When I enjoy a wee dram I tend to drone on, but in a different kind of wayâŚ
Emphasis on âwasâ.
Damn those drunken war cartographers.
Wait - thereâs a National Geospatial Intelligence Agency?
He did them a favor in the long run. And his government position seems pretty irrelevant hereââdrunk guy crashes drone onto white house lawnâ is enough.
So I wonder if he can see a career change coming from his observation point way on high.
âDude. This thing is awesome.â
âIt is totally awesome.â
âDude. Lets fly it over the White House.â
âYeah right.â
âSeriously. Dude. Weâre right here.â
âOK. What the hell.â
âWait⌠what just happened?â
âFUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKâ.
Betcha Snowden was behind it.
There is, but weâre not allowed to tell you where it is.
I just found out an old friend makes and sells high end $10K drones. Some really neat stuffâŚ
I got bit by the bug over the holidays. Iâve gone from a $50 toy to my first build in a month⌠its very addictive.
It isnât ârelevantâ in any grand way; but it is arguably the most amusing of the 17 possibilities, so itâs a fun addition to the story.
I suppose that there is an argument to be made that AFISRA would be even better; with NASIC or the NRO as runners-up; but NGA is pretty funny.
Iâm from the government, Iâm here to help {buuuurp}
Itâs not going to seem so funny when the terrorists weaponize drones on US soil and the guvmintâs policy that itâs okay to assassinate people with drones comes back to bite them.
I can tell you its momentum though.
I suspect that we already have the legalese written up explaining exactly why real nation states get to use assassin robots; but âterroristsâ do not(a lot of it is probably just cut-and-paste from the stuff written to explain the difference between a âsoldierâ and an âillegal enemy combatantâ, who is nevertheless not a civilian, so it should be a fairly quick job. Maybe Yoo can send them some interns?). Not that that would stop the drones, of course; but absolutely no internal inconsistency will need to be admitted.
More generally, Iâm not in favor of more weaponized drones buzzing around, even less if they are in my vicinity; but as a theoretical ethical point Iâd say that itâs quite arguable that technological improvements that allow a Dune-style âwar of assassinsâ situation of strikes against high-level figures is more ethical than the traditional approach.
Historically, (to quote from the, um, boundless moral high ground of GTA 4âs Nico Bellic) âWar is where the young and stupid are tricked by the old and bitter into killing each other.â And mostly it is. The leadership of both sides, to the degree that they can, avoid the fight, and even if they lose are often given relatively decorous treatment, while the fighting mostly chews up the local civilians and the conscripts, patriots, and plain dumb kids recruited to do the fighting.
Iâm sure that the howls of outrage among respectable establishment commentators would reach the heavens, and the cordons of guys with guns and little ear-radio-helix-things would multiply dramatically; but I can see a very cogent moral argument for a war where some or all of the grunt grinding is replaced with a slaughter among the people with actual influence over the conflict. It would, of course, not be preferable to peace; but it might well be an improvement on the historical model.
Iâd vote to lock the leaders into a cage and let them fight it out to the death. But using most of the countryâs war budget to build fancy assassination robots doesnât seem very sporting. Maybe the old 6-shooters and showdown at high noon was a good compromise after all.
Given the popularity of politicians, this could quite well be a highly profitable pay-per-view business.
I for one welcome our drunken robot piloting underlings.
