Hacker News Reader

> "and technology which improves the effectiveness of killing terrorists and enemy combatants (and thus saving American lives) is a good thing."

There are other than American lives at stake. I suppose what you say would be true, if the U.S. used the technology to kill only those universally bad terrorists and if this somehow significantly decreased the damage terrorists do around the world.

But this is fantasy. The U.S. will most probably use this technology to detect more and to kill more, with much less regard to foreign lives than to American lives. If the technology flags a building that most probably contains a terrorist, the non-terrorist people present won't matter much to a drone whose work is killing terrorists. The building with all people near it will be gone. I do not believe the U.S. government or U.S. military care about the lives of poor people who are on the other side of the world.

Drone attacks also probably aren't that good of a service to U.S. in the long term. They generate strong opposition world-wide and probably also generate new terrorists. Killing one terrorist now in this way may mean creating 10 terrorists 10 years from now.

I'm thinking that they have a problem with the military, period, and don't think soldiers should have been in Iraq etc in the first place. Its an issue of trust.

And then you have the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more likely.

> the argument that if you reduce the human cost of wars, you make wars more likely

Very good point! Drone attacks make the operators into drones themselves, detached from feeling the consequences of their actions.

It's not clear that cost is even being reduced. PTSD rates in drone operators are roughly equivalent to those who fly manned combat missions [1].

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-...

This is a very good comment and perspective. I am not a vet and don't have anything close to the experiences that it seems that you have. That being said, many of my friends and roommates from college are in active duty military positions, and it's scary to hear when they're being deployed.

Even though a program like this might save some lives in the short term, training machines that don't have empathy and can be programmed for whatever means to kill seems like a Pandora's Box that we should be damn sure we want to open before actually doing so.

Also, my apologies for the less-than-respectful replies that you are getting. You should not be chastised for respectfully sharing an important opinion, and their behavior is unbecoming of what we should expect of American citizens.

There's also precious little understanding of the fact that the US isn't the only high-tech military power in the world, and that there's nothing stopping countries like Russia and China from developing this kind of technology. And you're a fool if you think they would use that technology more ethically than the US military.

Not are many Google employers American or European. So if I were of e.g. Russian or Chinese nationality, I would not want to partake into activity that in all likelihood can be used to advance 'wrong' interests.

On another note, how about everyone that works for Intel, or ARM or in any of the EDA companies? Or on Open Source? Should they all quit unless their comfortable being accomplice to creation of machines of mayhem? Or what about everyone that works for BoA or Wells Fargo - how can you in good faith work for the companies that have again and again shown to engage in questionable business practices? Oil companies neither have ever engaged in questionable activities in Africa and elsewhere - how can people work or them? And then there are medical, forest, make-up and, well pretty much every other major industry. Full of people who choose to put their moral obligations a side. Never mind us wearing clothes and such that are result of child labor and such.

Unfortunately they’re also very effective at killing foreign nationals with nothing to do with any conflict. And if you reply with the weasel words “collateral damage” then, with all due respect, fuck you. (Sorry dang, I’ll take any downvotes as deserved, but this comment is unacceptable in my eyes).

How much of your objection has to do with the technology, and how much with the conflict itself?

In other words, which question is more appealing:

* Given that we're in this conflict, what should we do?

* How can we prevent these kinds of conflicts in the future?

Those are very different conversations. Personally I'm more focused on the second one. But we have to take care of the first one too. And it's messy.

The answer for the second arises from the first, to whit “promiscuous killing of citizens radicalises survivors”. The invisible but entirely audible presence of the drone is a reminder that a foreign power has the ability to kill you at the touch of the button for no reason that you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And that’s meant to protect people?