Tin Soldiers
Tin Soldiers and Nixon's coming.
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming
four dead in Ohio
Gotta get down to it
soldiers are gunning us down
should of been done long ago
what if you knew her and found her dead on the ground
how can you run when you know?
We all know the words of this
Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young tune.
but I never really knew why the soldiers were tin.
Now I do.
If this story in today's New York Times
doesn't scare the hairy Beejeesus out of you,
You need a transfusion.
The robot soldier is coming.
A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to Battle
By TIM WEINER
Published: February 16, 2005
The American military is working on a new generation of soldiers, far different from the army it has.
"They don't get hungry," said Gordon Johnson of the Joint Forces Command at the Pentagon.
"They're not afraid.
They don't forget their orders.
They don't care if the guy next to them has just been shot.
Will they do a better job than humans?
Yes."
The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade, hunting and killing enemies in combat. Robots are a crucial part of the Army's effort to rebuild itself as a 21st-century fighting force, and a $127 billion project called Future Combat Systems is the biggest military contract in American history.
The military plans to invest tens of billions of dollars in automated armed forces. The costs of that transformation will help drive the Defense Department's budget up almost 20 percent, from a requested $419.3 billion for next year to $502.3 billion in 2010, excluding the costs of war. The annual costs of buying new weapons is scheduled to rise 52 percent, from $78 billion to $118.6 billion.
First of all, if we spent this money on developing advanced technologies
that enrich all of our lives, like on power paints or windpower,
We wouldn't have to defend those finite resources we're fighting for.
But get a grip,
spending this kind of money on War
is immoral.
Remember, this is supposed to be the Defense Department.
Not the Offense Department.
And spare me the sports metaphors.
The US could better defend itself
by making itself essential to the well being of Earth.
Now, before you think that sparing the blood of our own is a good thing,
Remember, that the thing that generally stops war
is blood.
When war is so costly, and so ruinous, and so full of death,
the War generally stops.
And Kaisers and Kings start talking instead.
World War I is a good example.
If the Empire can strike without risking the blood of its citizens.
Its leaders become drunk with power, and
It becomes an evil empire.
I saw the Movie.
.
posted by oZ @ 11:11 PM
9 Comments:
We've found moral agreement, again.
"War……is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace because the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds, war destroys." (Socialism, p. 59)
- Ludwig Von Mises
Once the current administration opens a three-four front war by attacking Syria-Iran, installing conscription as institution, and arbitrarily pursuing full-tilt combat with any and all takers, I will meet you in Costa Rica. We'll then toast to the old country and hope that we have the fortitude to begin anew. I give it about 18 months, if not next week.
R 14 is the Place. Code word at the tunnel is arriba la luna
the empire strikes first.
Tin Soldiers? This is a step in the right direction for a change. Now I would suggest one added innovation. That the robots be modeled after various cartoon characters of the country to which they are kin. Over time, as the people see all their tax money spent on war, fun as it will be, with only destruction of properties but not alot of death and dismemberment, they will begin to reason, "what's the point?" War without death is the ironic obsoletism of progress.
I think the idea here, is as Patten says,with robot soldiers we unquestionably "get the other dumb son of bitch to die for his country."
not fun for them.
But then that's why they come up with the cool blue lazer swords that kill hundreds of our robots at a time.
Like I said, I saw the movie(s)
I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you. The next will be a world war, all of them agin us. Even with all our little robots, all the king's horses and all the kings men, we might never be seen again.
I searched in vain for another Patton quotation, yesterday before my initial post. It strikes me as pecuilar that Oz and I were on the same wave-length.
The quote is from the movie so I am not sure if Patton actually said it, or if it is another imaginative construct of the hollywood jet-set. As I recall, George C. Scott is riding circles in a riding pin atop a horse, or maybe it is the one of the last scenes in the movie when he is walking the fields. In any event, The character says something akin to "with all of the new missiles and technologies, the day will come that soldiers will no longer wage noble war, face to face, and when that day comes, sons of bitches like me will no longer have a place in war. Then, I'll retire."
As cher put it, when technology reaches a level that allows humans to exclude loss of life when deciding whether one should engage in warfare, there will be absolutely no check against warfare. Loss of life, and therefore loss of resource, is the only check against warfare. The same initiative and policy used to protect life as a direct consequence will devalue human life as a latent consequence, because if a man cannot die for value, man believes in absolutely nothing.
So then, we're really fighting against the nothingness of existence, which lends well to another of my favorite books, and one of my top 25 movies, _The Neverending Story_.
For what it is worth...
last night at dinner, we talked about how the press didn't seem to understand what an amazing story this is... they are more concerned with the diversions and story lines.
the bloggosphere IS the fourth estate now.
watch for the major media to begin to attack and marginalize blogging.
it has started already with guckert/gannon story
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