My own problem about the last email is its last sentence
"goodbye human guilt...welcome machine justice!"
It might lead (Western) people to comfortably not-notice that US and Israeli
or anybody else's 'drone warfare' has nothing to do with "justice" (machine
or other). It has everything to do with a regime of "pretty perpetual
injustice", a would-be never-ending (but remember the Third Reich and the
American century) freedom for intimidation and politically-driven
assassination, and for struggle for the maintenance of exploitative
privilege.
"drones hunt, identify and kill the enemy based on calculations made by
software, not decisions made by humans".
is equally misleading. It will be humans -- to dignify the military-business
corporations and elites and their sponsored/hired politicians -- who make
the decisions that "identify" their own enemies as "the enemy" and define
the programmed instructions and operations.
"Human guilt" will stay exactly where it was; what the machines do is
implement mechanically "human injustice".... or should I say "societal" or
if you like "class" warfare"?
Best wishes
Tom
P.S. For news, photos and stuff about our women’s micro-credit and other
projects in South-West Uganda, look at our www.kiafrica.org.
P.P.S. Social science researchers interested in (BNIM): the
biographic-narrative interpretive method. For a free electronic copy of the
current version of the BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual , just click on
<[log in to unmask]> . Please indicate your institutional affiliation and
the purpose for which you might envisage using BNIM’s open-narrative
interviews, and I'll send it straight away.
P.P.P.S. (no more 'pp's please, ed). The BNIM Short Guide and Detailed
Manual builds on and develops ch. 6 and 12 of my earlier textbook,
Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative and semi-structured
method (2001 Sage Publications) which has a more general approach to
semi-structured depth interviewing, interpretation, and writing-up.
-----Original Message-----
From: A forum for critical and radical geographers
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Deb Ranjan Sinha
Sent: Friday, September 23, 2011 2:17 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Counter Tunnel Robotics
how about automated killing drones?
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/national-security/a-future-for-drone
s-automated-killing/2011/09/15/gIQAVy9mgK_story.html>
*This successful exercise in autonomous robotics could presage the
future of the American way of war: a day when drones hunt, identify
and kill the enemy based on calculations made by software, not
decisions made by humans. Imagine aerial “Terminators,” minus beefcake
and time travel.*
goodbye human guilt...welcome machine justice!
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