Raise Sheilds - Real life force field for troops

[{ Emilia }]

Admiral2's post was specifically about people plotting to kill Americans. That's what was addressed.

I think many people do care about the fact that for decades it was Western companies that helped Iraq produce the gas they used to kill Iranians and then Kurds with. Did the US give a shit when it was used against Iran?

Let's ask Donald Rumsfeld:

Spoiler: Donald Rumsfeld

 

[Ithekro]

And yet I still would rather have force fields for US troops. If only that it can be used as a starting block for other similar purpose technologies.

The Alcubierre-White Drive equipped starship might need some kind of shielding in a hundred years.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

You asked where Iraq's WMD were. They are still there, being used. Just like they were used against the Iranians and the Kurds. And no one cares.

I hate misinformation, but I hate disinformation more.

From http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/10/14/world/middleeast/100000003173431.mobile.html?_r=0 (October 14, 2014):

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Bush insisted that Mr. Hussein was hiding an active weapons of mass destruction program, in defiance of international will and at the world’s risk. United Nations inspectors said they could not find evidence for these claims.

Then, during the long occupation, American troops began encountering old chemical munitions in hidden caches and roadside bombs. Typically 155-millimeter artillery shells or 122-millimeter rockets, they were remnants of an arms program Iraq had rushed into production in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war.

All had been manufactured before 1991, participants said. Filthy, rusty or corroded, a large fraction of them could not be readily identified as chemical weapons at all. Some were empty, though many of them still contained potent mustard agent or residual sarin. Most could not have been used as designed, and when they ruptured dispersed the chemical agents over a limited area, according to those who collected the majority of them.

In case after case, participants said, analysis of these warheads and shells reaffirmed intelligence failures. First, the American government did not find what it had been looking for at the war’s outset, then it failed to prepare its troops and medical corps for the aged weapons it did find.

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/world...65c943-1c93-4ac0-a7ed-033218f15cbb_story.html (October 23, 2014):

Iraqi forces say two other crude chlorine attacks have occurred since the extremists seized vast tracts of Iraqi territory this summer, but details on those incidents remain sketchy. The reported assaults all raise concerns that the militants are attempting to hone their chemical weapons capabilities as they push to control more ground.

The presence of a large former Iraqi chemical weapons production plant in territory seized by the Islamic State has compounded those fears, although officials and chemical weapons experts say the 2,500 degraded rockets filled with nerve agents that remain there are unlikely to be fit for use. Weapons inspectors sealed them off with concrete in a bunker more than 20 years ago.

From http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-31847427 (12 March 2015):

The videos show bomb disposal teams carrying out controlled explosions, which send plumes of orange smoke into the air.

The bombs contain small concentrations of a chemical agent and in open ground are unlikely to be lethal.

Experts say they are designed to create fear rather than harm.

[...]

Although bomb disposal teams say they have encountered the small-scale use of chlorine, there is no evidence to suggest IS has accumulated a significant chemical weapons cache.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Wow. So we have neocons lying about WMD again? It really is 2003!

 

[Lindley]

Darpa's quadruped robots are pretty cool, if slightly creepy. Between that and plasma fields, it's sort of like the Department of Mad Science.

More like the department of funding mad science. DARPA itself does little research. Mostly it just selects, funds, and monitors private contractors doing the work.

 

[Ithekro]

Well. So much for that. Nevermind.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I am so torn on this issue. I watch all the moral outrage here and tend to agree but then I see videos of gay people being thrown off buildings for being gay or a girl being lit on fire and thrown off a bridge and feel like the outrage on this forum comes from lack of perspective. False equivalence seems to rule on message boards in America. We are not as bad as some like to pretend, but we aren't saints either.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

I am so torn on this issue. I watch all the moral outrage here and tend to agree but then I see videos of gay people being thrown off buildings for being gay or a girl being lit on fire and thrown off a bridge and feel like the outrage on this forum comes from lack of perspective. False equivalence seems to rule on message boards in America. We are not as bad as some like to pretend, but we aren't saints either.

I'm sorry, but what?

As an American, I can influence my democracy through, you know, the democratic process. When my country is doing things that I don't agree with, that is my prerogative. The ability of citizens to civilly affect policy in the aggregate is one of the things that makes democracies great.

On the other hand, when atrocities are committed in other countries, whether less outrageous than those committed by my country, or simply in it, or more outrageous, my options in addressing them are much more limited.

The idea that I shouldn't try to improve my country just because other countries might be worse is, frankly, an idea that's dead on arrival, and, even if it weren't DOA, I would put a bullet in its head myself—metaphorically speaking. In other words, it's a total non-starter that no person who actually loves their country would agree to under, well, pretty much any circumstances.

That's not to say that people, including Americans, shouldn't, say, do humanitarian work in other countries. What I said doesn't imply that at all. There is such a thing as opportunity cost, and people have to make choices in how to spend their time. And, even though the federal budget also isn't unlimited, foreign aid is something that the US should budget for. At best, US foreign policy helps make the world a better, more stable, and safer place, which is what we should strive for. When it's like that, it's good for everyone, including people in the US. But it also has numerous potential pitfalls and downsides, and things often don't operate as best-case ideal scenarios. Collateral damage from going after bad guys is just one example that's already been mentioned in-thread. But, the point is, just because Americans might choose to work in other countries, that doesn't mean they'll be keen on the US not getting better, and if they love the US they won't be. Even more to the point, I can't imagine people who love their country who would get on board being denied the opportunity to improve their own country while there are worse off places in the world. Uh-uh. Anyway, it's not like we don't have plenty of problems here at home. There are more than enough problems that need solving to go around, both here and abroad.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I am so torn on this issue. I watch all the moral outrage here and tend to agree but then I see videos of gay people being thrown off buildings for being gay or a girl being lit on fire and thrown off a bridge and feel like the outrage on this forum comes from lack of perspective. False equivalence seems to rule on message boards in America. We are not as bad as some like to pretend, but we aren't saints either.

The actions of the United States are far, far worse than most Americans tend to believe or even be aware of.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

 

[tharpdevenport]

(While you're at it, where were those Iraqi WMD again? [...]

I don't know why after all this time people are still incorrectly stating that. Iraq had WMD's, in fact that factual information was just reiterated in the last few months by news on GOP pregressive Karl Rove, who surpressed the information at the time (keeping it classy as usual, Karl).

What the problem was is that people complained there were no nukes, some how thinking that only nuclear weapons are WMD's and that that was only what was being discussed.

After other WMD's were found, people for what ever political leaning or reasoning, decided to move the goal post and claim WMD's weren't found because there were no nuclear weapons found (but at least one, maybe two, officials in the millitary stated they were shipped out of country in advance, whether you or I choose to believe that).


And there's still this errneous belief, or "logic fallicy", that this was all just the United State's doing and belief. Multiple other countries including allies concluded as well that Iraq had WMD's.

What's really the problem is that irrational built-in knee-jerk belief the United States is evil/a problem/is always the bad guy, etc. Had it been France who conducted the short-lived war in Iraq and the resutls were the same, no nukes, nobody would be making fun of France about it or stating they were baby killers or anything else.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

You know, when people say "Saddam had WMDs," the statement is taken to mean a few things:

* Saddam had caches of chemical/biological weapons.
* Those caches were in a functional state such that they could be deployed against others (such as the US, or Iraq's neighbors.)
* Those caches existed in enough quantities to be of strategic significance in a conflict. Having a few cans of mustard gas, for instance, doesn't make a country a real threat.

The only point above that's true was the first. Yes, Saddam had caches of chemical weapons, but they'd almost all been stored improperly, if not outright abandoned, so in effect he had virtually no usable chemical weapons at all (and no biological weapons whatsoever, it must be said.)

I don't know where you got this idea to jump off with "people think WMDs means nukes." That line was peddled by the Bush administration, not so much by people who were actually paying attention.

It is a fact that Saddam no longer had operable, strategically relevant quantities of chemical weapons, and yet this was the threat the Bush administration sold their invasion on.

Want to try again?

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I am so torn on this issue. I watch all the moral outrage here and tend to agree but then I see videos of gay people being thrown off buildings for being gay or a girl being lit on fire and thrown off a bridge and feel like the outrage on this forum comes from lack of perspective. False equivalence seems to rule on message boards in America. We are not as bad as some like to pretend, but we aren't saints either.

The actions of the United States are far, far worse than most Americans tend to believe or even be aware of.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Not ignorant. I spent my first 10 years out of law school fighting bullshit the government does. It was so depressing I left the field completely. That said, other governments would sanction my execution for being an atheist (as but one example). The 'it could be worse' argument does not justify bad or corrupt behavior, but does lend perspective.

And I certainly support people who actively try to do something about it. I put my sweat and tears into it for a decade and that was about all I could handle.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I am so torn on this issue. I watch all the moral outrage here and tend to agree but then I see videos of gay people being thrown off buildings for being gay or a girl being lit on fire and thrown off a bridge and feel like the outrage on this forum comes from lack of perspective. False equivalence seems to rule on message boards in America. We are not as bad as some like to pretend, but we aren't saints either.

The actions of the United States are far, far worse than most Americans tend to believe or even be aware of.

Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Not ignorant. I spent my first 10 years out of law school fighting bullshit the government does. It was so depressing I left the field completely. That said, other governments would sanction my execution for being an atheist (as but one example). The 'it could be worse' argument does not justify bad or corrupt behavior, but does lend perspective.

And I certainly support people who actively try to do something about it. I put my sweat and tears into it for a decade and that was about all I could handle.

I don't know why you believe anyone here is lacking perspective.

Sure, there are plenty of countries that do much worse things than the US. So what? Serial killers exist, and I don't feel like I'm a good person solely because I don't go around randomly murdering folks.

The fact is that the US government is a global bully that acts with impunity and disregards both its own laws and international laws whenever is convenient. One can try to suggest that other countries do this, too, but they really don't. Very few countries can get away with behaving however they like. Even Russia got sanctioned for annexing Crimea. When's the last time the US got sanctioned by anyone? We've taken our dominant global position and used it to push the rest of the world around without regard for the consequences or even basic human dignity.

 

[PurpleBuddha]

I think we are close enough to being on the same side of these issues that I don't really want to say much about your post other than I think plenty statements of false equivalence can be found online and some in this thread as I have mentioned. I feel no need at all to justify it. If you disagree fine. I am okay with that.

I agree with your statements about our government and am rather embarrassed with how our nation tends to act globally. I wish we were better.

 

[publiusr]

My qualms are not about "waste," as you put it, but an extremely expensive industrial complex whose entire purpose is making it easier to kill people.

Well, it all depends on exactly what the system is.

Take two symbols of the Cold War. B-52 vs R-7.

Outside of a few lifting bodies and the X-15--humanity didn't get much out of the B-52.

But R-7? That gave us the space race, and weather satellites.

One of my favorite websites belongs to David Portree, who is no right-winger and (like myself,) takes a dimmer view of objectivist new-spacers--even he understands that "neither the on-going Discovery Program of cheap, relatively frequent automated lunar and planetary missions nor the low-cost automated Mars missions of the 1996-2008 period would have been possible without the technology infusion from SDI."

http://www.wired.com/2015/02/strategic-defense-military-uses-moon-asteroid-resources-1983/

That was panned as a brain drain when the opposite was actually the case.

Now F-35? That was designed to kill, and really doesn't help humanity.

Like it or not, this country seems to want to blow a lot of money on the military. That is just the case.

So what those of us who are futurists need to do is to make sure those projects that do get made are more of the R-7 variety than the B-52 variety.

Pulse Orion yes. SLBMs/Boomers, no
Space Based assets yes--bombers, no

Ironicaly, if I have the ability to strike a target from space, from an asset that needs no base, no airfield, no WWII logistical chain--why do I need a carrier group anymore?

I would submit to you that DARPA isn't the problem--but the entrenched fighter jocks.

Ironically, space warfare may have more enemies in the Pentagon than from anti-war folks outside.

Therefore the best thing for futurists to do is actually to support DARPA projects, and ask that it--and not staid weapon systems like carriers and bombers, get more money.

In the era of non-state actors, such a futuristic stance can allow less fatalities, less cost to the taxpayer, faster strikes on terrorists, and advancement of science.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

Aside from the criticism that in the end this is just another way to make it easier to kill people,

Where does it say anything like that, it sounds like the purpose of this thing is to protect against shockwaves from explosions which you know is kind of a good thing to invent.

So how does a device that causes people not to get hurt/killed by the shockwave of an explosion or ripped apart from the shrapnel of said explosion kill people?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Aside from the criticism that in the end this is just another way to make it easier to kill people,

Where does it say anything like that, it sounds like the purpose of this thing is to protect against shockwaves from explosions which you know is kind of a good thing to invent.

So how does a device that causes people not to get hurt/killed by the shockwave of an explosion or ripped apart from the shrapnel of said explosion kill people?

Do you seriously not expect that this technology will be used to protect vehicles and craft in offensive roles?!?

Did you perhaps misread "in the end this is just another way to make it easier to kill people" as "in the end this is just another way to kill people"?!?

 

[Hartzilla2007]

you perhaps misread "in the end this is just another way to make it easier to kill people" as "in the end this is just another way to kill people"?!?

No, I just chose not to ignore the potential benign uses for something and pessimistically dismiss it as "just another way to make it easier to kill people".

What with other things that could be classified that way being incredibly useful such as rockets which were originally used as weapons eventually got us into space and all the goodies that came with the that, or nitroglycerin which was started out as just an explosive and was later found to be useful for treating heart disease.

Hell I'm pretty sure a lot of stuff people would rather not do with out started out as things to make killing each other easier.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

you perhaps misread "in the end this is just another way to make it easier to kill people" as "in the end this is just another way to kill people"?!?

No, I just chose not to ignore the potential benign uses for something and pessimistically dismiss it as "just another way to make it easier to kill people".

What with other things that could be classified that way being incredibly useful such as rockets which were originally used as weapons eventually got us into space and all the goodies that came with the that, or nitroglycerin which was started out as just an explosive and was later found to be useful for treating heart disease.

Hell I'm pretty sure a lot of stuff people would rather not do with out started out as things to make killing each other easier.

Rockets "were originally used as weapons," as if somehow they're not anymore, not to mention that they weren't ever used for anything else besides weapons before being used in space programs?!? I'm not sure what world you live in. But, in this one, rockets have always been used to kill people much more often than they've been used to send non-military payloads into space. And that's not even counting their ongoing use in designated weapons that are never fired over their lifetimes, such as ICBMs that hopefully only ever sit in their missile silos until they're destroyed, a frightening and extremely dangerous application of rockets which rather dramatically preceded and laid the technical foundations for the space programs of the superpowers, that still takes precedence.

Down the road, in the coming decades, technology used in this plasma shield might have non-military applications. It probably will, and that's basically a given. But this particular system is being designed for deployment on weapons systems. Just in case one lacks the only moderate amount of imagination necessary to tell, you can tell that from the patent application, because it actually comes out and states that the intended application is to counter the use of explosives in "asymmetric warfare," as if that's the only kind of warfare that it would be useful in. Furthermore, the idea that working models of this particular plasma shield system will find their ways into civilian markets anytime this century is utterly laughable, and that also goes for anything that could readily adapted into a working model.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

But this particular system is being designed for deployment on weapons systems. Just in case one lacks the only moderate amount of imagination necessary to tell, you can tell that from the patent application, because it actually comes out and states that the intended application is to counter the use of explosives in "asymmetric warfare," as if that's the only kind of warfare that it would be useful in.

Assuming it actually gets that far and the U.S. military would be willing pay for the finished product.

Besides at least it's not a plasma field weapon designed to vaporize people instead of just a fancy sci-fish protection thing.

I'll save my outrage for when the military does questionable and horrible things, not for when they have something designed for them that lets them do it without getting blown up.