"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Pentagon: A Human Will Always Decide When a Robot Kills You
"The Pentagon wants to make perfectly clear that every time one of its flying robots releases its lethal payload, it’s the result of a decision made by an accountable human being in a lawful chain of command. Human rights groups and nervous citizens fear that technological advances in autonomy will slowly lead to the day when robots make that critical decision for themselves."
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"...an accountable human being in a lawful chain of command."
"Accountable"? "Lawful?" I call BULLSHIT!!
The 'accountable' human being of course reffers to whatever schmuck they have operating the joystick and pushing the 'fire' button, a fall-guy that the high muckey-mucks can throw under a bus at the drop of a hat when someone calls them out and cries 'foul!'
The 'lawful' part just means that they'll only occasionally, and in 'utmost secrecy' under the 'most dire' of circumstances violate the highly mutable rules that they themselves drafted up.
So, yes, I suppose you're right; bullshit is probably the kindest and most accurate description possible.
Accountable and lawful are applicable to accountable and lawful people. To the best of my ability I have not been provided conclusive evidence that any government tentical is accountable and lawful. It would be intersting to meet the man who made this up.
Since accountable human beings have lawfully, repetedly, incinerated entire cities, perhaps Skynet would be an improvement?
Human beings have legally, (according to man-made law), incinerated entire cities, but have never, and can never, lawfully, (according to natural law), do so.
They [the rulers] feed them on falsehoods 'til wrongs look like right in their eyes." ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
In order to understand the difference between what is legal, and what is lawful we have only to take a look at a fundamental event like marriage.
Conjunctio mariti et faeminae est de jure naturae. The union of a man and a woman is of the law of nature.
Consensus non concubitus facit nuptiam. Consent, not lying together, constitutes marriage.
No mention of a "license", because a license only makes it legal.
All wars are cowardly since the perpetrators never do the fighting.
Drone attacks are triply cowardly.
Sam