[ExI] Lawless warfare

[BillK]

Jeff is upset by lawlessness at the top of our society.
He is of course right to be concerned about the failure of the rule of
law for politicians, financiers, corporate leaders, etc.
"Too big to jail".

Keith uses evolutionary theory to say that wars happen when a nation
is in hard times or anticipates hard times.
(I have complained about this definition in the past as it seems to
cover almost all nations at all times).

But the new fashion in warfare is remote control warfare.
Where do the 'hard times' apply when soldiers work from a base in
Nevada controlling drones to bomb and kill people thousands of miles
away? There are now thousands of drones killing people (designated as
possible terrorists) in many countries. Mostly with no official
declaration of war. The US has assumed the right to kill 'persons of
interest' anywhere in the world. The drone operators say that they are
just following orders, then go home to their families for dinner. From
an ethics POV this is probably better than fire-bombing German cities,
but ethics is getting really tricky these days.

And now local police forces are getting drones. Armed drones as well
as surveillance drones.

One of the problems for the future is that it is only a matter of time
until the 'bad guys' get drones as well. As drones become smaller,
more intelligent and more difficult to detect, they will be able to
target anyone. No one will be safe, not even the President. No one
will want to become a 'leader' because it will be too dangerous.
Perhaps this will force a more distributed form of government.


BillK