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Comment by bedhead | Hacker News Reader

Maybe I'm crazy, but this has a surprisingly high ick-factor to it. I dunno, it just strikes me as so pathetic and misguided and almost exploitative. These places that are so poor there is no internet connection need...Facebook? (Btw, you can spare me the altruistic angle, because I aint buying it.)

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I agree with you on the ick factor, but on the other hand I think there is much to be said for the idea of getting disparate and non-communicative cultures to try to understand each other, and if thats going to happen through the mechanism of kids growing up and using social networking, then I'm all for it.

Of course, I'd much prefer to see someone go to places like Tanzania and so on, with the goal to teach these people how to make their own drones and networks out of the scrap pollution fobbed off on them by the Western world, and who knows .. maybe we'll see that happening now that the idea is out there.

From my perspective, it's damned easy to make a drone out of an old DVD player, some pieces of foamboard, and so on - whats not so easy is to find an application for it that will truly help people. Put an old cell phone in the fuselage and use it to transmit bitcoin between the villages? Great f'n idea..

If, along with FB access, they are bringing internet access to a region previously without it, then it's a good thing; because internet access is a net positive (unless you feel you are worse off with internet than you'd be without). I don't have a FB account anymore and find the internet valuable on a daily basis. Just my 2 cents.

Given Facebook's predilection for collaborating with the NSA, perhaps this is a government program to civilianize the image of drones. The military industrial complex really needs someone from the commercial sector to step up and rinse out a the bad aftertaste of all those funeral and wedding attendees that were blasted limb from limb by hellfire missiles.

Jeff Bezos tried his damnedest to make them seem like santa clause just in time for christmas, but we need some real megawatt tech celebrities to work their magic. Bezos is balding, for christ's sake.

I mean Mark Zuckerberg with all his cute, cuddly animal-loving vegetarian tendencies wouldn't harm a fly.

If HE'S okay with drones, then they MUST be okay! (insert obligatory emoticon)

And, oh yeah...

  CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 
  15 PANOPTICOID DRONES MANUFACTUED BY LOCKHEED, YOUR LOCAL 
  SHERRIF'S DEPARTMENT WILL BE ENFORCING ALL EVICTIONS IN 
  YOUR COUNTY BY NON-LETHAL PEPPER-STUN DRONE STRIKE. IN THE
  EVENT THAT YOUR HOME IS FORECLOSED, YOU WILL BE ORDERED TO 
  VACATE UNDER THREAT OF NON-LETHAL FORCE. 

  ---

  CITIZEN ALERT NOTIFICATION: WITH THE PROCURMENT OF A FLEET 
  27 PROTOBEDIENT DRONES MANUFACTUED BY NORTHROP/GRUMMAN ALL
  TRAFFIC STOPS ON STATE ROAD 902 WILL NOW BE CONDUCTED 
  AUTONOMOUSLY. DO NOT TAUNT THE PROTOBEDIENT DRONE.

  ***end citizen alert notification***

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