I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down “bad guy drones”, the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.
Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril’s major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.
In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:
imagine a children’s bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that’s what it’s like getting hit by Anvil
This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don’t like is how Mark Rober’s content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children’s products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.
There’s even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:
The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.
Lemmy is slipping into a weird form of pacifism where they’re really hype about certain types of violence (punch a nazi, execute billionaires, etc) but also hate democracies working together to defend against attack because they see government as a nebulous evil and they’d rather people die than admit their edgy ideology is overly simplistic.
And yes I know the west has been involved in bad wars predicated on lies, the west isn’t the only place where people lie and do awful things for personal power and wealth, democracy isn’t perfect but it’s a work in progress best effort to work on making things better and it’s actually working pretty well really all things considered. I certainly think having tools to defend it against attack is a sensible and good thing especially something as elegant and accurate as just smashing attacking drones with percussive force. Far less likelihood of civilian casualties or ecological damage.
But the West isn’t a work in progress. We actively support genocide. We are the baddies that live on the backs of the rest of the world. We currently do this. Actively.
That’s such a simplistic and idealistic world view, you really think the rest of the world would just be a utopia of mutual love and respect if it weren’t for the existence of the evil race?
People the world over are all just human there are lovely Americans, lovely Arabs, lovely Chinese and Japanese and Ghanaian… however there are also greedy and manipulative people in all these places, people who will hurt others to get in a position of power - this is a reality of life, things are complex and sometimes interests and established beliefs clash leafing to conflict. This happens everywhere all through history.
The world is work in progress, its a lot if hugely difficult challenges many which come with added surprises and difficulties and unintended consequences.
I never said that everyone else is perfect. Don’t strawman my words.