Thursday, April 19, 2018

Internationally Approved Weapons

I saw this cartoon on Phroyd's World awhile back, and unfortunately it's still as relevant as ever.



People set up this strange dichotomy in their heads- where killing by a certain group & methods is wrong- but killing by their group using "officially sanctioned" methods (even that which results in collateral damage) is justified.

It's all the same destruction of human life, and especially when non-combatants are murdered, military action can be just as barbaric as the actions of any terrorist group. People who are cheerleaders for war are blinded by patriotic emotion that prevents them from seeing others in foreign lands as fellow living beings.

The detachment of humans from killing other humans, through technology such as drones & smart missiles, is an extremely dangerous situation. It allows for the murder of anyone, with the personal responsibility of no one. This is why so many people are arguing against the implementation of AI and autonomous robots in combat. This terrifying possibilities of this concept is illustrated in the fictional (for now) Slaughterbots video below:



This desensitization of war's effects, leading to the justification for state-sanctioned death of innocent people, is one of the main catalysts for terrorism in the first place. We kill innocents while trying to get the "bad guys", so they kill innocents... and the cycle of revenge never stops.

The only people who benefit from this endless destruction are those who are profiting from it, through the creation & utilization of weapons- the "military-industrial complex" that President Eisenhower presciently warned us about at 8:41 in the video below.


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