[ExI] battle tanks to a five yr old

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 1:28 PM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:

> This, young man, is not going to be any more. Establishment is too
> important for this planet. Therefore future civilisation is going to be a
> civilisation of pussies, always happy and obedient, and politely smiling
> while being fucked from behind.
>
> You may not like my diagnosis, but to be frank, you never mentioned you
> only wanted to read optimistic ones.

Tomasz,

  Steven Pinker (have the book, but not that far into it yet) has
documented recently the march away from violence civilization has
taken. He sees it as a good thing. I think I do too, for the most
part. But being a pussy with regards to resorting to violence isn't
precisely the same thing as taking it in the ass. There are many ways
to punish and/or change behaviors that do not use violence.

  For example, I suspect if we were to somehow improve the poverty
experienced by young Arab men, we would see a corresponding decrease
in suicide bombings. Call it iPads for peace... :-)

  Most of the complaints I have heard over the last ten years is that
America is still too violent, in sending young men to war
"needlessly". And then you come along and say we aren't violent
enough. So which is it? :-)

 If iPads for peace doesn't work :-)  Then I'm sure there are enough
young American "video game pussies" willing to pilot drones from the
safety of a bunker in Nevada to take care of the baddest of the bad. I
think someone here posted about the VERY violent video game last week,
if not it was
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-04/sniper-elite-v2

 Do you think just maybe this kind of thing is preparing tomorrow's
warriors? I do.

 Of course, it could just all go autonomous in the longer term.
http://www.ted.com/talks/vijay_kumar_robots_that_fly_and_cooperate.html
http://allthingsd.com/20120302/when-autonomous-flying-robots-fail/

 Now, for a scary thought from the diseased brain of Kelly... Imagine,
if you will, a few hundred of these little autonomous quadcopters each
carrying a half ounce of C4 explosive shape charges and a couple of
pieces of shrapnel going after a high value target. Imagine his
security detail trying to protect said HVT from hundreds of these
speedy little fellows, each programmed to avoid being swatted 600
times a second. Each trying desperately and cooperatively to land on
said HVT's head (or heads of said security detail as a secondary goal)
and explode. It's a nightmare for a security detail to even think
about. How would you devise a defense against that other than stay
inside ALL the time? Eventually, even staying inside won't be enough
because you'll have autonomous robots that can knock down doors. I
doubt a security detail would carry enough bullets to shoot them all
even if they could hit one with each bullet. This is the kind of thing
like 9/11 or the Kennedy assassination that would work very well once,
and then maybe not quite so well after that.

-Kelly