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Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.

by NateDad 11y ago

CapitalistCartr 11y ago
If there were a pilot in a plane flying over Yemen or Pakistan bombing people, the outrage would be far worse. I don't see a difference, but many people seem to. Either way, we shouldn't be doing it.
brosefstalin 11y ago
Maybe because it's so impersonal to pilot a remote-controlled toy on a screen thousands of miles away that when you see little black and white pixels moving on your TV, you have less moral qualms about pushing the little red button on your joystick? Maybe because you're so far away from that reality -- literally and figuratively -- that you're not experiencing your conscience and the fear of consequences quite the same way, making it easier to take reckless actions that you would otherwise think twice about had it been coming directly from the barrel of your gun, so to speak?
- Mithaldu 11y ago
  Good question, but seriously, no. You can actually test that hypothesis yourself very easily. Go look at some of the more gory scenes from Saw, or the Aliens movies. If you're like many typical internet people they won't even phase you. Now go and find some of the typical rotten.com / liveleak content and see how much you can stomach of that. Likely not a lot and not easily at all. Knowing that something is real makes a MASSIVE difference. Further, being on the ground with a gun, facing armed and active enemies² makes you more likely and less inhibited to recklessly kill people, because while there may be consequences to killing, the consequence to being killed is FAR greater. Soldiers need to be trained to not go full auto with their rifles for a reason. ² Just a note to make clear that i edited that part in as clarification. vvvv For one, that book doesn't seem to cover direct vs remote combat, which is the comparison i was making, and further: Read the reviews underneath.
  - Spearchucker 11y ago
    "...being on the ground with a gun makes you more likely and less inhibited..." It's actually the exact opposite. Seeing the person you're about to kill makes it harder to pull the trigger (given a normal psychology, for whatever that's worth). If you're interested, the book linked to below goes into great detail about this. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0316040932/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0316040932/
    - CHY872 11y ago
      Yes, but historically armies have proved more than adept at drilling those instincts out of people.
- bane 11y ago
  It's a good point, but it's also not clear if the experience is materially all that different from dropping a bomb from 30,000 ft. The view from a Spectre gunship isn't materially all that different than from a drone operator's position. And there's quite a bit of evidence that drone operators do suffer similar psychological problems as in-theater operators. http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumatic_stress_disorder_why_drone_pilots_are_quitting_in_record_numbers_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumati...
- afarrell 11y ago
  But a pilot of a manned aircraft has a limited, possibly zero time to observe the people in question. A pilot of an unmanned aircraft has a much longer time. """ “Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.” """ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-g...
- mc32 11y ago
  A drone pilot is apt to make fewer errors and more time to think before unloading. This removal from immediate reality is a double edged sword, there is less immediate harm to them but that also affords the remote pilot to consider things more coldly and calculatedly. There is more Tim to think before unloading, so that means fewer mistakes. When you have humanned aircraft, you get lots more collateral and unintended casualties. People intrinsically have a problem with the clinicality of technological enhancement. Imagine an algorithm which could tell a police force who is likely out to commit crimes given observed parameters (time, route, familiarity in area, vehicle, passengers, origin, destination, income, education, criminal history, etc) people would be freaked out. I'm sure some day well have this and people will wish for good old police walking the beat, mistakenly stopping the wrong person, but at least its not an impersonal algorithm targeting you.
lostcolony 11y ago
Because they're concerned that the lack of a pilot, and thus, pilot risk, means the US is more willing to order attacks, since there is no political risk to themselves should something be shot down? Because they're concerned with the change in warfare this heralds, that we're moving to using technologies that explicitly and autonomously target civilian areas, and deciding who 'enemy combatants' are based on presidential mandate, rather than military engagements, thus setting a terrible precedent for future wars (i.e., if we ever were to find ourselves at war with another country, or even not at war, just that one of our citizens did something against a country, and that country decided to use drones to attack civilian sites, claiming they were attacking enemy combatants, what recourse would we have on the international stage)? Because they're concerned not so much with drones, but with the precedent set by presidentially ordered assassination, and through means known to cause collateral damage (unlike most alleged assassination attempts prior)? Because the entire policy has led to intense fear in the areas we're flying drones over; not only are we now inspiring terror in our attempt to find and kill terrorists (...), but we're hurting our chances at winning over 'hearts and minds' and such, and likely raising up a generation in these countries that hates and fears us.
- mauricemir 11y ago
  what risk does the average pilot in the USAF face - its not like they are facing any! air assets and any ground assets will have been obliterated.
  - poof131 11y ago
    There is definitely some risk.[1][2] Aviation is inherently a risky endeavor. Operations in war zones make it even more so. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and_accidents_during_the_Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_...
    - CHY872 11y ago
bane 11y ago
I dunno, I guess it's because people don't understand that drones aren't autonomous, and think Skynet or robot overlords fly them and pull the trigger.
- jjoonathan 11y ago
  No need to guess, the reason why people are uncomfortable with drone strikes is in the title: "U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes" If you're a soldier on the ground you have useful heuristics for determining who is an enemy combatant ("are they shooting at me?") that drone operators don't. You also have mechanisms for limiting collateral damage that drone operators don't. Which isn't to say that these tools are employed all the time, but at least they exist, whereas with drones the official strategy for limiting collateral damage is "re-define 'enemy combatant' to mean anyone of military age killed by the drone."
  - bane 11y ago
    how is that different from any air strike?
    - jjoonathan 11y ago
      It's not, but I doubt that the people complaining about drone strikes are perfectly OK with air strikes. Drones are the most visible and most rapidly expanding facet of the problem so it's not unreasonable to focus the discussion around them.
      - bane 11y ago
        Right, so it seems like a distraction to me to focus on one facet of something not to agree with rather than the whole problem. Turned around the problem with this argument is that it's solved by getting to know the people you are about to kill. Which sounds rather silly if the point is to protest killing people at all. Or if we stay focused on drones, just kill them with one of the other dozen remote methods we have at our disposal.
anon1385 11y ago
You do realise that people were criticising US bombing campaigns and assassinations long long before the use of drones? People talk about drones because the vast majority of "blowing people up" that the US does these days is done with drones. Before drones people complained about conventional bombers or cluster bombs or land mines or carpet bombing or agent orange. In most of these cases the issue wasn't the technology itself, it was the fact that the technology was being used for mass killing of random civilians. If the US was flying drones about just to take pictures of things people would talk about them far less. I hope that addresses your concerns.
higherpurpose 11y ago
For the same reason "mass surveillance" is different than "targeted surveillance". The US government is performing "air strikes" orders of magnitude more often than actual jet-based air strikes, to the point where it now kills people based on surveillance algorithms rather than a proper investigation of the target. It's going to be yet orders of magnitude worse when autonomous drones arrive (they are probably already in testing now) - and make no mistake, autonomous drones is an idea about as irresistible to the government as mass surveillance. Moore's Law will make autonomous drones too hard to resist.
- CHY872 11y ago
  > it now kills people based on surveillance algorithms rather than a proper investigation of the target. False. Algorithms should form part of a proper investigation of the target. Proper use of computers allows you to rule out innocents and provide intelligence in order to pick better targets. They can perform the grunt tasks, collecting and presenting reports and allowing the humans to focus on all the data available in order to more accurately make the decision. The algorithms should and do not dispatch the drones and do not make any type of decision like this. If information derived using computers didn't play a role in the modern militaries of the world, they wouldn't be modern militaries.

Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.

by NateDad 11y ago

Why do people single out drones? It's not like it would be different if there were a pilot in the thing. I guess it's just good old FUD.

CapitalistCartr 11y ago

If there were a pilot in a plane flying over Yemen or Pakistan bombing people, the outrage would be far worse. I don't see a difference, but many people seem to. Either way, we shouldn't be doing it.

brosefstalin 11y ago

Maybe because it's so impersonal to pilot a remote-controlled toy on a screen thousands of miles away that when you see little black and white pixels moving on your TV, you have less moral qualms about pushing the little red button on your joystick? Maybe because you're so far away from that reality -- literally and figuratively -- that you're not experiencing your conscience and the fear of consequences quite the same way, making it easier to take reckless actions that you would otherwise think twice about had it been coming directly from the barrel of your gun, so to speak?

Mithaldu 11y ago
Good question, but seriously, no. You can actually test that hypothesis yourself very easily. Go look at some of the more gory scenes from Saw, or the Aliens movies. If you're like many typical internet people they won't even phase you. Now go and find some of the typical rotten.com / liveleak content and see how much you can stomach of that. Likely not a lot and not easily at all. Knowing that something is real makes a MASSIVE difference. Further, being on the ground with a gun, facing armed and active enemies² makes you more likely and less inhibited to recklessly kill people, because while there may be consequences to killing, the consequence to being killed is FAR greater. Soldiers need to be trained to not go full auto with their rifles for a reason. ² Just a note to make clear that i edited that part in as clarification. vvvv For one, that book doesn't seem to cover direct vs remote combat, which is the comparison i was making, and further: Read the reviews underneath.
- Spearchucker 11y ago
  "...being on the ground with a gun makes you more likely and less inhibited..." It's actually the exact opposite. Seeing the person you're about to kill makes it harder to pull the trigger (given a normal psychology, for whatever that's worth). If you're interested, the book linked to below goes into great detail about this. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0316040932/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0316040932/
  - CHY872 11y ago
    Yes, but historically armies have proved more than adept at drilling those instincts out of people.
bane 11y ago
It's a good point, but it's also not clear if the experience is materially all that different from dropping a bomb from 30,000 ft. The view from a Spectre gunship isn't materially all that different than from a drone operator's position. And there's quite a bit of evidence that drone operators do suffer similar psychological problems as in-theater operators. http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumatic_stress_disorder_why_drone_pilots_are_quitting_in_record_numbers_partner/ http://www.salon.com/2015/03/06/a_chilling_new_post_traumati...
afarrell 11y ago
But a pilot of a manned aircraft has a limited, possibly zero time to observe the people in question. A pilot of an unmanned aircraft has a much longer time. """ “Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.” """ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-g...
mc32 11y ago
A drone pilot is apt to make fewer errors and more time to think before unloading. This removal from immediate reality is a double edged sword, there is less immediate harm to them but that also affords the remote pilot to consider things more coldly and calculatedly. There is more Tim to think before unloading, so that means fewer mistakes. When you have humanned aircraft, you get lots more collateral and unintended casualties. People intrinsically have a problem with the clinicality of technological enhancement. Imagine an algorithm which could tell a police force who is likely out to commit crimes given observed parameters (time, route, familiarity in area, vehicle, passengers, origin, destination, income, education, criminal history, etc) people would be freaked out. I'm sure some day well have this and people will wish for good old police walking the beat, mistakenly stopping the wrong person, but at least its not an impersonal algorithm targeting you.

lostcolony 11y ago

Because they're concerned that the lack of a pilot, and thus, pilot risk, means the US is more willing to order attacks, since there is no political risk to themselves should something be shot down? Because they're concerned with the change in warfare this heralds, that we're moving to using technologies that explicitly and autonomously target civilian areas, and deciding who 'enemy combatants' are based on presidential mandate, rather than military engagements, thus setting a terrible precedent for future wars (i.e., if we ever were to find ourselves at war with another country, or even not at war, just that one of our citizens did something against a country, and that country decided to use drones to attack civilian sites, claiming they were attacking enemy combatants, what recourse would we have on the international stage)? Because they're concerned not so much with drones, but with the precedent set by presidentially ordered assassination, and through means known to cause collateral damage (unlike most alleged assassination attempts prior)? Because the entire policy has led to intense fear in the areas we're flying drones over; not only are we now inspiring terror in our attempt to find and kill terrorists (...), but we're hurting our chances at winning over 'hearts and minds' and such, and likely raising up a generation in these countries that hates and fears us.

mauricemir 11y ago
what risk does the average pilot in the USAF face - its not like they are facing any! air assets and any ground assets will have been obliterated.
- poof131 11y ago
  There is definitely some risk.[1][2] Aviation is inherently a risky endeavor. Operations in war zones make it even more so. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and_accidents_during_the_Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_shootdowns_and... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_incidents_in_the_war_in_Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aviation_accidents_and_...
  - CHY872 11y ago

bane 11y ago

I dunno, I guess it's because people don't understand that drones aren't autonomous, and think Skynet or robot overlords fly them and pull the trigger.

jjoonathan 11y ago
No need to guess, the reason why people are uncomfortable with drone strikes is in the title: "U.S. Is Often Unsure About Who Will Die in Drone Strikes" If you're a soldier on the ground you have useful heuristics for determining who is an enemy combatant ("are they shooting at me?") that drone operators don't. You also have mechanisms for limiting collateral damage that drone operators don't. Which isn't to say that these tools are employed all the time, but at least they exist, whereas with drones the official strategy for limiting collateral damage is "re-define 'enemy combatant' to mean anyone of military age killed by the drone."
- bane 11y ago
  how is that different from any air strike?
  - jjoonathan 11y ago
    It's not, but I doubt that the people complaining about drone strikes are perfectly OK with air strikes. Drones are the most visible and most rapidly expanding facet of the problem so it's not unreasonable to focus the discussion around them.
    - bane 11y ago
      Right, so it seems like a distraction to me to focus on one facet of something not to agree with rather than the whole problem. Turned around the problem with this argument is that it's solved by getting to know the people you are about to kill. Which sounds rather silly if the point is to protest killing people at all. Or if we stay focused on drones, just kill them with one of the other dozen remote methods we have at our disposal.

anon1385 11y ago

You do realise that people were criticising US bombing campaigns and assassinations long long before the use of drones? People talk about drones because the vast majority of "blowing people up" that the US does these days is done with drones. Before drones people complained about conventional bombers or cluster bombs or land mines or carpet bombing or agent orange. In most of these cases the issue wasn't the technology itself, it was the fact that the technology was being used for mass killing of random civilians. If the US was flying drones about just to take pictures of things people would talk about them far less. I hope that addresses your concerns.

higherpurpose 11y ago

For the same reason "mass surveillance" is different than "targeted surveillance". The US government is performing "air strikes" orders of magnitude more often than actual jet-based air strikes, to the point where it now kills people based on surveillance algorithms rather than a proper investigation of the target. It's going to be yet orders of magnitude worse when autonomous drones arrive (they are probably already in testing now) - and make no mistake, autonomous drones is an idea about as irresistible to the government as mass surveillance. Moore's Law will make autonomous drones too hard to resist.

CHY872 11y ago
> it now kills people based on surveillance algorithms rather than a proper investigation of the target. False. Algorithms should form part of a proper investigation of the target. Proper use of computers allows you to rule out innocents and provide intelligence in order to pick better targets. They can perform the grunt tasks, collecting and presenting reports and allowing the humans to focus on all the data available in order to more accurately make the decision. The algorithms should and do not dispatch the drones and do not make any type of decision like this. If information derived using computers didn't play a role in the modern militaries of the world, they wouldn't be modern militaries.