As killer robots are nominally no different than land mines I could see support for banning them. My understanding however is that land mine use (or area denial weapons), are still allowed if there is a way to definitively disable them at the end of hostilities. If my understanding is correct, and robot weapon designers are able to successfully counter with the notion "but we can turn them off after we're done." then this effort won't go as far.
At a conference over the weekend in one of the couch discussions there was a suggestion of a 'nearness' limit, sort of you can't use deadly force unless you are within a 10 mile radius of that use. The goal being to outlaw more developed countries flying drones over less developed countries and picking off their citizens.
Can we please not pretend to miss the obvious truth ? Here's the choices we've already made :
What is more important ? "respecting" religion or human rights [1]. Choice made : "respecting" religion (read: letting muslims execute ex-muslims, gays and ...)
What is more important ? Peace with China or human rights (See Tibet, XinJang and ...) ? Choice made : peace/trade with China.
What is more important ? Communism(/socialism) or human rights ? (because in the case of Cuba and Venezuela they're opposing forces) Choice made : communism is more important.
What is more important ? Human rights or the Trade with Indonesia (muslim state, executes gays, has plans to execute ex-muslims, ...) ? Trade with Indonesia
Human rights are dead letter. Why ? Because we've chosen against them. The same goes for this principle.
I think I'm going to save this one. I think there is a T-shirt in there somewhere, something like on the front "Get dressed or Cure Cancer?" on the front and "Damn, guess I'll have to Cure Cancer tomorrow." on the back :-)
Comments
As killer robots are nominally no different than land mines I could see support for banning them. My understanding however is that land mine use (or area denial weapons), are still allowed if there is a way to definitively disable them at the end of hostilities. If my understanding is correct, and robot weapon designers are able to successfully counter with the notion "but we can turn them off after we're done." then this effort won't go as far.
At a conference over the weekend in one of the couch discussions there was a suggestion of a 'nearness' limit, sort of you can't use deadly force unless you are within a 10 mile radius of that use. The goal being to outlaw more developed countries flying drones over less developed countries and picking off their citizens.
And here's the new list of countries guarding the execution of these rules (yeah, not technically, I know) : http://www.jpost.com/International/China-Cuba-Russia-and-Sau...
What do these rules matter ?
Can we please not pretend to miss the obvious truth ? Here's the choices we've already made : What is more important ? "respecting" religion or human rights [1]. Choice made : "respecting" religion (read: letting muslims execute ex-muslims, gays and ...) What is more important ? Peace with China or human rights (See Tibet, XinJang and ...) ? Choice made : peace/trade with China. What is more important ? Communism(/socialism) or human rights ? (because in the case of Cuba and Venezuela they're opposing forces) Choice made : communism is more important. What is more important ? Human rights or the Trade with Indonesia (muslim state, executes gays, has plans to execute ex-muslims, ...) ? Trade with Indonesia
Human rights are dead letter. Why ? Because we've chosen against them. The same goes for this principle.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
How about we break the whole world into false dichotomies.
What's more important, saving children or commenting on HN? Choice made (Commenting on HN), you wrote that comment, rather than saved a child.
What's more important, curing cancer, or eating something? Choice made (eating something)... why didn't you cure cancer instead!?
I think I'm going to save this one. I think there is a T-shirt in there somewhere, something like on the front "Get dressed or Cure Cancer?" on the front and "Damn, guess I'll have to Cure Cancer tomorrow." on the back :-)