Enter the Drone Zone

"Drones: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!" Today on #OffTheGrid, Jesse Ventura investigates the United States' Covert Wars as Poll-Cats in Washington propose the Targeted Lethal Force Transparency Act to keep tabs on the drone strike death toll. But is the toll the problem? Or is it the death?

In this #OffTheGrid clip, find out who Jesse thinks should pilot the first manned drone strike.

Would you put Darth Cheney in a drone? If you could pick someone to put in a drone, who would it be?

The full episode is available now on Ora.TV.

One of my least favorite favorite subjects. We've gone too far already. Drones should never have been used on an American citizen, Anwar Al Alawki and in a separate strike his son even though no charges had ever been filed against them.

This is a clear message that our government will not be respecters of the law here at home and armed drones over our skies should not be allowed. It's one thing to have a manned aircraft with a human pilot at the controls making a life or death decision but not drones where we have no clue who the pilot may be, where they are or who they're even loyal to.
How would we know if it wasn't autonomous?

The only way the government can prove they have no killer drones overhead is to not fly ANY over United States.
I will demand nothing less of them.
I probably won't get anywhere but at least I'm letting my displeasure be known.
Drones are instruments of intelligence and control and the only thing I want me between me and God above is clouds and stars.

ETA: Cheney's 1% doctrine is a slap in the face to every American, especially it's veterans who know the difference between fighting the enemy and indiscriminate slaughter.

originally posted by: OFFTHEGRID
"Drones: can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em!"

Yeah, we can live without them, we did for thousands of years.

Cheers - Dave

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

Would you put Darth Cheney in a drone? If you could pick someone to put in a drone, who would it be?

How many seats we talkin' about?

Two? Bush and Obama.
600? All of Congress the Supreme Court and White House cabinet.

They want war? THEY can go out there.
It makes me sick to my stomach. I posted elsewhere to #OffTheGrid about the book by Jeremy Scahill Dirty Wars and whether Jesse had read it. (Didn't get a response that I saw)

After I read it, I was utterly disgusted with our entire government.

Only 10 seats? Rumsfeld, Cheney, Kissinger, both Bushes, Obama, Condie Rice, Hillary Clinton, Petraeus, and an extra seat for whoever is providing armed Drone security that day.

Just my free-speech opinion.

Whats the difference between someone killing by drone and someone leaving a bomb? Leaving a bomb takes guts

I guess the tracking devices in our phones aren't intrusive enough.Do we really need less privacy these things will be used for or worse?

But is the toll the problem? Or is it the death?

It's the automation of death, or even the facilitation of killing and death made possible by surrogate robot.

There is no hope for sanity in a world of flying, automated abattoirs.

I don't suppose you know what an ethical governor is?

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

Meh.

Could have included the legal aspect that the US never officially declared war against any of those countries in Africa, or Pakistan, yet the operations are run via Africom(?) in Stuttgart and the AOC in Ramstein AB (violation of US, and also German law).

Also, the Europe-map behind that Alex guy is a little off... Suisse is not a part of Germany.

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

I think the technology is inevitable at this point. These devices will get smarter, smaller, more frightening, more useful, and a lot more prevalent in our world now and as far into the future as I can imagine. My team has fooled with 3d printing small quad-copters in our shop. Some of the software now available in open source for navigation and flight controls are pretty advanced already.

a reply to: sourcecontroller

I agree.

For my job I work with open source autopilot technologies and integrating them with "surveillance" equipment (Really, just fancy pattern recognition software and some cameras). The autonomous flight capabilities that can be purchased for less than $200 are astounding. In an afternoon you can turn an RC plane into completely automated surveying equipment, all with off the shelf hardware and free software.

The future of unmanned aerial systems is really exciting for people like me, but it also presents a whole host of ethical concerns. With great power comes great responsibility.

Install some more seats for Cheney,W.Obama and the rest.These drones are part of the security-industrial complex that Colin Powell warned us about.

a reply to: mike dangerously

Install some more seats for Cheney,W & Obama

can't they just ride on top of the fuselage ???

originally posted by: TDawg61
I guess the tracking devices in our phones aren't intrusive enough.Do we really need less privacy these things will be used for or worse?

Well how else will they mitigate collateral damages when they start using them offensively. Can't have too many people die in strikes here where they can't just ignore us forever. They will use the GPS on your phones to make sure the kill zone is clear enough and they don't miss you by far

How do you think long before these ethical governor's are common? a reply to: Bybyots

What do you think is the best way to ensure that developing this new technology, doesn't lead to more unethical invasion of privacy and worse? a reply to: Pants3204

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

How long do you think before these ethical governor's are common?

Please allow me to direct your attention to a better question. Yours is okay, but there is more meat there than "when".

First know that in an autonomous robotic warfare system, the ethical governor is necessary. It's the software and hardware system that is supposed to tell the robot what to kill and when to kill it, and they are trying to make sure that said robot only kills within the confines of the Laws of War (LOW) and the Rules of Engagement (ROE).

This component is a transformer/suppressor of system-generated lethal action to ensure that it constitutes an ethically permissible action, either nonlethal or obligated ethical lethal force.

smartech.gatech.edu...;jsessionid=BACD71B0B32C6C61A69C8066BC68C051.smart2?sequence=1

You getting that? They are going to attempt to confine the lethality of the killer robot by essentially teaching it ethics!.

You can't teach ethics to a robot, you can hardly teach it to a person; what we are really talking about here is an abstraction of ethics.

The whole process is an abstraction and becoming more abstract as human beings become further removed from it.

So, an abstraction of killing based on an abstraction of ethics. Is the sense of absurdity settling in yet? Who rides herd on the ethics of discussing the ethics of murderous robots!? Let's take a closer look. This is from Arkin's Ethical Robots in Warfare.

Robot Adherence to Laws of War:

1)
The ability to act conservatively: Robots do not need to protect themselves in cases of low certainty of target identification. Autonomous armed robotic vehicles do not need to have self-preservation as a foremost drive, if at all. They can be used in a self-sacrificing manner if needed and appropriate,without reservation by a commanding officer.

3)
Robots can be designed without emotions that cloud their judgment or result in anger and frustration with ongoing battlefield events. In addition, “Fear and hysteria are always latent in combat, often real, and they press us toward fearful measures and criminal behavior”

4)
Avoidance of the human psychological problem of “scenario fulfillment” is possible, a factor believed partly contributing to the downing of an Iranian Airliner by the USS Vincennes in 1988.

This phenomena leads to distortion or neglect of contradictory information in stressful situations,where humans use new incoming information in ways that fit only their pre-existing belief patterns, a form of premature cognitive closure.

Robots need not be vulnerable to such patterns of behavior.

Alright, I gotta wind this down for the moment, this # is depressing. Why?

You might not be seeing what I am seeing in those documents. One of the things that I am seeing is the list of references that Arkin and his team have had to dig in to in order to begin to understand how to write their software. Go ahead and take a look at his citations at the linked documents.

Point being that these folks had to dig very deeply in to human psychology and they had to specialize in a very particular area of study: the psychology of human beings killing other human beings.

War is absurd, and the absurdity of human warfare is laid bare in the double abstraction created by trying to formalize a human system of ethics for killer war-robots.

Robots need not be vulnerable to such patterns of behavior.

What is this? He's Jack and it's Lord of the Flies?.

Very interesting perspective, thank you for sharing!
a reply to: Bybyots

a reply to: OFFTHEGRID

Your welcome,

You're realizing what I left out?

The human "ethical constraint system" that is presently in place is the same thing, merely stepped down one level of "abstraction", if you will.

The whole thing is a crock-o'-#.

The only things drones should be doing is making dinner and bringing me a Tecate.

a reply to: Bybyots

I think that drone strikes in nations that are not officially in a declared war footing is simply wrong. It is against international agreements and is an act of war. It is a war crime to shoot someone not on a declared battle space without due process. This is from very old agreed upon law not something new at all. Humans are not supposed to be exterminated by remote control never mind autonomous machines programmed to kill a specific target. I feel ill every time I hear about some grandmother and her grandchildren being hit by a drone strike because one of their relatives that happened to stop by was spotted and targeted by a drone and killed along with the innocent. There is simply no moral high ground to stand on that says this type of thing is OK. It is wrong and the POTUS is guilty of murder plain and simple. Every person who is called by this present US administration collateral damage is a murdered woman man or child. They are innocent and even the person who was the target has never seen a trial or been given the opportunity to defend or even explain themselves in a proper court of law. It is a criminal enterprise and the POTUS and everyone who accepts his illegal command to commit these murders is guilty of capital first degree murder. There is no middle ground in the law for them to claim.