>What is sad now in the USA is that there are very few politicians who speak the truth and very few news outlets that don't just cooperate in the propaganda.
There never were any. Name this mystical time when he U.S. government was some benevolent force for good and not constantly lying to the civilian population to push them to unwanted wars.
How so? Most americans have unfiltered access to the internet where they can get far more information than the old days of having 1 or 2 local newspapers and 3 TV broadcast networks.
I agree that some people, us included, are saavy enough to read news sources from around the world and make reasonably informed decisions based on a variety of sources.
However, the US corporate news is largely a propaganda machine and the vast majority of US citizens get their news in propaganda form.
Don't believe that? Do an experiment: identify a few news stories on Fox News, MSNBC, etc. and then spend some some on Google News reading coverage for these stories from a variety of other countries. I do this a few times a month for news that I am interested in, and it is an eye opening experience.
The authors of "Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex is Destroying America" spoke at Google last fall when I was consulting there. They roast local and national news as being very biased and not covering things that people really should know.
Congrats on being a mediocre person who doesn't believe in anything or have any opinions. This is the most offensive thing I think, even more than me disagreeing with you. Just picking middle of the road bland boring contrariness.
>We all know war is hell.
Apparently "we" don't because people continue to wage war.
>We know using weapons to attack people creates horrific, real human harm.
No, making it into a game complete with an Xbox controller abstracts the realness from it.
> So starting off listing the effects of weaponry on humans tells us nothing about drones. It just tells us about the horrors of war. Given this is an article about drones it should be very drone specific.
It isn't about drones, its about killing people. Who gives a fuck if it is a drone or a spoon. It is clearly an article about shitty wars being pursued by shitty people, not about how technologically advanced drones are.
>Today if we make a mistake we bomb the wrong home and kill everyone. 25 years ago we bombed the entire village.
What a false fucking dichotomy. How about not bombing fucking anyone? And who the fuck is "we"? I didn't bomb anyone and will continue to not bomb anyone.
>"The view is so pixelated it makes decisions tough" Can you imagine military people who fight/fought on the ground in real combat and order in strikes reading that? Surrounded by smoke and fire and deafening noise and hoping (or maybe not caring) that the strike they call in hits the right target/s vs all the nearby civilians also hiding and cowering in a village?
Again, false dichotomy. It does not have to be grainy drone feeds or confused soldiers on the ground. There are more options than A or B.
>The military is aware of the impact on these operators.
That doesn't mean they give a shit. I am aware of the drug addict a few houses down. I don't care.
>Lastly, imagine how you'd feel reading a similar opinion piece on Fox News from a gun ho former operator talking about all the American lives he saved by observing and taking out "the bad guys".
I wouldn't care. I don't care about "American lives" and I don't care about insurgency lives. I care about people regardless of nationality. I feel bad for the jack asses on both sides that eat up the lies of their leaders and kill each other in the name of nothing.
>What's even better with drones we're not losing American solider lives and dramatically reducing the number of innocent civilians killed vs how we would have approached the same problem just 25 years ago.
Its amazing how redefining anyone that is an adult male who dies as an enemy combatant reduces civilian deaths as well.
>War is hell. The issues are complex. Trusted new sources add to the debate. Biased ones feed their viewership what they know they'll eat up and do little, maybe even damage, the search for truth.
Being a boring middle of the road stick in the mud does more damage than anything.
Pointing out an opposing view, or the downside of the alternative to drones (boots on the ground) does not make the author a sack of shit.
War will be around until humans work harder to understand each others perspectives and evolve socially as quickly as we have with technology. You can help us all to that end by not being name calling anonymously on the internet.
I'm not sure the expletive was warranted, this being HN and all, but the post he referred to did start with an ad hominem by implying that a personal account of how drone operators have the same emotions as everybody else was manipulative.
He isn't a sack of shit for having an opposing view point. He is a sack of shit for this middle ground all sides have a valid point and the truth is somewhere in the middle bullshit.
He actually doesn't take the middle ground. He's avoiding the drone vs anti-drone argument to make a perfectly valid and legitimate point about the Guardian article.
And that's one reason why people go to war; they can't understand the arguments of both sides of a conflict, so it escalates to something that even unintelligent people can do: fight. If more people would take the time to discover the root of their conflicts, they wouldn't just take the easy way out and start name calling or throwing punches.
Very few people want to be evil or wrong for the sake of being evil or wrong - they believe they are right and they just have a different perspective on how to be right.
Truth is just the perception of fact. Depending on one's values, the truth can be viewed differently by different people. That's why it's very difficult to find "one right answer".
I personally think the middle path is always the place to begin seeking the truth.
I can tell you are angry (i have a 6th sense with these things). I am angry too. I am so angry at what my country does, and how ignorant the majority of us are about it. I have no salve. I have no solution. War's hellish qualities serve as entertainment fodder instead of a lesson.
I am angry too, but i respect the place we are and, respectfully, you should too.
This response should be exhibit A as to why HN was better when PG was enforcing the no-politics rule.
It's phenomenally rude, emotionally charged, wildly unfocused, and somehow actively advocating being loud and uninformed. It's hard to engage with a post like this in any sort of rational way.
Posts like this crowd out people like me from participating at all on HN by creating an unhealthy environment for discourse.
> No, making it into a game complete with an Xbox controller abstracts the realness from it.
False. This is exactly what the article was addressing: unreported suicides and clinically depressed drone pilots. It definitely doesn't feel like a video game to those people.
Maybe not the people piloting, but the people ordering them to. It makes it a lot more trivial for everyone involved than actually hopping in a jet and blowing up some weddings that way.
Being offended about anything is the weakest form of argument. You're upset this person does not subscribe to your binary world-view in that particular post.
Perhaps this person felt they didn't want to pick a side because they wanted to avoid the flame war.
It's just a stupid online forum, where the arguments are meaningless and the points don't matter; have little affect or influence in the real-world can have little to no value, other than the smug satisfaction one obtains from patronizing another person into the fetal position with their oh-so-superior logic an rational skills.
Congratulations, you now have 1000 internet points. Spend them wisely, son; don't let people see your real power levels.
Thank you for this. OP seems to be in denial of the fact that there is no "War". Whatever is going on is just to keep the massive industrial military complex running funded by tax payers. Fighting against Hitler was war. Running after a bunch of helpless people in the desert to test latest weapons and keep the bottom 10% of the population employed is just evil.
Unfortunately, you may have had a point, but the abusive and offensive way about which you've made it makes it nearly impossible to discern it. Your comment is exactly why I stopped reading comments on news papers, it is full of ad hominem attacks with a serious vileness that makes it clear you are neither interested in discussion of the subject nor capable of providing meaningful insight.
I agree with the other poster, political posts bring out the partisans and assholes.
The U.S countryside is strewn with men and women fitting this description. I bet it would be even more true if foreign soldiers were occupying america and routinely bombing its citizens.
>Recently, the Guardian ran a commentary by Britain's secretary of state for defence Philip Hammond. I wish I could talk to him about the two friends and colleagues I lost, within one year leaving the military, to suicide. I am sure he has not been notified of that little bit of the secret UAV program, or he would surely take a closer look at the full scope of the program before defending it again.
I doubt he gives a shit, and the reason we are in this mess is because most people think people like him do give a shit, they are just "misinformed."
The unfortunate truth is that any leader who orders soldiers to go to war should know that innocent and guilty people are going to die, women will be raped, property destroyed and looted, and so on. In WWII there was a deliberate policy of incinerating populated cities, but even if we don't go to that extreme the outcome is going to be grim. I hope any defence secretary both knows this, and considers it, but also considers what happens when you don't deploy soldiers/drones/etc.
>but also considers what happens when you don't deploy soldiers/drones/etc.
Nothing happens. Nothing. The reason those people are pissed is because of the U.S. government constantly fucking with them and poking them. Over throwing governments, secret renditions, locking up loved ones in Guantanamo with no trial indefinitely. I'd be fucking pissed too.
Obviously not much happens in the short term if we don't interfere in the affairs of Pakistan and neighbours. In the long term they might rebuild their terrorist training camps, but .. meh so what. Only a few people have been killed by terrorists, it's not a big deal and not a fundamental threat to civilisation.
You couldn't say that there would be no consequences for not engaging in the 1930s. Many more countries could have been overrun by fascism for decades.
Like most decisions that society makes as a group, the cost is spread over most of the group, over time, so that more people can benefit from the policy. It's the very nature of how government works. Yes, because it costs everyone, such policies should be given close scrutiny. But merely being paid by everyone through taxes is not reason enough to condemn a policy; the logical conclusion to that is no government at all, which comes with its own costs and benefits.
I remember reading stories a few years ago about how facebook employees used to spy on love interests. I'm sure there are better access controls in place these days, though.
However, if anyone at google or facebook gets caught doing that, it will have a hard time finding a job. At the NSA is probably encouraged behavior and I'm pretty no one is loosing his job over spying someone there, it's what they do after all.
Of course you can't (although I do believe we can and should be free from unwanted, unpleasant labour). But hey, you asked a value based question and got a value based answer. ;)
There never were any. Name this mystical time when he U.S. government was some benevolent force for good and not constantly lying to the civilian population to push them to unwanted wars.