Combat Drones in RL, US army modifing bomb disposal robots Options

[Garland]

Good reasoning.

So I guess you don't buy the "aquatic ape" thing, huh?

[Req]

That is true, Method. Archaelogical evidence of early human history, however, describes us as primarily scavengers. We did kill for food, but more often than not we found what was left lying around - other dead critters, nuts and berries, etc etc.

Violent resolution to conflict does not necessarily make one a "predator."

Also, an investigation of the dentition of said wild apes often reveals a much more pronounced set of canines than those possessed by their peaceful and wimpy friends, homo sapiens.

And the aquatic ape thing is CRRRRRRRAP.

[Panzergeist]

Yeah, I read about this. Those SWORDs are pretty tough too; several have taken explosive hits and kept working. The centirfugal gun is a very novel idea. The main hurdle with it, as far as I can tell, would be making the circular ammo effective. I see the designer has made ball bullets with multiple hollowpoints, which is pretty neat.

[hobgoblin]

[Method]

I wasn't nessisarily arguing that apes are preditors by definition, but I think it does support the idea that, as humans, killing our own kind is in our nature.

Req: you are very right, but then we are speaking in generalizations here. There are a wide range of species, some of which have lovely dentitions. :D

[Method]

"When Jane Goodall first observed wild chimpanzees hunting and eating meat nearly 40 years ago, skeptics suggested that their behavior was aberrant and that the amount of meat eaten was trivial. Today, we know that chimpanzees everywhere eat mainly fruit, but are also predators in their forest ecosystems. In some sites the quantity of meat eaten by a chimpanzee community may approach one ton annually. Recently revealed aspects of predation by chimpanzees, such as its frequency and the use of meat as a political and reproductive tool, have important implications for research on the origins of human behavior. These findings come at a time when many anthropologists argue for scavenging rather than hunting as a way of life for early human ancestors. Research into the hunting ecology of wild chimpanzees may therefore shed new light on the current debate about the origins of human behavior."

Dr. Craig B. Stanford
Department of Anthropology
University of Southern California


from this site.

[Req]

Agreed, of course. :) We certainly don't know the whole truth about our origins - and I'm a molecular bio/geneticist type, so not quite as up on ecology as I used to be - but the blanket characterization of humans as predators doesn't seem to be supported.

[Method]

[Kanada Ten]

Get a room, sheesh ;)

[Method]

Yeah Yeah! For the guy who started a thread about robots I'm not doing a very good job keeping it on topic am I? :wobble:

[Kanada Ten]

Combat drones and molecular genetics might have something in common. More than Gundam Seed even.

[hobgoblin]

but its still a function for survival, not for joy (atleast not the norm).
only reason i can find are that our survival instincts can be extended to cover things we belive in, politicaly or religious. but to me thats a damn silly thing to kill someone over.

and the term nature means that its a natural thing, then why dont i just kill the person in front of me in the line? there are buildt in safeguards to make sure we dont make ourselfs extinct.

yes we have the ability to kill, but so have allmost any animal on this planet. some are just more effective then others. and most of them do it as a self defense function. dont trigger the fear, and they have no reason to kill you (unless you are seen as food and they are hungry, and no simpler source is available).

to say that its in our nature and therefor its a waste of resources to avoid doing it is a very silly statement in my view.

point is that we developed farming as its a simpler way to get food then go out and hunt or search for it. then the only reason left for us to go kill our own kind is to take over the territory and resources of the other, or if someone threaten our survival. if neither is present, why do we still do it?

[mfb]

because our perceptions can be twisted in such a way that we come to believe that we require the other group's resources, or that they threaten our survival.

[Kanada Ten]

And they can be untwisted as well. I would argue peace is human nature as well, if only through sheer laziness.

[mfb]

sure, but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to push all humans to act peacefully. the next generation will always come along and throw out what their parents learned.

i dunno. i don't really understand this part of the discussion; who's trying to prove what, here? my stance on this facet is that humans will never give up the habit of going to war, so it's silly to give up the study of making war less horrible. you'll just end up getting butchered, probably in the horrible ways that your research was looking to prevent. the opposing viewpoint seems to be nothing more than a nebulous "war is bad", to me.

[Method]

[Kanada Ten]

My stance is that humans are less likely to give up war if they have no risk in continuing it. Domination without death is no better than actual willingness to risk one's life for a cause.

[Method]

[mfb]

that'll only work for one, maybe two generations, kanada, if that long. how do you convince people who've only heard of war through stories their grandparents heard as kids that war is too bad a thing to engage in?

[Kanada Ten]

Simsense?

[Method]

But how will you convince people like Sadam Hussein he can't invade Kuait simply because he thinks he's entitled?

Or bin Laden not to blow up every American he can?

Or the Janjawid milita in Darfur?

I think the problem is that you could never get all of humanity on the same page and there will always be those who just don't value human life like they should.

[mfb]

you're not taking into account the people who would enjoy that kind of simsense, kanada.

[Kanada Ten]

Honestly, I don't think it matters. Whether we'll ever end the need/desire for war isn't really my point. I don't know what my point is beyond "continuing war is not an advancement in anyway".

mfb, you could make that satisfy the need/whatever?

[mfb]

i don't see how that's true. the whole point of not going to war is that that horrible things happen less often, right? well, if you make war less and less horrible... aren't you basically achieving the same thing, only choosing a route that's more likely to have the effect you want?

as simsense isn't a reality yet, it's hard to speculate on what effects it would or would not have on human psychology, and humanity as a whole. or, rather, it's hard to do anything except speculate--wildly.

[Kanada Ten]