4 ms·

Effecttively? Yes, it kills 'some people' effectively. No one cares about the details like that those people are women, children, or unarmed men, because who w

Effecttively? Yes, it kills 'some people' effectively. No one cares about the details like that those people are women, children, or unarmed men, because who would, if he judges based on his hunch from watching pixelated video feed, and there are no consequences. http://boingboing.net/2015/03/11/drones-and-the-rise-of-the-hig.html http://boingboing.net/2015/03/11/drones-and-the-rise-of-the-...

DanBC 11y ago
Are more civilians killed by drones or by cluster bombs[1] or "shock and awe" style campaigns? Any civilian death is a terrible thing, but if drones reduce the rate of civilian death it's probably a good thing. [1] even when we exclude cluster bombs that we the same colour as air-dropped food packages
- HappyDreamer 11y ago
  I would think that the logic is that if there were no drones, the US army would drop no bombs at all. I wouldn't expect them to instead start carpet bombing cities in the middle east. Reasoning in that way, the drones result in civilian deaths that wouldn't have happened without drones.
  - tripzilch 11y ago
    If you take away a kid's toys, they'll grow bored and start vandalizing public property in more creative ways. > I wouldn't expect them to instead start carpet bombing cities in the middle east. Except that is almost exactly what most drone-apologists are threatening the US will do instead when they argue they have to use drones because otherwise, well, they'll just have to kill more children and civilians.
- tripzilch 11y ago
  So according to joering2's statistics, 4% of drone kills have been children. Maybe we can agree that's probably a bad thing. Regardless of whether killing children provides a tactical advantage (they might grow up to become terrrists, after all). However, your argument to me sounds a little like "You want us to stop using drones? Guess we'll just have to go back to murdering even more children, then. Seriously, you're forcing our hand here." And BTW, I have a brilliant idea. If you put drones over your roads that shoot missiles at drunk drivers (preferably as soon as they enter their car), it'll reduce civilian deaths! So it's probably a good thing. You only need to figure out a way to guesstimate blood-alcohol levels from a distance, but if you can get its fault tolerance below 24% (or 4% if they're drunk children), you'll have a pretty solid net-win in civilian casualties over having to transport your flying death robots halfway across the globe. import drone, random if drink() and drive() or random() < 0.24: get_blasted()

DanBC 11y ago

Are more civilians killed by drones or by cluster bombs[1] or "shock and awe" style campaigns? Any civilian death is a terrible thing, but if drones reduce the rate of civilian death it's probably a good thing. [1] even when we exclude cluster bombs that we the same colour as air-dropped food packages

HappyDreamer 11y ago
I would think that the logic is that if there were no drones, the US army would drop no bombs at all. I wouldn't expect them to instead start carpet bombing cities in the middle east. Reasoning in that way, the drones result in civilian deaths that wouldn't have happened without drones.
- tripzilch 11y ago
  If you take away a kid's toys, they'll grow bored and start vandalizing public property in more creative ways. > I wouldn't expect them to instead start carpet bombing cities in the middle east. Except that is almost exactly what most drone-apologists are threatening the US will do instead when they argue they have to use drones because otherwise, well, they'll just have to kill more children and civilians.
tripzilch 11y ago
So according to joering2's statistics, 4% of drone kills have been children. Maybe we can agree that's probably a bad thing. Regardless of whether killing children provides a tactical advantage (they might grow up to become terrrists, after all). However, your argument to me sounds a little like "You want us to stop using drones? Guess we'll just have to go back to murdering even more children, then. Seriously, you're forcing our hand here." And BTW, I have a brilliant idea. If you put drones over your roads that shoot missiles at drunk drivers (preferably as soon as they enter their car), it'll reduce civilian deaths! So it's probably a good thing. You only need to figure out a way to guesstimate blood-alcohol levels from a distance, but if you can get its fault tolerance below 24% (or 4% if they're drunk children), you'll have a pretty solid net-win in civilian casualties over having to transport your flying death robots halfway across the globe. import drone, random if drink() and drive() or random() < 0.24: get_blasted()