NSA's SKYNET Program May Be Killing Innocents, and Tested in MMOs

[Thaluikhain]

I have a hard time believing this. Or rather, the details, that the US is a bit blaise about killing the wrong brown people in someone else's country (or hell, their own) isn't news.

Christ Almighty. Thank God I live in Australia. If I were in the middle east, my cousin and I would be targets just from how much we talk about terrorism in general.

Depends how competent they are. They might just hit randoms instead due to bad info.

 

[MCerberus]

Terrorists murder an awful lot of people in cold blood: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Government does something to stop terrorists: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Actually that's very consistent. It's not about who's doing the cold-blooded murder. It's about stopping cold blooded murder. In this thread we're talking about attacking people who we have no idea if they're civilians while being clearly around civilians, murdering first responders for funsies, operating lethal force without the permission of sovereign nations or any sort of international authorization, and an organization that's the gene-spliced clone of Kafka and Orwell.

This would be a case of "he who fights monsters" but at this point I'm not sure any of these organizations had any good motives going in.

 

[rcs619]

Terrorists murder an awful lot of people in cold blood: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Government does something to stop terrorists: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Actually that's very consistent. It's not about who's doing the cold-blooded murder. It's about stopping cold blooded murder. In this thread we're talking about attacking people who we have no idea if they're civilians while being clearly around civilians, murdering first responders for funsies, operating lethal force without the permission of sovereign nations or any sort of international authorization, and an organization that's the gene-spliced clone of Kafka and Orwell.

This would be a case of "he who fights monsters" but at this point I'm not sure any of these organizations had any good motives going in.

I'd also add that if you want to take morals out of the debate completely and look at this with pure, 100% political cynicism... it's still not a winning strategy. Every false-positive, every signature strike that creates collateral damage (even if we give it the benefit of the doubt that the target was a badguy), that only creates more enemies for us in the long run. How is killing one known terrorist, while blowing up a dozen civilians in the process, something that is maintainable as a viable military strategy? Short of accidentally killing the future leader of Al Qaeda a decade before he would have come to power... you're basically just pissing around, bonking random people on the head with missiles and hoping that they're important (which you have no way of verifying, because you don't even know who you were killing to begin with most of the time).

The subject of collateral damage in war is a tough, often very gray subject. The allied bombing raids in WWII killed civilians by the thousands, but they also did actually serve broader strategic goals that wound up bringing an end to the war. What the hell is the drone-strike program accomplishing? Oh, you killed an actual terrorist this time? Well who was he? Was he a local officer or just a run of the mill grunt with no broader influence? Oh, you don't know you say? How many civilians did you also kill in this operation? What was the overall net-positive to the war against (insert terrorist group here)?

Assassination attempts against key, *known* terrorists is one thing. Especially if they are known officers and/or organizers. But taking potshots at random people you think might be terrorists maybe, without any way to actually verify if they were and more importantly if their death was *strategically important*, that's just gambling.

 

[Quellist]

The fuck? They actually called it SKYNET? I'd just love to have been at that meeting. Shit, there really is such a thing as tempting fate!

 

[RedRockRun]

"as well as death squads"

Aaaand this article jsut lost all its credibility.

 

[Quellist]

I feel like them naming it Skynet was meant to be a joke and I feel like people are taking the name more seriously than it needs to be.

There's no way they named it Skynet by accident. That's what makes it funny.

The joke would be a lot funnier if it wasn't about killing people

 

[RJ 17]

I'd also add that if you want to take morals out of the debate completely and look at this with pure, 100% political cynicism... it's still not a winning strategy. Every false-positive, every signature strike that creates collateral damage (even if we give it the benefit of the doubt that the target was a badguy), that only creates more enemies for us in the long run. How is killing one known terrorist, while blowing up a dozen civilians in the process, something that is maintainable as a viable military strategy? Short of accidentally killing the future leader of Al Qaeda a decade before he would have come to power... you're basically just pissing around, bonking random people on the head with missiles and hoping that they're important (which you have no way of verifying, because you don't even know who you were killing to begin with most of the time).

The subject of collateral damage in war is a tough, often very gray subject. The allied bombing raids in WWII killed civilians by the thousands, but they also did actually serve broader strategic goals that wound up bringing an end to the war. What the hell is the drone-strike program accomplishing? Oh, you killed an actual terrorist this time? Well who was he? Was he a local officer or just a run of the mill grunt with no broader influence? Oh, you don't know you say? How many civilians did you also kill in this operation? What was the overall net-positive to the war against (insert terrorist group here)?

Assassination attempts against key, *known* terrorists is one thing. Especially if they are known officers and/or organizers. But taking potshots at random people you think might be terrorists maybe, without any way to actually verify if they were and more importantly if their death was *strategically important*, that's just gambling.

Eh, all that is why I say you go all-in and just glass the Middle East. Just wipe the slate clean.

 

[MCerberus]

Eh, all that is why I say you go all-in and just glass the Middle East. Just wipe the slate clean.

In the context that the US in constantly shooting itself in the foot by making its own enemies

"Genocide, because not murdering people is too hard"

edit- oh god I just realized that actually does describe too much of US history.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Eh, all that is why I say you go all-in and just glass the Middle East. Just wipe the slate clean.

Well, that would certainly wipe the slate clean.

When a nuclear weapon detonates, it throws large amounts of soot and tiny particles of radioactive material (called "fallout") into the upper atmosphere. The more powerful the bomb, the more material is displaced. Most of the soot will fall to earth within a few hours or days as "black rain". The rest of the material can stay in the atmosphere for much longer, potentially years or even decades.

So what you have is a cloud or blanket of black soot orbitting the earth in the upper atmosphere. Again, the stronger the detonation the larger the cloud, and with many large detonations the cloud becomes large and thick enough to impact on global weather patterns. This is what we call a "nuclear winter". Basically, the more bombs you detonate, the colder the surface of the earth becomes and the less sunlight it receives.

Nuclear winter is difficult to estimate because there has never been a large enough nuclear war to estimate, but in order to completely destroy or "glass" a region of 8 million square miles you'd need to detonate a lot of bombs. This would certainly lower the global surface temperature by several degrees, which doesn't sound that bad but it's offset by the equatorial regions which would be comparatively less impacted than temperate regions. The temperature drop in the US and Europe, for example, would probably be double figures. To put this into perspective, the average temperature of the USA would be around the same as Siberia today. Except that the actual ammount of sunlight would be even lower than Siberia.

So yeah, you would starve to death.

If you're genuinely lacking in basic human feeling enough to think that genocide is a good idea, don't try to conceal the monstrosity of your sick fantasies by hiding them behind the relatively clean image of a massive explosion.

Spoiler

Be honest about what your genocidal fantasies are. They're just fantasies about murder. You like the idea of killing people. That's what you are, and no spin you put on it will make it better.

 

[OldNewNewOld]

Gee, I wonder why the rest of the world hates Americans.
But it's probably for no good reason. It's not like you guys elected the shitheads who do this. Nope.

 

[RJ 17]

If you're genuinely lacking in basic human feeling enough to think that genocide is a good idea, don't try to conceal the monstrosity of your sick fantasies by hiding them behind the relatively clean image of a massive explosion.

Spoiler

Be honest about what your genocidal fantasies are. They're just fantasies about murder. You like the idea of killing people. That's what you are, and no spin you put on it will make it better.

Wow...you took my flippant comment entirely too seriously. People like you are why I absolutely love these forums.

 

[drakonz]

"as well as death squads"

Aaaand this article jsut lost all its credibility.

usage of death squads have been confirmed from hillary email scandal just look it up (you may need to use wayback machine to access some of them since quite few of the emails were removed earlier this week mere days after they were released online)
incase you are not familiar with term here is wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squad

 

[Gorrath]

"as well as death squads"

Aaaand this article jsut lost all its credibility.

usage of death squads have been confirmed from hillary email scandal just look it up (you may need to use wayback machine to access some of them since quite few of the emails were removed earlier this week mere days after they were released online)
incase you are not familiar with term here is wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squad

TF373 has been labeled by some journalists as a death squad even though it has nothing to do with political repression, genocide or revolutionary terror. They labeled it a death squad because of a friendly fire accident in the dark with an Afghan police unit and the death of seven non-combatants when they targeted a village where a top Taliban leader was believed to be hiding.

I've not seen the Hillary e-mails that supposedly "confirm deathsquads" but if it's any kind of "confirmation" like that, then the headlines should read, "BREAKING: Every military unit ever confirmed as terrorist deathsquad!"

 

[Archon]

Especially not the Escapist, as they are most known for their close governmental ties and hard hitting exposes on government overreach and not say quizzes to determine which Undertale character you'd pretend to makes small talk with in an elevator..

1) Our publisher and founder went to West Point (the US Military Academy) and Harvard Law School. During that time he did work for DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency).
2) Our VP of Sales went to West Point, worked in military intelligence, won a Bronze Star, and has a top secret security clearance.
3) The two of them were officers of the West Point Wargames Committee, and other committee members we knew later went on to work for RAND, the Special Forces, and other organizations,
4) The original CTO of Themis Group (our parent company) was a DoD programmer with a top secret clearance who worked on the Predator and the Paladin.
5) Our sister site EveryJoe publishes the work of a retired Colonel and former professor of the Army War College.
6) Our founding EIC is married to a former professor of the Naval War College.

So, yes, we do in fact have a lot of government ties -- as well as great quizzes about Undertale.

 

[Gorrath]

Especially not the Escapist, as they are most known for their close governmental ties and hard hitting exposes on government overreach and not say quizzes to determine which Undertale character you'd pretend to makes small talk with in an elevator..

1) Our publisher and founder went to West Point (the US Military Academy) and Harvard Law School. In his 20s he worked for DISA (Defense Information Systems Agency).
2) Our VP of Sales went to West Point, worked in military intelligence, won a Bronze Star, and has a top secret security clearance.
3) The two of them were officers of the West Point Wargames Committee, and other committee members we knew later went on to work for RAND, the Special Forces, and other organizations,
4) The original CTO of Themis Group (our parent company) was a DoD programmer with a top secret clearance who worked on the Predator and the Paladin.
5) Our sister site EveryJoe publishes the work of a retired Colonel and former professor of the Army War College.
6) Our founding EIC is married to a former professor of the Naval War College.

So, yes, we do in fact have a lot of government ties -- as well as great quizzes about Undertale.

Thanks for that response Archon, informative and witty!

 

[fix-the-spade]

...They seriously had to call it Skynet, didn't they?

I would say that was someone who had the power to name it but not kill it making a statement, a statement that will have been entirely lost on the old, out of touch hawks slavering over the possibility of entirely automated intelligence gathering and target acquisition.

Speaking of which, based on that flagging system, if communicating with a flagged individual also flags you, eventually SKYNET will consider every person on the planet be flagged. That has some... interesting implications.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Your Republican primary is reminiscent of a reality TV show, and your military is reminiscent of a doomsday movie. I think you guys need to get a little distance from your media.

Really though, even if the claims in this article weren't accurate. Can you imagine what the reaction in the US would be if any other country in the world was flying drones over America and assassinating their civilians? Even if they were pretty sure they were getting bad guys?

 

[Neverhoodian]

What I find funny is people's reaction to this.

Terrorists murder an awful lot of people in cold blood: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Government does something to stop terrorists: "OH NOES! We need to do something to stop this."

Sigh... Just give the keys of the White House to ISIS and be done with it.

You can probably blame my upbringing for that...along with watching a lot of Star Trek in the 90's:

"You made a military decision to protect your ship and crew. But you're a Starfleet officer, Worf. We don't put civilians at risk or even potentially at risk to save ourselves. Sometimes that means we lose the battle, and sometimes our lives. But if you can't make that choice, then you can't wear that uniform."
-Benjamin Sisko

If finding such lines inspiring makes me a dewy-eyed idealist, so be it.

 

[MCerberus]

If you're genuinely lacking in basic human feeling enough to think that genocide is a good idea, don't try to conceal the monstrosity of your sick fantasies by hiding them behind the relatively clean image of a massive explosion.

Spoiler

Be honest about what your genocidal fantasies are. They're just fantasies about murder. You like the idea of killing people. That's what you are, and no spin you put on it will make it better.

Wow...you took my flippant comment entirely too seriously. People like you are why I absolutely love these forums.

Poe's Law is complicated by a political primary season where candidates have mentioned they were up for such an idea before casually mentioning that they'd engage in actions that would directly lead to WW3.

So the reason your post is taken seriously is because people actually think actions that would lead to the end of humanity are a good idea, and we're all sick of them cluttering our facebook feeds.

 

[RJ 17]

Poe's Law is complicated by a political primary season where candidates have mentioned they were up for such an idea before casually mentioning that they'd engage in actions that would directly lead to WW3.

So the reason your post is taken seriously is because people actually think actions that would lead to the end of humanity are a good idea, and we're all sick of them cluttering our facebook feeds.

Easy fix for that, my friend: delete your Facebook account. Problem solved. :3