Pentagon drafts today’s kids to build tomorrow’s aerial killers(extremetech.com)
extremetech.com
Pentagon drafts today’s kids to build tomorrow’s aerial killers
http://www.extremetech.com/electronics/115823-pentagon-drafts-todays-kids-to-build-tomorrows-aerial-killers
4 comments
> Is there such a thing as a purely-defensive technology?
I think that most medical technologies, at the least, can be considered purely defensive. Ie, a mobile defibrillator or penecillin.
Then again, inventions like spray-on bandages increase the effectiveness of an army, which would aid in offensives. But I think the inventor of any such spray-on bandage would agree that the benefits to humanity outweigh the fact that armies can march a little longer with the invention.
So I think there's probably a large class of inventions that have humanitarian uses that "outweigh" the military ones from a general conscious perspective. Spray-on banadages, canned food (which may have allowed Napolean to conduct more and greater expeditions than he would otherwise), etc.
Aside, there have been many purely war-motivated or wartime-motivated inventions that have gone on to aid the public at large. (See for instance the history of the tampon, or the history of canned food).
I think that most medical technologies, at the least, can be considered purely defensive. Ie, a mobile defibrillator or penecillin.
Then again, inventions like spray-on bandages increase the effectiveness of an army, which would aid in offensives. But I think the inventor of any such spray-on bandage would agree that the benefits to humanity outweigh the fact that armies can march a little longer with the invention.
So I think there's probably a large class of inventions that have humanitarian uses that "outweigh" the military ones from a general conscious perspective. Spray-on banadages, canned food (which may have allowed Napolean to conduct more and greater expeditions than he would otherwise), etc.
Aside, there have been many purely war-motivated or wartime-motivated inventions that have gone on to aid the public at large. (See for instance the history of the tampon, or the history of canned food).
Spray-on bandages rely on aerosoling a drying, congealing liquid which hardens quickly. I fail to see how that core tech can't be slightly adapted to do something harmful.
Penicillin isn't really an invention, nor is it a technology, but we are capable of biological warfare because we know about cellular structures and resistances.
Mobile defibrillators are essentially tasers without a propellant and barbs.
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There are definitely cases where I'd argue something made for war has done more good than harm. Lots of them, even. But I didn't invent those things - how does the inventor feel about it all? If your accounting software turned out to have a unique algorithm that made it easier to keep ammo supplies available on a battlefield, resulting in a few thousand more deaths, how would you feel about it? What if it were tens of thousands? More?
Penicillin isn't really an invention, nor is it a technology, but we are capable of biological warfare because we know about cellular structures and resistances.
Mobile defibrillators are essentially tasers without a propellant and barbs.
---
There are definitely cases where I'd argue something made for war has done more good than harm. Lots of them, even. But I didn't invent those things - how does the inventor feel about it all? If your accounting software turned out to have a unique algorithm that made it easier to keep ammo supplies available on a battlefield, resulting in a few thousand more deaths, how would you feel about it? What if it were tens of thousands? More?
I'm not sure there would be any emotional trauma. Historically, engineers have tended towards being amoral about building weapons. Even Da Vinci was designing trebuchets and selling himself as a defense technician.
> I'm not sure there would be any emotional trauma.
I'm pretty sure I will be. I work with a former Boeing employee. Him and a number of coworkers were absolutely devastated that aircraft they sold where used to kill people.
Granted, it's a small number of data points but I would be pretty upset knowing something I designed killed people.
I'm pretty sure I will be. I work with a former Boeing employee. Him and a number of coworkers were absolutely devastated that aircraft they sold where used to kill people.
Granted, it's a small number of data points but I would be pretty upset knowing something I designed killed people.
Really? If you help design a military plane, it's going to be used to kill people at some point, surely? Seems a bit odd that you wouldn't be prepared for that.
What if you designed a cargo plane, or engines for commercial jets, which ended up being / being on bombers? Boeing doesn't just make military planes.
Or a simpler case: what about those who made planes that got hijacked, maybe even flown into buildings?
Or a simpler case: what about those who made planes that got hijacked, maybe even flown into buildings?
Sure, but we're talking in the context of engineers and defence technology.
Boeing is a large military contractor, so there's not much question that the work that you do for Boeing as an engineer working on planes is going to be used by the military.
Boeing is a large military contractor, so there's not much question that the work that you do for Boeing as an engineer working on planes is going to be used by the military.
The one explicit context to this whole thread is this:
>... one of the directors of the program, Dale Dougherty, was quick to point out that the students will not be building weapons for the military.
The only place I can see actual weapon-engineer context is in rdouble's example - elsewhere there's been plenty of room for non-weapon interpretation. "Military plane" came out of nowhere, except that Boeing makes them, as well as many other non-military planes. It even seems reasonable to me to think that Boeing makes more commercial products (and employs more making them), so an average Boeing engineer may simply never touch or create tech for the military. I have no numbers to that effect though, so I could be off. But why would there be 'not much question' that a 7X7-line engineer would have worked on a military plane?
>... one of the directors of the program, Dale Dougherty, was quick to point out that the students will not be building weapons for the military.
The only place I can see actual weapon-engineer context is in rdouble's example - elsewhere there's been plenty of room for non-weapon interpretation. "Military plane" came out of nowhere, except that Boeing makes them, as well as many other non-military planes. It even seems reasonable to me to think that Boeing makes more commercial products (and employs more making them), so an average Boeing engineer may simply never touch or create tech for the military. I have no numbers to that effect though, so I could be off. But why would there be 'not much question' that a 7X7-line engineer would have worked on a military plane?
So if you work on a civilian aircraft, which is later repurposed for a military use, why would you be "devastated"?
That part makes no sense to me - since it's nothing to do with the engineer in question, and they had no part in the decision.
That part makes no sense to me - since it's nothing to do with the engineer in question, and they had no part in the decision.
> why would you be "devastated"?
Because they feel like they contributed directly to the death of another human being.
Because they feel like they contributed directly to the death of another human being.
But I bet they keep driving their car. How many Iraqi and Afghani civilians have been killed so far by the US? That's a far more direct contribution to human suffering.
You may be too much of an engineer, then :) Some people react that way, some don't. Emotions aren't always rational.
Seems like a bit of a beat-up to me. The page that they link to hardly seems aimed at kids, and the only bit there about the MENTOR program (that acronym helpfully left out of the article) says this:
The Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) portion of the FANG program focuses on engaging high school-age students in a series of collaborative design and distributed manufacturing experiments. DARPA envisions deploying up to a thousand computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) additive manufacturing machines—more commonly known as "3D printers"—to high schools nationwide. The goal is to encourage students across clusters of schools to collaborate via social networking media to jointly design and build systems of moderate complexity, such as mobile robots, go carts, etc., in response to prize challenges.
For balance, here's MAKE magazine's take on it:
http://press.oreilly.com/pub/pr/2962
The Manufacturing Experimentation and Outreach (MENTOR) portion of the FANG program focuses on engaging high school-age students in a series of collaborative design and distributed manufacturing experiments. DARPA envisions deploying up to a thousand computer-numerically-controlled (CNC) additive manufacturing machines—more commonly known as "3D printers"—to high schools nationwide. The goal is to encourage students across clusters of schools to collaborate via social networking media to jointly design and build systems of moderate complexity, such as mobile robots, go carts, etc., in response to prize challenges.
For balance, here's MAKE magazine's take on it:
http://press.oreilly.com/pub/pr/2962
From inspiring kids to land on the moon and explore space, it goes down to this? Surely, there can be more productive ways to harness and encourage creativity and STEM. What about, say fuel efficient passenger planes, or cataloging cancer genes?
I'm not sure what angle they'd play with advertising, but I think "build a fighter plane!" sounds a lot more exciting to a kid than "improve the fuel efficiency of passenger planes!"
I agree. Though something like "build a personal rocket ship", like SpaceX or the lot doesn't sound too bad either. I am just disappointed that the civilian/exploration side of NASA isn't the big dream anymore.
40 year old tech (even if it isn't, it is from the outside) probably doesn't help. NASA used to be a driving force behind more-visible tech, now they just appear to be failing to keep up. It has lost some pizazz since the Cold War.
Humanity continues to hang from Eisenhower's 'cross of iron'.
As much as I'd like to believe they won't be working on projects like that, I think it's quite literally impossible to make that claim. A better armor idea may become a more-penetrating bullet idea. Is there such a thing as a purely-defensive technology?