France receives official go-ahead to build a legion of bionic super soldiers

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Yep. You get to take home today’s internet. :wink:

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Well, at least someone is prepared for Brexit.

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Never forget, Supermutants were Humans once too

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That’s my concern, that new recruits will consist of psychopaths and the economically desperate, even more so than now.

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Oh Jeez can’t a superhuman AI enslave us already? I’m tired of the subhuman jerks running this place

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[spoiler for old SF novel ahead…]

Soldiers like this, called “augments”, are the villains in David Brin’s book “The Postman” (it’s taken out of the bad movie adaptation). They’re just what you describe, the kind of psychopaths who’d actually volunteer to undergo the procedure and gain that kind of power. In the book’s post-apocalyptic setting they’ve become survivalist militiamen who’ve established the kind of Libertarian “paradise” you’d expect from rugged individualist Bundy types (i.e. a sexist feudal one). It underscores one of the themes of the book, about the kind of people who actively seek out power (in contrast to those who stumble into it or have it thrust upon them) and how their malign influence can be tempered (constitutional systems, not surprisingly, but also alternatives to Western cultural constructs and feminism).

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Seems all too similar to the use of crystal meth by the Nazis during WW2 to enhance the performance of groun troops.
Not a good path to follow.

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France, like most European countries, already has an all-volunteer army.

(Technically they have conscription for both men and women, but the period of service is one day. There are plans to phase in a one month period of compulsory civilian service away from home as a high-school graduation requirement in the next few years.)

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I’m certain the US military has probably wasted a couple of dozen billion dollars on such research, mostly ending in failure. (But no doubt considered a success if you only consider the massive shuffling of taxpayers’ dollars into giant, arms-dealing corporations and congresspersons’ pockets.)

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… vascular monitoring. /rimshot

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