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Comment by bsldld | Hacker News Reader

Then why have a real fight now? US launches its virtual flights, China, Russia, UK will develop their own. So let future war be of virtual fights! The side which loses a virtual plane pays the cost of the real plane to the other side. And the country which pulls out of this game(once it starts) loses the war! I see the future of war as total virtual affair. No need for Boston Dynamics style robots or expensive military hardware.

This idea is nothing new. In one of the star-trek episodes this was the theme, the only difference there was a real human was sacrificed for each virtual human lost!

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Because it obviously doesn't work.

What happens when the losing party in the sim-war disagrees with the outcome and accuses the other side of cheating?

A mugger accosts you on the street, points a knife at you and demands your money. You've managed to convince him to play a round of Quake 3 Arena instead - the winner gets your money. You win. Do you think the mugger will just say "gg mg", and leave you with your money?

War is the same thing, just scaled to groups of people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Taste_of_Armageddon

Btw, Shatner turned 90 today

Just watched TNG episode with a tribute to Gene Rodenberry after his death (Unification): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_(Star_Trek:_The_...

Been slowly rewatching OTS and TNG and the storylines and characters are so great.

The haves fight drone wars between themselves. But that won't happen because of nuclear deterrent.

So the haves will fight with drones and the have-nots will spill their blood.

This was presaged in Afghanistan. Army drone pilots did their shift killing Afghan soldiers with drones in an American base, get in car, drive to family in suburbs once your shift was up.

Next up: all those "shooter" gamers can get paid to operate robot infantry! None of that pesky resistance to actually killing people like they dealt with back in WWI and WWII.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/13/magazine/veterans-ptsd-dr...

> This idea is nothing new. In one of the star-trek episodes this was the theme, the only difference there was a real human was sacrificed for each virtual human lost!

Surface Detail by Iain M Banks also explores this idea. That novel also goes through the obvious problems -- you have to trust that the virtual outcome will actually be accepted, and that the conflict won't bleed out into the real. And at the point at which you have that trust in your opponent would you really be having a war in the first place?

It is a nice idea though, shame it's unlikely to ever become a reality.

Because you can’t actually force someone to pay up unless you have the actual physical ability to force them to.

Such a system would be easy to game. Simply build a physical army and go beat up everyone else while they’re playing dance dance revolution, war edition.

We already have that. It's called the Olympics.

Yes, this idea is nothing new. It's called sports. But at the end, when you keep losing at the game, you can still grab a knife and kill the f*ckers and just take away the trophy. Or just feel better.

War is and has always about killing the other guys. (Now I'm not saying we should not do away as much of it as we can, but it's not as easy as making it into a game and calling it a day.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot_Jox

You would accept the consequences of your country's defeat if it got beaten in a virtual fight?

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