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Given that humans are slow, expensive and heavy and increasingly a liability in most combat scenarios and the future of manned fighters does not look good sinc
by olefoo 12y ago
Given that humans are slow, expensive and heavy and increasingly a liability in most combat scenarios and the future of manned fighters does not look good since at this point any "new metal" called forth by active hostilities would be most likely automated and (relatively) disposable.
Unfortunately we seem to have lost our moral qualms about bombing civilians some time ago so any coming wars will look like skynet with flying murderbots killing based on policy decisions made far away by people who will never see their cousins body lying where the missiles blew it.
And if you think that's a bleak and hopeless view; just think how the Pakistanis, Afghans and Yemenis who've been living with that reality for a dozen years now; feel.
- peteretep 12y ago> we seem to have lost our moral qualms about bombing > civilians some time ago First UAVs (balloons, as it happens) used by the Austrians to bomb Venice in 1849. Just think how the Europeans, who've been living with that reality for ~150 years now feel. Unconstrained civilian massacre by aerial bombing had peaked in terms of shakey moral justification (Dresden?) even before the Americans dropped The Bomb and won the numbers game.
- tech2000 12y agoI think it might not be a fair comparison since Europe is now inundated with tourists and the Middle East countries mentioned are experiencing these scenarios right now.
- peteretep 12y agoOP was trying to suggest that the world has become more callous about civilian casualties, using drones as an example, and was wrong on both counts
- vacri 12y agoOne of the greatest benefits of visual mass media has been showing the general public that wars mean suffering on the other side. The enemy civilian and their suffering is humanised when you can picture them; when they're not just a byline. This is one of the reasons that the US military didn't let journalists have free reign in Iraq - they'd learned that lesson hard in Vietnam.