Posted on 02/10/2013 8:02:58 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
Most analysis of drone technology from libertarian futurists these days is pretty pessimistic. They’re generally treated as part of a larger techno-fascist scenario, like the U.S. global hegemony (enforced by orbital lasers and remote-controlled UN teletroopers) depicted in Ken Macleod’s Fall Revolution novels.
That’s an understandable temptation. After all, drones (combined with mobile operations like the assassination of bin Laden in May 2011) seem to have given the United States an unprecedented ability to take out the leadership and many of the rank-and-file of networked resistance movements like al Qaeda, far more cheaply than the old model of counter-insurgency warfare.
Extrapolating from this, it’s not hard to imagine the United States government, as a full-blown techno-fascist regime fighting to stave off the collapse of corporate power in a few years, using drones and remote-controlled soldiers to shut down web servers in Iceland that host Wikileaks or Mega, kill M15 and Syntagma organizers on the Continent (and Occupy organizers in Oakland), take out garage factories producing knockoffs of GE’s patented goods, etc., or just flat-out assassinate political dissidents based on wiretaps from Ft. Meade.
Even John Robb, my favorite writer on networked resistance and asymmetric warfare, seems to take a dark view of the long-term effect of drones. The main advantage of his resilient communities, as he sees them, is that they’re too small, decentralized and hardened to present high-profile targets to states in their death throes.
But that’s far too pessimistic an assessment, in my opinion. The apparent spectacular successes of drone warfare in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen are actually just early adopter advantages...
(Excerpt) Read more at c4ss.org ...
Obama uses drones 6 times more often than Bush ever did...
Drones have been issues to law enforcement in the Unitec States...
Drones have a unique ability to desensatize the person operating it to kill humans/enemies.
Given the violence level of our video games...I don’t see a very far leap to recruiting young people to do the deeds inside against fellow citzens.
Just imagine if we could use a drone to track that rogue police officer in LA...pretty cool uh? How about going one step further ...being able to take him out.
I thought this was about the low information voters aka obozo voters.
“It’s a fair guess that increasingly sophisticated, autonomous hunter-killer drones will be governed by an exponential rate of cost reduction comparable to that described in Moore’s Law.”
See my tag line. Cheap “increasingly sophisticated, autonomous hunter-killer drones” can shut down US aviation.
This vulnerability can be countered by drones as well (such as ARGUS surveillance) some of which are cheap and some not.
Will the first killing by drone on US soil be committed by the police, DOH, the mafia, al Qaeda, a jealous lover? The countdown has begun. The publicity on speculation over using drones to “get” the rogue LAPD officer has greatly accelerated the timetable of the first drone kill.
This LAPD officer episode and the barrage of CIA drone killing news this month has raised the consciousness of all potential killers as to the availability of this new drone tool as a lethal option for good or evil.
Job one for drones needs to be patrol of our southern border.
I can’t wait for the movie to come out!
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