Five minutes of hate news

[Marduk]

I'm also concerned about those? Did you think I wasn't or something? The more we militarize police, the more we just let them have tools like this, the more concerned I get. I have stated in other threads that this is my position on the topic. It's not the gotcha you seem to believe it is.

So, what does this tech change? How does it make it worse than, say, le evil dictatorship just deciding to give police some old tanks when they need to execute the mass purge?

There's just so many different pieces to this that weren't close to working yet before that are much closer now. Self-driving AI wasn't ready yet back when the first tracked robots with guns were made. It is much much closer now.

Self driving AI barely works on a good day when driving on a well mapped, marked and orderly road.
Try it offroad.
And then try it in an active combat zone.

Decision making AI linked to facial recognition (and other types of A/V identity resolution) weren't ready yet. It's much MUCH closer now. Large-scale cellular networking wasn't ready back then. It's here- right now- with 5G cell towers and repeaters going up everywhere. Networked and searchable CCTV surveillance wasn't ready back then. It's been ready since the 2000s (needed cheap mass storage and good computer vision AI). Sentiment analysis back then relied on labor intensive polling and (you guessed it) weren't ready yet. It has been since the 2010s with mass scraping of social media that then gets run through NLP-based AI (I actually worked on this problem for a previous job).

The data stuff is plenty useful enough even with exactly zero drones.
And it still has its own costs and weaknesses limiting it.
Sure, algorithm based AI can nicely make statistics about, say, opinion trends on few major websites. But we all know that, for example, political opinions in voter base are not directly matched in proportion to those of internet users, and even if they did, the users if different camps would not post at exactly the same rates.
Blindspots like this are bad enough when they happen in marketing and can kill companies, imagine having them in grand politics, revolutions and wars.

All of this is applicable to these quadrupeds as much as the tracked version of these robots.

Basically, I'm really unsure why you think this is a gotcha. It isn't. It's just another example on the great, big pile of shit.

What makes remote control armored vehicles so fundamentally different from normal ones?
If the bad guys have people willing to press the button and smear civilians over the neighborhood with high explosives, it doesn't make a huge difference whether they sit inside or 1000km away. Just like it makes no fundamental difference if some terrorist compound in third world was hit by a JDAM dropped by a piloted F-15 or a JDAM dropped by a Predator with the pilot sitting in Arizona.

You don't have to be a luddite to be concerned about AI and combat drones increasing prevalence in warfare, and their possibilities for domestic operations/LEO use/abuse.

If we are so concerned about "domestic operations", they are in no fundamental way worse than some of what was bleeding edge technology during WW2.

You and @Zachowon are being real disingenious about this, by saying that 'because it's not a threat now, you shouldn't worry about it's implications for the future', which is what pretty much everyone else is saying.

Threat to who? To what? Compared to what? Sure, if you can get a loyal enough to le evil dictatorship police force, they don't need fancy hi tech to do a Cambodia, they didn't have that in Cambodia yet they did what they did.

And the issue is, by the time drones have hit the levels we are worrying about, it's to late for anything but a Carrington event scale EMP to stop/reverse.

Nah. Read up about what's going on with drones in Ukraine, what their loss rate is and why.
Turns out that actual toys from alibaba are a huge part of modern warfare (while requiring skilled operators), while on the ground, robots are curiously absent, despite both sides having access to them.
Of course toys from alibaba do not get concernposted because there is nothing mysteriously scary about them, you can get one yourself for less than a decent gaming PC.

This frankly reads as trying to keep the public from being concerned about the emerging abilities militaries and LEOs would really prefer the public to not worry about, because it makes them easy to use against them/your foreign enemies if the general public aren't concerned about and trying to restrict escalating drone capabilities as they relate to domestic abuses by governments.

>emerging capabilities
That armies had in late Cold War. Not very emerging i think.
Being "concerned" about militarization of police is something that should be more related to their command and control rather than equipment. As i said, it doesn't take killbots to do a Cambodia, Soviet Union or North Korea, with the right people, plain firearms are enough.
And without right people, well, that will take right AGI. Which is still far away, and once its not, that will be able to fuck someone up in way more insidious ways than drones.

Edit: Also, frankly, all one has to do is look at all the wide variety and diversity of drone operations in regard to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and their implications for a good idea why the average joe may become increasingly aware of exactly how many ways drones can be used to both surveil and attack targets, as well as the sorts of things needed to even have a chance of combat said drones with domestic abilities if LEO's or even just criminal gangs get a hold of them.

>if LEO's or even just criminal gangs get a hold of them
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuude, both use them since many years.
As i said, you can go to a drone store website and buy some of the exact models used in Ukraine.

Fuck, drones have found use in the fucking cartel shit around the US/Mexico border already, so it's already an active domestic issue.

Yup. They are also one of ways criminals smuggle contraband into prisons since quite a long time.

 

[Zachowon]

@Bacle show me use of UGVs, with in regards to military or police actions outside of EOD, that make everyone so worries.
Drones armt hard to take out, and arnt hard to get civilian aide either

 

[Bacle]

@Bacle show me use of UGVs, with in regards to military or police actions outside of EOD, that make everyone so worries.
Drones armt hard to take out, and arnt hard to get civilian aide either

Well, I'd point to when they use that robot to blow up the Dallas shooter, after he barricaded himself. Also, the dystopian shit in the CCP that is going on with robots as part of the social credit monitoring and movement/payment access control is a very worrying, and since DC likes to take social control ques from the CCP, it's a legit future concern for the US given our banana republic status now.

And this isn't just a UGV-use issue, this is a issue tied to the larger push for more automation and more AI/algorithm based economics, society, and combat uses. Flying LEO drones are an issue too in some places, as they go into the 4th Amendment and 'protection from unreasonable searches' issues in how they are used some times.

Also, do we need to pull out the Terminator movies or nBSG episodes or Mass Effect bits to show concerns about robots/AI/drones have some end states humanity as a whole probably prefer to avoid, and have a place in the public consciousness.

These concerns about increasing drone and AI use by the military, and it's implications for domestic issues, is a small part of the bigger concerns about how automation, AI, drones, and those who control them (or lose control of them) can adversely impact society as a whole.

Big Dog with a M4 on it's back isn't a T-1000 or Centurion or Geth by any means, but it's a step in that direction, and there are serious questions about how to safeguard against AI/drone threats en masse, be they foreign, domestic, or rogue actors.

 

[Zachowon]

Well, I'd point to when they use that robot to blow up the Dallas shooter, after he barricaded himself. Also, the dystonpian shit in the CCP that is going on with robots as part of the social credit monitoring and movement/payment access control is a very worrying, and since DC likes to take social cotrol ques from the CCP, it's a legt future concern for the US given our banana republic status now.

And this isn't just a UGV-use issue, this is a issue tied to the larger push for more automation and more AI/algorithm based economics, society, and combat uses. Flying LEO drones are an issue too in some places, as they go into the 4th Amendment and 'protection from unreasonable searches' issues in how they are used some times.

Also, do we need to pull out the Terminator movies or nBSG episodes or Mass Effect bits to show concerns about robots/AI/drones have some end states humanity as a whole probably prefer to avoid, and have a place in the public consciousness.

These concerns about increasing drone and AI use by the military, and it's implications for domestic issues, is a small part of the bigger concerns about how automation, AI, drones, and those who control them (or lose control of them) can adversely impact society as a whole.

Big Dog with a M4 on it's back isn't a T-1000 or Centurian or Geth by any means, but it's a step in that direction, and there are serious questions about how to safeguard against AI/drone threats en masse, be they foreign, domestic, or rogue actors.

AI is very limited and is no where near the level you think it is.
The military generally favors machine learning over AI anyway...
And yes, the Dallas thing was a suicide bot at thay point.

You also seem.to think that the security state of China is easy to make happen in a country like the US.
It isn't due to a LOT of things we have that they don't.
That being the fact we can have private internet and access damn near anything we want.

A lot of this so called AI and Machine learning is used to make sorting through information easier. It isn't and will not be on the level of being able to function like what you are imagining.

Also, any type of robot on the ground that isn't tracked is going to fail horribly in a LSCO or even in LEO use due to the fact that they can not move very fast over difficult terrain.
Even the most advanced had to be PROGRAMMED to do that and wasn't even remotely controlled.

We arnt on the level of simple automatons.
Also, drones are easy as fuxk to take out if they are small ones, and anything huge flies high and has its own vulnerabilities.

 

[Bacle]

AI is very limited and is no where near the level you think it is.
The military generally favors machine learning over AI anyway...
And yes, the Dallas thing was a suicide bot at thay point.

You also seem.to think that the security state of China is easy to make happen in a country like the US.
It isn't due to a LOT of things we have that they don't.
That being the fact we can have private internet and access damn near anything we want.

A lot of this so called AI and Machine learning is used to make sorting through information easier. It isn't and will not be on the level of being able to function like what you are imagining.

Also, any type of robot on the ground that isn't tracked is going to fail horribly in a LSCO or even in LEO use due to the fact that they can not move very fast over difficult terrain.
Even the most advanced had to be PROGRAMMED to do that and wasn't even remotely controlled.

We arnt on the level of simple automatons.
Also, drones are easy as fuxk to take out if they are small ones, and anything huge flies high and has its own vulnerabilities.

Issue is not about the current state as is, it's about where the current trajectory in tech can lead, and what adverse outcomes that can have, and getting ahead of them.

 

[mrttao]

New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns

Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may find an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police drone.

apnews.com

NEW YORK (AP) — Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may notice an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police surveillance drone.

The New York City police department plans to pilot the unmanned aircrafts in response to complaints about large gatherings, including private events, over Labor Day weekend, officials announced Thursday.

"If a caller states there's a large crowd, a large party in a backyard, we're going to be utilizing our assets to go up and go check on the party," Kaz Daughtry, the assistant NYPD Commissioner, said at a press conference.

The plan drew immediate backlash from privacy and civil liberties advocates, raising questions about whether such drone use violated existing laws for police surveillance

"It's a troubling announcement and it flies in the face of the POST Act," said Daniel Schwarz, a privacy and technology strategist at the New York Civil Liberties Union, referring to a 2020 city law that requires the NYPD to disclose its surveillance tactics. "Deploying drones in this way is a sci-fi inspired scenario."

The move was announced during a security briefing focused on J'ouvert, an annual Caribbean festival marking the end of slavery that brings thousands of revelers and a heavy police presence to the streets of Brooklyn. Daughtry said the drones would respond to "non-priority and priority calls" beyond the parade route.

Like many cities, New York is increasingly relying on drones for policing purposes. Data maintained by the city shows the police department has used drones for public safety or emergency purposes 124 times this year, up from just four times in all of 2022. They were spotted in the skies after a parking garage collapse earlier this year and when a giveaway event devolved into teenage mayhem.

Mayor Eric Adams, a former police captain, has said he wants to see police further embrace the "endless" potential of drones, citing Israel's use of the technology as a blueprint after visiting the country last week.

But as the technology proliferates, privacy advocates say regulations have not kept up, opening the door to intrusive surveillance that would be illegal if conducted by a human police officer.

"One of the biggest concerns with the rush to roll out new forms of aerial surveillance is how few protections we have against seeing these cameras aimed at our backyards or even our bedrooms," said Albert Fox Cahn, the executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP).

The NYPD did not respond to an email seeking further information about its drone policies.

In response to a request for comment, a spokesperson for Mayor Adams shared a link to new guidelines that make it easier for private drone operators to fly in the city, but which do not address whether the NYPD has any policies for drone surveillance.

Around 1,400 police departments across the country are currently using drones in some form, according to a recent report from the American Civil Liberty Union. Under federal rules, they are generally limited to flying within the operator's line of sight, though many departments have requested exemptions. The report predicted the use of drones was "poised to explode" among police departments.

Cahn, the privacy advocate, said city officials should be more transparent with the public about how police are currently using drones, with clear guardrails that prevent surveillance overreach in the future.

"Clearly, flying a drone over a backyard barbecue is a step too far for many New Yorkers," Cahn said.

 

[mrttao]

Canada gives father who raped daughter a light sentence because he is black

The details of this case turn the stomach. So do the details of the idiotic, incomprehensible legal system that produces this kind of result:

notthebee.com

> Child born deformed and sickly
> Eventually tracked down to incest. The mother was being raped by her father since young, her father is the one who impregnated her with the incest baby
> Prosecution wanted him to get the standard 6 years in prison others have received in similar cases.
> He gets house arrest instead
> Because he is black. literally, according to the judge

"The moral culpability of an African Nova Scotian offender has to be assessed in the context of historic factors and systemic racism, as was done in this case," wrote the trial judge, with whom the majority of the appeal court agreed. "Sentencing judges should take into account the impact that social and economic deprivation, historical disadvantage, diminished and non-existent opportunities and restricted options may have had on the offender's moral responsibility."

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

Canada gives father who raped daughter a light sentence because he is black

The details of this case turn the stomach. So do the details of the idiotic, incomprehensible legal system that produces this kind of result:

notthebee.com

> Child born deformed and sickly
> Eventually tracked down to incest. The mother was being raped by her father since young, her father is the one who impregnated her with the incest baby
> Prosecution wanted him to get the standard 6 years in prison others have received in similar cases. But he received no prison time at all.
> Because he is black. yes really.

I am finding my own response hard to make, because I am so reminded of a particular case in the past. Which also involved similar events (but worse), and actually involved "historic factors".

Goler clan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is pretty hard, but I think what my thoughts are "if being part of a cycle of multi-generational abuse and being horribly inbred yourself is not an excuse. Then why is being black?"

Also, thinking of it. Such reasoning seems pretty racist and anti-black. Though, I may just be misconstruing them. It is almost as if they think that black people would have less moral reasoning than a clan of walking Appalachian stereotypes (fun fact: Nova Scotia is in the Appalachian Region).

edit: I mean, what the actual fuck. We were able to punish it in the case of a bunch of people straight out of some exploitation film, but not someone who is from an well established and integrated community? How, does that even fucking compute? If it is good for the goose, it is definitely good for the gander. And that is an understatement, what the actual fuck.

 

[Wargamer08]

The levels of racism by implication are off the charts. Let me guess, white female judge?

 

[mrttao]

I am finding my own response hard to make, because I am so reminded of a particular case in the past. Which also involved similar events (but worse), and actually involved "historic factors".

Goler clan - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It is pretty hard, but I think what my thoughts are "if being part of a cycle of multi-generational abuse and being horribly inbred yourself is not an excuse. Then why is being black?"

Also, thinking of it. Such reasoning seems pretty racist and anti-black. Though, I may just be misconstruing them. It is almost as if they think that black people would have less moral reasoning than a clan of walking Appalachian stereotypes (fun fact: Nova Scotia is in the Appalachian Region).

edit: I mean, what the actual fuck. We were able to punish it in the case of a bunch of people straight out of some exploitation film, but not someone who is from an well established and integrated community? How, does that even fucking compute? If it is good for the goose, it is definitely good for the gander. And that is an understatement, what the actual fuck.

Well holy shit that is awful.
And the Golars were living off of welfare too... which is just... ugh.

Also that reminds me. The black father/grandfather is himself a prior victim of family sexual abuse in his childhood.
So it might be a 2nd golar clan.
But one that is going ignored this time because he is black.

 

[Hlaalu Agent]

The levels of racism by implication are off the charts. Let me guess, white female judge?

Wouldn't be surprised, but it could be anyone. This is the age of stupidity.

And somehow, this whole thing isn't angering me. I guess this bullshit just stopped making me angry long ago. Me swearing and ranting (and textual yelling) is out of pure frustration at the injustice, the stupidity, and the EVERYTHING!

Well holy shit that is awful.

Also that reminds me. The black father/grandfather is himself a prior victim of family sexual abuse in his childhood.
So it might be a 2nd golar clan.
But one that is going ignored this time because he is black.

The golars living off of welfare is also pretty damn damning.

Perhaps, but African Nova Scotians are pretty well integrated and established. They are largely descended from African American loyalist stock, so it just doesn't seem likely from a cultural standpoint.

 

[TheRejectionist]

Sorry to ignore the last posts you made guys but that's very fucking gut wrenching.

So I will resume the discourse about the potential use of drones.

Funnily enough I agree with @Bacle that the trajectory of that tech in law enforcement and military doesn't sound good at all considering one too many countries have adopted a Chicom-style approach TO everything. I don't want our world to look like ROBOCOP 2014 where you have robots that can't distinguish between suicide bombers and a kid with a butter-knife.

 

[mrttao]

Sorry to ignore the last posts you made guys but that's very fucking gut wrenching.

So I will resume the discourse about the potential use of drones.

Funnily enough I agree with @Bacle that the trajectory of that tech in law enforcement and military doesn't sound good at all considering one too many countries have adopted a Chicom-style approach TO everything. I don't want our world to look like ROBOCOP 2014 where you have robots that can't distinguish between suicide bombers and a kid with a butter-knife.

sadly this meme very much applies

What Is 'Torment Nexus?' The 'Man-Made Horrors' Trope Explained

Companies "creating a Torment Nexus" has become quite a trope in memes recently. While the Torment Nexus, obviously, is something unpleasant, what exactly is it, and who coined the expression? Read all about the trope that describes man-made horrors in our explainer.

knowyourmeme.com

 

[DarthOne]

New York police will use drones to monitor backyard parties this weekend, spurring privacy concerns

Those attending outdoor parties or barbecues in New York City this weekend may find an uninvited guest looming over their festivities: a police drone.

apnews.com

Or as we call it here in Pennsylvania, ‘target practice’.

 

[Typhonis]

What is the penalty for trespassing on private property? Because I'm sure that the police have to abide with air space restrictions as well.

 

[posh-goofiness]

So, what does this tech change? How does it make it worse than, say, le evil dictatorship just deciding to give police some old tanks when they need to execute the mass purge?

It makes it easier? Just as every advance in weapons technology and tactics have made it easier. This seems self-explanatory but I'll spell it out. Where before le evil dictator had to hire say, 1000 enforcers, to do the dirty they now have to hire 800. Where before those enforcers might be in more danger because they needed to be physically present 100% of the time to do the dirty, now they can do it by remote 50% of the time.

Not to mention full sized tanks are... expensive... and not likely to every get cheaper quickly enough. Small robots are much cheaper and easier to manufacture.

Self driving AI barely works on a good day when driving on a well mapped, marked and orderly road.
Try it offroad.
And then try it in an active combat zone.

I'm aware of the limitations. I specifically said it's much closer to being ready now. I did not say it is ready now. I need to ask a basic sanity check here. Do you think the current state of the art is where this technology ends? Do you believe that eventually self-driving AIs will work robustly and well on orderly roads? Do you believe that eventually self-driving AIs will work robustly and well on offroad environments?

If you think the tech will get better can we just, like, skip the needless nitpicking about current tech limitations?

The data stuff is plenty useful enough even with exactly zero drones.

Indeed but that's not a refutation of anything I or anyone have said? A lot of interrelated technologies are useful in isolation. So what? My point is that for civilian pacification on a large enough scale all those technologies are needed or open more avenues for abuse when paired with the quadruped robot tech. (Or tracked robots) (Or aerial drones)

And it still has its own costs and weaknesses limiting it.

Like above... can we skip the quibbling about current state of the art?

Sure, algorithm based AI can nicely make statistics about, say, opinion trends on few major websites. But we all know that, for example, political opinions in voter base are not directly matched in proportion to those of internet users, and even if they did, the users if different camps would not post at exactly the same rates.
Blindspots like this are bad enough when they happen in marketing and can kill companies, imagine having them in grand politics, revolutions and wars.

Granted. For the current state of the art. But that's only going to last so long. And since we both seem to be assuming le evil dictatorship for our hypothetical abuse case I'm not sure if it'll matter that it's only 80% accurate in aggregate. That's good enough for government work as it were.

What makes remote control armored vehicles so fundamentally different from normal ones?

Nothing. As stated in the quoted post. They are both bad. I hate them both. I would like to restrict them from the police in all cases in the future. Demilitarize the police.

If the bad guys have people willing to press the button and smear civilians over the neighborhood with high explosives, it doesn't make a huge difference whether they sit inside or 1000km away. Just like it makes no fundamental difference if some terrorist compound in third world was hit by a JDAM dropped by a piloted F-15 or a JDAM dropped by a Predator with the pilot sitting in Arizona.

Exactly. It makes no difference. So le evil dictatorship will prefer the option that makes it easier to whack 1000 people. It's easier to find a Predator drone operator than an F-15 pilot. It's cheaper. It's faster. Why did you think this point refutes anything?

 

[posh-goofiness]

What is the penalty for trespassing on private property? Because I'm sure that the police have to abide with air space restrictions as well.

I don't think it works like that... wouldn't passenger airliners constantly be trespassing on private property all the way across the US? We'd definitely have seen court cases about this if it were something that could be litigated.

 

[Marduk]

It makes it easier? Just as every advance in weapons technology and tactics have made it easier. This seems self-explanatory but I'll spell it out. Where before le evil dictator had to hire say, 1000 enforcers, to do the dirty they now have to hire 800. Where before those enforcers might be in more danger because they needed to be physically present 100% of the time to do the dirty, now they can do it by remote 50% of the time.

No, now instead of hiring 1000 goons with just enough brains to use an assault rifle, they have the option to instead hire 1000 robot operators and 2000 robot technicians. It's quite expensive, the robots get lost a lot if there is serious danger involved which is also very expensive, yes the operators may not be in danger all the time, but if there is an actual popular uprising they very much are in danger the moment they clock out of work, no different than an aircraft pilot or armored car driver.

Not to mention full sized tanks are... expensive... and not likely to every get cheaper quickly enough. Small robots are much cheaper and easier to manufacture.

No they aren't, not this flimsy and complex kind.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/boston-dynamics-spot-robot-dog-now-available

Is le evil dictator going to get 2 of these, or a used T-55 for the same price? I for one know which i would rather fight with civilian small arms (hint: not the one that can blast a HE-FRAG shell through a window from few blocks away and call it a day).

So, as i said, if you worry about le evil dictatorship using said technology to murderize the population, well, old scrap can work quite well for that too while much more cost efficient.

I'm aware of the limitations. I specifically said it's much closer to being ready now. I did not say it is ready now. I need to ask a basic sanity check here. Do you think the current state of the art is where this technology ends? Do you believe that eventually self-driving AIs will work robustly and well on orderly roads? Do you believe that eventually self-driving AIs will work robustly and well on offroad environments?

If you think the tech will get better can we just, like, skip the needless nitpicking about current tech limitations?

Possibly, but not in any predictable timeframe.

Indeed but that's not a refutation of anything I or anyone have said? A lot of interrelated technologies are useful in isolation. So what? My point is that for civilian pacification on a large enough scale all those technologies are needed or open more avenues for abuse when paired with the quadruped robot tech. (Or tracked robots) (Or aerial drones)

And my point is that when it comes to the topic of civilian pacification, old equipment is already very effective. It already exists, gets little attention, and is much cheaper.
Think about it, instead of subconsciously applying media tropes to it.
So no, they don't really "open more avenues for abuse". They are relatively small variations on plain ol' combat aircraft and vehicles that work better in some niches, but more likely than not, those niches are more relevant to military conflict than abusing the population. When it comes to that, if a government can use these toys, the old ones would also generally do.

Like above... can we skip the quibbling about current state of the art?
Granted. For the current state of the art. But that's only going to last so long. And since we both seem to be assuming le evil dictatorship for our hypothetical abuse case I'm not sure if it'll matter that it's only 80% accurate in aggregate. That's good enough for government work as it were.

Crap from early Cold War is also good enough for the government, for much lower price.

Nothing. As stated in the quoted post. They are both bad. I hate them both. I would like to restrict them from the police in all cases in the future. Demilitarize the police.

Who cares. Look at the police in North Korea, China, Iran. Nothing like le scary US militarized police. Downright under-equipped if compared to, say, NYPD.
You are trying to consider fairly complex topic and refuse to dig deeper than the surface.
It doesn't matter if police is militarized if you worry about the government deciding to oppress the population. Hell, many of the most oppressive ones don't even bother with that.
They have the revolutionary guard/secret police/red guard to do it instead, rather than ordinary police, they wouldn't trust the regular cop to follow such orders, while the specialists are selected and trained for this specifically. You should really worry when such an organization comes into existence, no matter if it has drones or just kalashnikovs.
Don't worry about tacticooled out police patrolling cities, especially if the cities have a lot of crime. Worry about a black SUV with guys in suits swiping people off sidewalks to never be heard of again.
Militarized police is mostly an artifact of out of control crime, like in Brazil or some democrat cities. Are you sure you don't want *that* repressed? At least the leftists openly say they don't, so their complaining about militarization of police adds up to make sense.

Exactly. It makes no difference. So le evil dictatorship will prefer the option that makes it easier to whack 1000 people. It's easier to find a Predator drone operator than an F-15 pilot. It's cheaper. It's faster. Why did you think this point refutes anything?

Both are hard to find if you don't have them employed already.
How many UCAVs (or combat jets) did Iran use to quell its latest uprising?
It has both. It didn't need them. Hell, some of the worst shitholes in the world lack real combat aircraft. You obsess about flashy shit while not caring about the real issues.

A feared Iranian militia is leading the crackdown on protesters. Who are the Basij?

The paramilitary force “is an armed youth organization, which for all practical purposes also serves as the ground forces of the Islamic Republic,” one expert said.

www.nbcnews.com

There are three primary methods the Basij use to suppress anti-government protests, Golkar said.

Firstly, they patrol the streets, displaying their presence to the public, and "they create this illusion that the regime has strong social support by being on the street and facing the protesters," he said.

Secondly, he said, members dress in plainclothes to infiltrate the protests to identify "political activists or the people who are actively chanting and mocking the regime or recording videos."

If these methods fail, he added, the Basij will resort to force, using batons and whips to beat demonstrators and, in some cases, target them using deadly weapons, such as shotguns.

If i had to guess what US equivalent of Basij would look like, it would be a government supported antifa branch with some legal protections and budget.
Also Iran's feds:

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

2 people fatally shot as protests against Iran's government enter 4th week

Anti-government demonstrations erupted Saturday in several locations across Iran as the most sustained protests in years against a deeply entrenched theocracy entered their fourth week.

www.pbs.org

No need for tens of thousands of dollars in gear to abuse the population. 50 year old rifle good.

 

[LordsFire]

One of the things I see constantly with people seriously alarmed about technological use of government suppression, is heavy leaning into science-fiction tropes...

...When in reality, we just have another small iterative improvement to technology.

And very little thought to how those same tools can be used against the government.


The only thing that brings in meaningful change I see, is small, cost-effective flying drones. Even that isn't actually something 'new,' more a matter of 'much cheaper than what helicopters could already do.' Helicopters have been around since the 1940's.

Now granted, the cost drop is so drastic that it is still a meaningful new capability, but that cost drop also means that civilians can use drones against the government, and bluntly put, civilians already have more of them.


In the end, is this new capability something to be aware of?

Sure.

Is it some quantum change in what a police state can and cannot do, that makes resisting totalitarianism an order of magnitude more difficult?

...No. No, it really is not.

While quadcopter and quadruped drones are tools that may help to some degree, in the end, enforcing totalitarianism will still come down to men with guns following the dictates of the state, and dragging people away. This has not changed.

Frankly, I'd be more worried about cheap and effective body-armor being developed, making G-men resistant to common small arms. That'd hurt the ability to effectively resist them more.

 

[Typhonis]

I don't think it works like that... wouldn't passenger airliners constantly be trespassing on private property all the way across the US? We'd definitely have seen court cases about this if it were something that could be litigated.

500 feet above the tallest building in cities. 350 feet above in the country.