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.
It’s simply, propaganda. The issue with its audience is they are too young to realise they are being sold the next gen of weapons and it’s being promoted in a positive light. If you don’t understand why that is wrong then do a quick moral check in yourself.
Maybe, but defense tech is cool.
Tru dat
“Defense” is mostly doublespeak since this tech will be used to attack and murder brown people in the other side of the world
The vortex cannon was shot directly at the youtubers in this video and they were fine. The attack drone is designed to take out other drones. What here is going to be used to kill humans exactly? Did you watch the video?
The drone hovers and goes down instead of up. A 200 mile an hour brick that if used right could go for multiple targets before failure.
I mean, yeah, you can modify most military tech to target humans.
There is no modify, only a down button, I suppose lazers are pretty effective but they are banned right? And EMP? I think I can survive that but I’m sure someone will be along to tell me I won’t.
I’ve pointed out that they are weapons and being presented in a friendly way, that’s all, why argue when you asked the question?
I wasn’t refering to the video. “Defense” tech is obviously a much larget topic than the video itself.
“this tech”, to me, implied a connection to the subject at hand.
I meant “defense tech” as “this tech”. Might not be accurate grammatically, I’m not a native English speaker
It’s ambiguous, you’re good 👍
You do realize that it’s good to give information about weapons to people who’ll be targeted by them the most?
Education in new reality of war is as important as any other.
And a sword is definitely a positive thing when many other people already have swords and you are choosing whether to have one.
Are you thinking the average person is going to be buying a jet drone cannon?
Average person isn’t going to do anything comprehensively.
What use is the information in this case?
To me it can be summed up as: Lazers can be defeated (more like we are not willing to leave our best lazer tech lying around)
Signal blocking can be defeated
So we’ve resorted to flying bricks to defeat YOUR drones, don’t even think of using them.
Oh and just remember they are presenting them in a “drone travels up” way…
But they could do the exact opposite to an “object” on the ground. (A highly deadly “penny off the empire state”)
They’ll think how to use their drones to still kill enemy’s manpower.