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- ----- Forwarded message from Cleve Higgins <fchiggins@gmail.com> -----
- From: Cleve Higgins <fchiggins@gmail.com>
- Date: Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:54:31 -0500
- To: drone-list@lists.stanford.edu
- Subject: [drone-list] intro, and some thoughts
- Heyo all,
- I have been reading a lot about the role of drone technology in military,
- surveillance, and law enforcement, and the thinking about the ways in which
- it is part of a larger blurring of these domains (especially in the US).
- I'm based in Montreal, a city in the business of aeronautics, and also
- computer simulation, and drones have become an important aspect of both of
- these industries in recent years. My research has focused on these local
- connections, especially when they're related to the universities. Finally,
- I'm intrigued by use of drones by social movements for counter-surveillance
- purposes (such as the occucopter), as well as emerging examples of hacking
- drone communications and control systems.
- I'm glad to hear that people other than security and military agencies have
- been finding positive uses for drones (such as the humanitarian uses that
- have been mentioned already). Though I have skeptical thoughts on
- increasing media attention on this side of the drone story. Does it risk
- having the role (intentional or not) of glossing over or mitigating the
- rapidly emerging new forms of war\repression being carried out by the US
- government? And specifically the brutal effects this is having in northern
- Pakistan? This is not to say that these problems are being completely
- ignored - the critical stories are being written, and that is good. Though
- I also suspect that an effect of the surge of these critical stories is
- that the US government is trying to come up with ways to defend and
- legitimize their actions, and one way to do that could be to emphasize (and
- even support) the "dual-use" aspects of drone technology.
- I see this in the context of the myth of inevitable, unilinear
- technological (and social) progress, and how it downplays the important
- role that military funding and direction has in technological developments
- in countries such as the US. Many technologies exist in the form they do
- because of their military applications. If not for this military support,
- it is very possible that the technologies would not exist at all, or at
- least not in the form that they do. Innumerable social choices are made
- that shape our world, including our technology, and it is always possible
- that different choices could have been made (about how much of our
- collective social effort we put into military and security areas, for
- example). An important aspect of this perspective is that technologies are
- very connected to the social relations and values of the contexts in which
- they emerge. I think the development of ARPANET by the US military as a
- means of better surviving nuclear attack is an example of this, but that's
- a whole other discussion. I haven't thought much yet about the context for
- the emergence of drones, and I don't want this email to get much longer
- than it already is by attempting to do so now, but for starters think it
- would be related to the "war on terror", asymmetrical warfare, and the
- contradictions of the (declining) US empire as the only military superpower
- (attempting military solutions to "policing" problems). I look forward to
- hearing anyone's thoughts on these topics.
- Thanks for creating this list! Sorry if this first email is somewhat long
- and tangential. Mostly I plan on using this list to share articles as I
- find them, with brief thoughts sometimes. More in-depth or contentious
- discussion is sometimes good though. adelante,
- Cleve
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- ----- End forwarded message -----
- --
- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
- ______________________________________________________________
- ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
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