Re: Drones

[Cognisant]

Commercial drones have been cleared by the FAA to fly, is this a big step for machine-run logistics or whatever your working on is called? Does your work involve the use of drones? Are you uneasy about the drones being used by the gov next (if they're not already?) in a big brother state fashion? Basically I know you're working in this general field and would like to tap into what this news means to you.
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Seems you don't accept PMs and there's a lot to cover here so I'll just make a thread on it for everyone who is interested.

So first off I don't answer to the FAA because I'm not in the USA, instead the book-throwers in my region are the CASA (civil aviation safety authority) and they've never had any laws against drones, within reason. Whether you're operating a business or just a hobbyist all the CASA really cares about is safety, if there's a privacy issue or something like that it's a matter for the police, generally they'll just lecture you but if you really piss them off they'll fine you and confiscate your drone.

The whole culture of privacy paranoia doesn't exist here, most of us don't have anything to hide and even those of us who do either have the sense to keep it indoors or don't consider buzzing little electric multicopters much of a threat, the police have trailed them, they got laughed at.

So business wise the release on FAA regulations only concerns me at the moment insofar as it might encourage Amazon to step up their delivery drone program, but I've seen what they're trailing and nothing about it impressed me. More troubling is the prospect of other more experienced RC hobbyists doing more or less exactly what I'm doing but beating me to it, and they're everywhere.

As for the US government, they have attack helicopters, strike fighters, heavy bombers, nuclear submarines and spy satellites so whether or not they're fielding predator drones in your airspace dose't seem like something you need worry about. From my foreign perspective it's all quite absurd, you people seem to be so zealous about your personal liberties that you're actually forcing your government to damn near declare martial law just to keep the peace.

This rampage phenomenon you have doesn't happen in any other first world country, sure sometimes in this country some nutcase will get a gun and barricade himself inside his house or wave it around and promptly get arrested, but people rarely die. Whereas the number of stories of lethal bombings and shootings coming from your country suggests it's as violent as the fucking Congo, that is not normal!

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

From my foreign perspective it's all quite absurd, you people seem to be so zealous about your personal liberties that you're actually forcing your government to damn near declare martial law just to keep the peace.

Our national discourse is infested with red herrings and straw men. Like locusts on a cornfield, they are wrecking it. Voices of logic and reason are pushed to the fringe. Whenever I try to think of what the future may bring, I see fewer and fewer reasons to believe there will be a United States by the year 2100. When nations lose their sanity, they don't often quietly get it back.

But here's your problem:

We have ropes (metaphorically speaking) tied around the metaphorical ankles of yours and damn near evey other country in the world. We also weigh a metaphorical shit ton and if and when we go down, we're pulling you with us. At the very least you will get a broken ankle or dislocated hip or something. It will fucking hurt is what I'm saying. It will hurt most everyone in some way or other.

But you know, humans can be resilient and perhaps they will recover by 2200. I'm such an optimist!!

 

[Cognisant]

We have lots of farmland, lots of seafood, lots of coal and iron, a catastrophic worldwide economic collapse may inconvenience city slickers like myself in the short term but in the long term while everybody else is crippled we'll be perfectly positioned to pick up the pieces.

Why else would an island nation be investing in Hornet jets and Abrams tanks?

 

[Inappropriate Behavior]

It depends on how we go down. If it's an implosion then I guess you're right. But what if we explode? What if we become a problem the world needs to rise up against? Have you seen some of our wannabe "leaders"?

You haz rescources? We wants them!

Oh, you have Abrams tanks? You might as well have them. Our military leaders don't want many them anymore, it's just politicians that make the military take more. We sell a lot of military hardware around the world (as a citizen of the US I feel like I should apologise for that....uh, sorry?). We are rightfully confident that we can beat our own weapons if it came to that. We tend to keep the really good stuff for ourselves.

I think an implosion is more likely though.

 

[kris]

But what if we explode? What if we become a problem the world needs to rise up against? Have you seen some of our wannabe "leaders"?

The world? Like, all of it? I think that would hurt America more than Australia(?) in the long run.

 

[Black Rose]

Soon the earth simulation will include every object on earth.

A map of earth in real time.

https://youtu.be/52Srh3cdCqc