The (really scary) soldier of the future

[Ripley]

Oct. 20, 2005 | Vast government contracts have corrupted the American university system, turning off the fountainhead of unfettered ideas and scientific discovery. Multibillion-dollar federal R&D budgets have replaced the solitary inventor with veritable armies of scientists and engineers in laboratories across the country. Public policy itself has become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

2005? Try 1961. The paragraph above was taken with only minor changes from President Dwight Eisenhower's famous farewell address.

Things have only gotten worse in 44 years. If Eisenhower was worried about the power and influence of what he called "the military-industrial complex" then, he'd be catatonic now. The risks -- and opportunities -- posed by today's corporate-academic-military behemoth are exponentially greater than in his day. So is the money: Total military spending on basic R&D is probably somewhere between $15 billion and $20 billion per year and rising. Scientists funded by this bottomless war chest are working on mind-blowingly powerful devices that threaten to plunge the world into a deadly new arms race. Oh sure, this stuff could also revolutionize medicine, communications, transportation and every other aspect of human life: the shopworn "spinoff" argument honed for decades by NASA's P.R. machine. But whether humanity will get to use the awesome power of these new technologies -- in particular nanotechnology -- for good rather than ill is one of the key questions of the 21st century.

'''

In high-technology incubators around the world, biotechnology and nanotechnology together are spawning. With the literary imagination for which engineers are famous, the offspring of this union has already been named nanobiotechnology. The overt goal of nanobiotechnology is to completely break down the borders between living and nonliving materials. This goal has the most profound implications for every aspect of human endeavor, but in warfare the consequences of integrating our most powerful technologies are almost beyond comprehension. The fusion of nanotechnology and biotechnology will erase any distinction between chemical, biological, and conventional weapons, altering the face of war (and life) forever.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2005/10/20/soldier/index.html


All of our science fiction nightmares are coming true. :scared:

[BrklynLiberal]

1. Wow. Who would have guessed how sage Ike was.. between that and his

warning about the military/industrial complex, he was right up there with Nostradamas.

[Kerrytravelers]

2. All of our science fiction nightmares are coming true. :scared:

Well, we do have Darth Vader in the White House.

[saigon68]

8. I LIKE THIS ONE BETTER

[skids]

3. The problem with re-application of space/military tech...

...is that it is overengineered. Anything that goes on a satellite, for example, has been engineered under a set of parameters for size/weight/endurance that has caused alternative low-cost designs to be discarded in the pre-design phase.

So when these technologies are re-applied to "peaceful" use, they end up being the wrong basic design choice for an environment where low mass production cost is tantamount.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. For instance, the NASA 'zero gravity pen'

versus the Soviet pencil.

[skids]

7. LOL.

Perfect example! :eyes:

[leveymg]

5. One good thing Bush's bankrupting of America has done is to delay

the timetable for the introduction of the Micro-Creepy Crawlies and Laser Blasts from Space Orbiters sort of SF future warfare you're talking about.

In this rather crude Science-Fact present, there isn't even enough money to armour all the troops and HumVees.

It's going to be a while before Captain Kirk can take down whole planets without knocking down real-estate values.

[Briar]

6. Soldiers are already really scary

Anyone who would shoot you if ordered to is scary.

[rmgustaf]

9. But American soldiers

have the duty to disobey a direct command if it violates the rule of law or is blatantly illegal. Shooting an unarmed and innocent person would qualify. The Nuremberg defense doesn't work anymore.