Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

dougw — Tue, 23 Jan 2018 02:45:34 GMT

Planes and cars and trucks and boats and computers and radios and phones and the internet are prime facilitators in all wars and all kinds of other violent acts, not to mention all kinds of crimes.

They also enrich our lives and make it possible for the planet to sustain its population.

Whenever we implement barriers to access technology, it does not prevent use of the technology, it just gives it to a privileged group.

Fear of the harm that technology can and does cause or facilitate has been around at least since we learned to use fire.

There is no way to stop technology or its use, because it provides advantages.

What we really want to stop is anti-social behaviour.

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

mcb1 — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 01:20:37 GMT

The planes being brought down by a drone scare is scaremongering by some over sensitive people.

Sure it might damage an aircraft, but the worst it can do is damage an engine which is a perfectly flyable situation and all aircraft are designed for it happening at the worst time ... takeoff.

Damaging an aircraft is not a cheap exercise as passengers need to be rebooked, accommodated, etc, as well as the physcal repairs and downtime.

So yes it costs the Airline, but that won't win public support as much as waving the safety banner.

Mark

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

mcb1 — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 01:14:26 GMT

Discovery had a great program on Drone Wars.

The issue is that drones have already been used to drop nuclear material on the Japanese Palace (if I recall correctly), and another landed on the white house grounds.

So security experts world wide have been looking for solutions.

This program talked about the issue and showed 4 or 5 different suppliers who make anti-drone technology, testing against a drone invasion.

The issue was that any other method of 'taking out a drone' results in the payload being delivered, and the object was to make the drone do a controlled landing, or return to home.

Of all the systems, only one was really successful and the drones couldn't even take off from 1km away.

They freely admitted that this technology would only work on drones that radiated a signal, and as we know the SU got around that in Cruise missles to stop them being tracked.

So if some terrorist is really keen on doing something, there will always a be a way to beat the known systems.

So Drones v Aircraft are the least of the concerns.

Mark

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

shabaz — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 22:33:38 GMT

A lot of technology can be used for good or for bad, we can't stop it though, it is in human nature to always want to improve technology and make things more efficient. Right now things like machine learning and near-limitless computing is helping to make mechanical machines like robots and drones do tenfold/hundred-fold what we could do in the past, and this technical progress is accelerating. But in terms of risks, hopefully they can be managed with technology improvements too, since it is a cycle, constantly improving technology. We could also dramatically reduce the risk of bad uses of technology through better schools and education worldwide I bet.

In terms of the risks, for sure there could still be bored teenagers/hackers/terrorist implications, but the media deliberately has no perspective, there are more people dying of pollution in cities. The terrorism figures for Europe are in the chart below (source: telegraph.co.uk). In comparison, there are about 1700 deaths per year from vehicle accidents in the UK alone. But that's the tip of the iceberg - double that again, is due to road pollution in the UK. Yet we see no perspective from governments. If anything, the government should be mandating automated or assisted driving methods in all new sold vehicles from a certain date, if they were serious about reducing deaths. We should be seeing them take steps to reduce pollution by having better transport systems. As another example, in the UK, all health service key targets were missed and we've had about as many deaths since Xmas due to the pressure on the health service as the last bombing in the UK. That could have been solved with just a small bit of funding (bearing in mind the UK is one of the richest countries in the world), and the government were told by doctors writing letters and begging them, and they did nothing.

I had a discussion with some colleagues about this drone article yesterday too, it is an interesting topic. One of them raised the point of drones one day actually making things too safe, i.e. people need to take personal responsibility too, and part of the allure of surfing etc is having to manage the risk, and something fundamental is lost when you know you can rely on technology to always save you. I didn't necessarily totally agree, but it was an interesting point.

Yet another direction things could go is full control of the masses by governments, i.e. it could start out for moralistic purposes, but eventually it could be used to control and monitor us in a negative way. I can see the slogans, "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear from the drones"!

[View:/resized-image/__size/438x900/__key/commentfiles/f7d226abd59f475c9d224a79e3f0ec07-43633473-2ca0-4a99-91de-1c2d2ddc809c/contentimage_5F00_186304.png:438:900]

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

DAB — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 18:18:40 GMT

As someone who has been pointing out the potential of drones for doing bad things, I am not surprised.

It was inevitable. No matter what your position of drones are, they are a terrorist event just waiting to happen.

You have been warned.

DAB

RE: Op-Ed: How a Drone Changed a Mind

genebren — Sat, 20 Jan 2018 17:51:57 GMT

Wow! That was a bit scary.

Yes, like most things there are two sides. In life we must always make choices. I was really impressed with the life saving approach of dropping a flotation device to someone in need. It does sway me to having a controlled place for drones.