. It is this perspective, and collective awareness, that will guide the way we use both our military and its robots in the future to solve problems and protect ourselves. The average American has never served in the military, seen directly or even heard second-hand the nature of war or the military. The average American hasn't even ever left the country, nor spoken another language. How can our leaders, products of such a society, be expected to make decisions about the application of war? It's a question that saddens me because I don't think there's an answer, and this post has turned into a rant. Forgive me, back to coding!