I’ve enjoyed Mark Rober’s videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn’t sitting right with me
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU
In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down “bad guy drones”, the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.
Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril’s major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.
In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:
imagine a children’s bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that’s what it’s like getting hit by Anvil
This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don’t like is how Mark Rober’s content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children’s products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.
There’s even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:
The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.
No?
There are crazies in every religion, and even agnostics and atheists have their fair share of crazies that go too far. It’s also not a great idea to just not expose kids to religious folk (even if that was conceivable, which it’s not given how many people are religious) and it’s not a great idea to demand they keep it private. Preaching is too far, but it’s perfectly acceptable for a teacher to tell their students what the teacher believes in and to wear iconography like a necklace of Jesus on the cross. In fact, I would much rather they be extremely public about what they believe in rather than be silent about it.
I hope for your personal consistency that you then are also okay with a woman in a hijab creating educational videos for youtube.
As far as the crazy atheists go, there’s a type of “atheists” that treat atheism as a belief system, but have neither tried nor have the intellectual capacity to come up with their own, original understanding of why there is no god. However, there is a fundamental difference: Every crazy atheist is on their own, there’s no “atheist institution” that backs their craziness. For cults (and the only practical distinction between a religion and a cult is just the amount of followers), that’s not the case - you have a power hierarchy, sometimes more, sometimes less flat, that advocates their belief system.
It is therefore okay for a teacher - when asked(!) about it - to tell children about their personal beliefs. It is absolutely not okay for a teacher to tell unasked, or to tell children about the belief system / cult they are a part of.
Yeah. That’s exactly what I was saying. You are correct, I am completely okay with that.
I disagree. It’s perfectly fine for someone to give a sort of disclaimer as to what they believe in and other things like that. The issue is when they start preaching what they believe in without warning while supposedly teaching a different subject.