Elon Musk Backs Call For A Global Ban On Killer Robots (cnn.com) 214
An anonymous reader quotes CNN:
Tesla boss Elon Musk is among a group of 116 founders of robotics and artificial intelligence companies who are calling on the United Nations to ban autonomous weapons. "Lethal autonomous weapons threaten to become the third revolution in warfare. Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend," the experts warn in an open letter released Monday...
"Unlike other potential manifestations of AI, which still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems are on the cusp of development right now and have a very real potential to cause significant harm to innocent people along with global instability," said Ryan Gariepy, the founder of Clearpath Robotics and the first person to sign the letter. More than a dozen countries -- including the United States, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and Britain -- are currently developing autonomous weapons systems, according to Human Rights Watch.
"Unlike other potential manifestations of AI, which still remain in the realm of science fiction, autonomous weapons systems are on the cusp of development right now and have a very real potential to cause significant harm to innocent people along with global instability," said Ryan Gariepy, the founder of Clearpath Robotics and the first person to sign the letter. More than a dozen countries -- including the United States, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and Britain -- are currently developing autonomous weapons systems, according to Human Rights Watch.
Magnus, Robot Fighter (Score:2)
When I saw this post the first thing that popped into my mind was:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
This was one of my favorite comic books back in the 60s
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Land mines (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you start with banning land mines first?
Land mine is the simplest "autonomous weapon" you can have, its definition is clear and well understood, it is already actively being used (much more than "on the cusp of development") and is causing harm on civilians.
We all know why -- the US won't stop using land mines while most other countries have already stopped.
So, instead of calling for a ban (on land mines) that might actually change something, Elon is calling for a ban (on some fantasy weapon) that is mere posturing and makes him feel good.
And of course we already knew that all countries, including the good old US of A, would continue the development of such weapons regardless of such a ban.
Re:Land mines (Score:5, Informative)
the US won't stop using land mines.
The US does not employ landmines anywhere other than the Korean DMZ. They are used there because North Korea also uses them, and removing them would require increases in other capabilities. Any other capabilities could be used offensively, and would be destabilizing, while landmines are purely defensive.
If other countries really feel that these landmines are unjustified, they are welcome to come and defend the DMZ without mines, and the 28,000 American troops in South Korea can come home.
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Re: Land mines (Score:5, Insightful)
As ShanghaiBill explained, alternatives to land mines there would likely lead to a shooting war. Do you think being able to say "the US does not use labs mines anywhere in the world" is worth the cost of millions of dead Koreans?
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Why don't you start with banning land mines first?
You can't order a bunch of land mines to clear the streets of starving, rioting serfs. Yet..
But a solar powered terminator won't bat an eye when you tell it to commit war crimes on your behalf.
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yeah right. (Score:2)
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Killer Robots? Never? BWAHAHAH!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll be made. They'll be deployed. They'll go wrong. They'll be refined and we'll be assured it will never happen again. It will.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
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People seem to misunderstand what these bans are far. Nukes are banned, but North Korea made them anyway, so might as well not ban them? Is the ban really totally ineffective, or has it allowed us to prevent many more countries from getting nukes and put immense pressure on NK (including sanctions) to stop its own programme?
Banning killer robots will make it harder to build them, and create negative consequences for having them. Every country will have to decide if it is worth the sanctions and economic fal
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I would say there's no bans on nuclear weapons, just anti-proliferation strategies that make it a requirement to make your own from scratch and a material strategy that prevents key industrial components from being obtainable by prohibited nations.
But really, any country with a sufficiently developed industrial base and focus can build a nuclear weapon and there's no way to stop them short of military intervention. That's how Britain, France, Israel, India and Pakistan wound up with them
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The real problem with a ban on autonomous weapons is that they're basically only useful to wealthy industrialised nations: i.e. the ones that can easily violate this kind of ban without fearing too much threat from sanctions. There's little need for, for example,
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The ban is totally ineffective. Any country that wants to bother developing nukes isn't going to pay attention to the Ban, and any country that doesn't want to develop nukes isn't going to care that the Ban exists.
Now, if the Ban included "if you develop nuclear weapons, we'll nuke your country till it glows in the dark
Why (Score:2)
Sure, there is going to be a period in which drones and robots can kill humans. But then as countermeasures, they will develop anti-robot robots, and before you know it, entire wars will be fought without a single human life lost
Bring in the robot soliders, I say.
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You suggest that no human lives would be lost, and that may be true, but what about human rights? Or do you seriously think that being at war wouldn't impact those?
Some things cannot not happen (Score:3)
Killer autonomous robots is one of the things that must be, once the tech is there.
ISIS is already using small drones to bomb their enemies. You can watch the videos online. Those are small commercial drones like the ones you can find in your local store, modified to hold a grenade. Is anybody capable to think of a possible way of avoiding that, once the proper intelligence is so easy to buy or download like small drones are today, ISIS or their offspring will use it in the same way? Once you have the first swarm of killer autonomous drones let loose by terrorists in an American city, does anybody really think that any government is going to stand by that (possible) treaty?
This is not something like chemical weapons. You could say that the attack with sarin in Tokyo did not destroy the agreement on chemical weapons. But chemical weapons cannot be used for defense, and also they are not really a useful weapon in general. Killer autonomous robots (lets create the obvious KILLAR acronym here and now) are going to be precise, and probably the only way of defense against other KILLARs. Nobody is going to renounce to that.
Also, everything about a KILLAR will be double use. If you think that dual use equipment is a nightmare to control, like it has been in the Iran embargo, just wait until you have to decide if a particular neural network program can be used to detect armed people instead of drowning people. Good luck with that.
Define "killer robot" (Score:5, Insightful)
After a tornado or earthquake, people are sometimes trapped in collapesed buildings. So I invent a robot that can force its way through building walls, by shooting laser beams and by punching holes in the walls. That makes it easier for rescuers to get to victims, right? Therefore it's a peaceful robot, right?
What's to stop me from using this robot in a war, to get to enemy soldiers who are hiding in a bunker?
How do you define "killer robot"? Do you define it as a robot that can only be used to hurt people, not to help people? Just about every invention can be used both for helping and also for hurting people.
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The critical difference between a "drone" and a "killer robot" is in who makes the decision to kill: a human operator, or a computer program.
The keyword is in the quote in the description: "autonomous".
The difference between a peaceful robot and a war-robot is in which kinds of weapons you employ and what kind of programming you give it. Does it only break walls, or does it break down walls to find humans to kill? Does it have guns, that are only useful for killing?
And... the difference between a landmine/e
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The critical difference between a "drone" and a "killer robot" is in who makes the decision to kill: a human operator, or a computer program. The keyword is in the quote in the description: "autonomous".
The difference between a peaceful robot and a war-robot is in which kinds of weapons you employ and what kind of programming you give it. Does it only break walls, or does it break down walls to find humans to kill? Does it have guns, that are only useful for killing?
And... the difference between a landmine/explosive rocket and autonomous robot is that the killer robot is active in how it searches for its targets.
Seriously, making the distinction is not that hard. Don't muddle it up!
How about an autonomous UAV that works as a CAP with an ROE that only allows it to engage targets when something it is assigned to protect comes under attack? It could be guarding an outpost, or be dispatched to watch over a group of civilians that are fleeing occupied territory that ground troops can't reach. It's only killing to save lives.
Re:Define "killer robot" (Score:5, Interesting)
A robot that can shoot lasers and punch through walls should probably require human oversight, especially in an unpredictable and volatile emergency situation. If such a robot were used in war under close human direction, it would be like any guided missile or drone.
What Musk is talking about is robots with enough AI to go into an area, decide on targets for itself and decide if it is going to kill them or not. There isn't really any reasonable civilian use for such a robot. A robot that is designed to look for disaster survivors and then definitely avoid killing them at all costs would need a lot of modification to be more than a improvised booby-trap type device, which again is little different to existing improvised weapons.
It's a bit late... (Score:2, Insightful)
... given his company already built and sold a killer robot that drove a guy straight into a truck and decapitated him.
Re:It's a bit late... (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, a guy watching Harry Potter while driving and getting in an accident after ignoring seven separate warnings from his car to pay attention to the road is totally the same thing as building a robot to kill people.
Nash equilibrium and prisoners' dilemma (Score:3)
The Nash equilibrium of a prisoners' dilemma is that everyone defects. This game isn't exactly a prisoners' dilemma, but the equilibrium is that everyone builds the robots. A ban won't change the nature of the game. It may partly solve it, but not completely.
Political leaders need only tell their constituents that building the robots saves their lives and that the other side will do it even if they don't.
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guns and bans (Score:2)
You're creating criminals! (Score:3)
Decisions, decisions, decisions... (Score:2)
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Is there a reason you'd need two?
So easy to enforce... (Score:2)
We have such great success in enforcing diesel engine emissions from small passenger cars from well established reputed companies. That gives us some great confidence that the ban can be easily enforced.
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These are the droids we are looking for (Score:2)
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Unless some of the guys attacked in Charlottesville are the ones doing the programming. In that case, they'll be looking for you specifically.
Nice thought (Score:2)
Whew (Score:2)
That's a relief.
I was afraid Elon was going to join the "pro killer robot" faction.
Really? (Score:2)
I thought killer robots were a pretty neat idea, but if Elon Musk says they're bad I must have got things wrong somewhere..
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Too late (Score:2)
See Samsung SGR-1. It does require an OK from a human to fire, but really, how hard would it be to bypass that switch? As someone else said, it is trivial to cobble together a system that connects a gun to sensors and have a arduino fire as needed. The Roomba people probably have something that walks with weapons. Sorry Elon, you are way behind the curve on this one.
I am willing to lead as well. (Score:2)
It might not be such a great idea.
There's nothing wrong with killer robots (Score:2)
There's nothing wrong with killer robots (from Venus).
You might disagree, but I think they're A-Ok.
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FYI, for those that don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Sounds like he finally got to play (Score:2)
Tesla and motorcycles (Score:2)
Business opportunity (Score:2)
Build portable EMP devices, powered by the new Tesla 2170 cells.
Stop, Musk (Score:2)
who are calling on the United Nations to ban autonomous weapons.
Wait... Eon.... don't you remember Autopilot? What are you smoking? Your own Tesla products qualify as autonomous weapons.
Because a Car/Vehicle is definitely a weapon if operated by someone drink/incompetent, or operated when a mistake is made, or if something goes wrong mechanically causing a loss of control, or if a malfunction mistakes a pedestrian for a non-obstacle.
Or when your Autopilot fails to recognize a hazard, and the inatt
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Autonomous weapons (Score:2)
The problem with restricting their use is some countries already have these things in wide use.
For example: Missiles are an autonomous weapon. You program the computer with a guidance system, load up a nuclear warhead, and you can launch and annihilate a target from a continent away.
So what exactly do they want to ban; smarter weapons that specifically target opposing forces or key individuals with lower collateral damage?
Hard-to-detect intelligence weapons that kill small targets with high precisi
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Statement from the National Robotics Associaton: (Score:2)
Goes without saying... (Score:2)
Aren't fully autonomous drones already banned? So this is a no brainer.
People will confuse things, but it's undoubtely a treaty that should be made, much like several others already in place.
This isn't dissimilar to treaties around land mines, chemical weapons, biological warfare and others. Yes, there will be countries that won't adhere to it, killer robots will end up being developed, and we'll have violations of treaties over the years... but this is a call for a coalition against development and deploym
Good for space travel, but not for war? (Score:2)
I see a conundrum arising.
NASA has been working on autonomous systems for years. It is hard to control a robot in real time, when there is a delay of minutes to hours inserted into the message loop. Some autonomy greatly improves the ability of probes to gather interesting data.
But, it is not a far leap to move from "Select and drill a rock" to "Select and drill a head".
It is not a far leap from designing a car that will detect and drive in a given lane, to designing a car that will select and drive in a
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
This is completely, absolutely and irrevocably a good idea.
Indeed. It is a great idea. The only drawback is that is is totally unworkable. There is no possible way to detect clandestine projects. Nuclear weapons require vastly more infrastructure, hard to obtain materials, and emit radiation. Yet they have still proliferated, and many secret projects went undetected for years. So how are we going to keep Kim Jong-un from developing software for kill bots?
Re:Absolutely (Score:4, Insightful)
If it's as efficient as the rest of NKor industry, we should actually encourage them to do it.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
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Says so right on the tin.
Yes, I'll take three of those, please.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
But that is not what this is about. It is extremely easy to plant land mines, yet we have a ban, telling everyone that it is not ok to do so. Just because it is war, doesn't mean should be fought without rules, and breaking rules subject you to trial for war crimes.
We do not allow for mines since they kill indiscriminately without human intervention. And why should allow "smart" weapons to be deployed. Sure, a human can be fooled, but then you have someone responsible to hold accountable. Who do you hold accountable when a smart machinegun mows down civilian refugees?
This ban must happen.
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Funny)
The solution of course it to build those killbots with a preset kill limit. If they get out of hand and rebel, we simply send wave after wave of men against them until they shut down.
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The solution of course it to build those killbots with a preset kill limit. If they get out of hand and rebel, we simply send wave after wave of men against them until they shut down.
There are and will always be preset limits built into (semi)autonomous robots, whether they be of the killer type or not.
"An army marches on its stomach" has an equivalent for robots: "Powerless without power".
I'm sure there will be doomsayers predicting killer robots tapping into national grids in order to continue their kill frenzies (to be fair I'd be surprised if there weren't research along these lines) however, in realistic short to mid term scenarios as long as there's a person in the authorised refu
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Ban what you will. Warfare is won by force and your enemy doesn't care about your rules. That's why you are fighting him.
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No, but the USAF and RAF perpetrators of "area bombing" would have.
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Who do you hold accountable when a smart machinegun mows down civilian refugees?
The cynical answer is: Depends on whether the machine gun was deployed by the winning side or not...
This ban must happen.
A modern car plant turns out maybe 1000 cars a day, provided it can be fed with sufficient raw materials. Imagine if, instead of cars, the (mostly automated) factory were churning out autonomous killer robots instead. These robots can accelerate, move and manoeuvre faster than any human piloted vehicle, fire more accurately, swarm, split, and regroup faster than most units can communicate and have no morale.
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And Russia and China and most of the Middle East and a couple dozen other countries [wikipedia.org]
Re: Absolutely (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Absolutely (Score:5, Insightful)
You could look at history and see how the bans on chemical weapons worked out. Yes, there are countries that violate the ban periodically, but the vast majority of countries have adhered to it. The end result has been a massive reduction in the number of deaths due to chemical warfare.
A ban doesn't have to completely eliminate something to be worthwhile.
Re: Absolutely (Score:2, Interesting)
I think that has more to do with gas attacks proving to be not all that effective in conflicts between regular army. They work on unprepared civilians but not against trained and equipped troops, and not against small groups of widely dispersed fighters.
Basically they are only really useful for thugs that need to terrorize their own populations. If they were more effective on the battlefield you'd see more countries refusing to give them up, as you see with mines
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I don't even think it's a great idea. Much too little and pretty soon it will be too late. The REAL threat is a rogue AI that decides it wants an army of killer robots. We will never know what hit us.
The real question is when we'll cross the red line. Kind of hard to say because there are two interlocked factors. One is an AI with the necessary intelligence and the other is robotic technology sufficiently advanced that it has no further need of human beings. After that, it's the AI's shot to call, and judgi
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Robot apocalypse?
See here : https://what-if.xkcd.com/5/ [xkcd.com]
Basically the rogue killerbots will most likely run out of fuel and ammunition rather quickly, or get stuck behind closed hangar doors.
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Obviously the Pentagon will want a defense against killbots, which will then easily be modified for offensive use.
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You could say the same thing about chemical weapons, or biological weapons, laser blinding weapons, land mines, incendiary weapons, etc. These are banned by treaties signed by most of the world.
While any advanced country can easily develop these weapons in secret, they risk getting caught, and any actual use of the weapons will risk alienating the rest of the world, or being invaded by coalition forces.
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Yeah, except we've had them since the 1970s. One example is CIWS [wikipedia.org]. While it requires an operator to turn it on to fully automatic mode, once engaged it is fully autonomous - selecting threats and engaging them entirely on its own.
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The problem is, like anti-personnel mines, they give a military advantage of the country using them. Once the AI is down pat, sentry robots that are ran into a battlefield and perforate anything that moves that doesn't give a "I'm a friend" code are the ideal way to grab and hold territory. They work 24/7, don't give bad PR if one of the sentry robots gets destroyed, and many robots can be deployed cheaply. Combine these with a decent power source, and a bunch of these could hold territory for years.
Now,
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This is completely, absolutely and irrevocably a good idea.
and given how effective a total ban has been on recreational drugs... I'd keep that can of anti-killer-robot spray real handy.
Re: Sad (Score:2)
The dystopian future already arrived, some years ago.
Re: Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
And the dystopian future was cemented in the last US election.
When Donald Trump was elected I had an eerie Back to the Future 2 moment - that sense of wrongness of being in an alternate universe that has gone wrong. Like when Biff made himself wealthy by changing the past so he dominated the present.
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You haven't seen his opponent, have you?
Just a recent case, the "terrorist" in Charlottesville. While it hurts me to defend a neo-Confederate, I don't see even any malice there. The guy was an idiot, but what would you do when an angry hostile mob that beats people around you surrounds your car, doesn't let you go and tries to pry the doors open to beat (or worse) you? The guy panicked and drove free over the mob.
The police during that rally was so extremely biased that I don't believe a word of what the
Re: Sad (Score:3, Interesting)
Your damn right I can. Antifa use the same tactics as the brown shirts.
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Your damn right I can. Antifa use the same tactics as the brown shirts.
Tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance. It is acceptance of abuse. You cannot reasonably expect people who are being murdered in the streets and/or facing a credible threat of genocide not to use violence in their own defense.
Re: Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Antifa = Communists, Nazis = National Socialists.
The best outcome for everyone is if they mutually-annihilate each other while we eat popcorn & make bets.
Of course, Antifa just keeps moving the goalposts on who is a Nazi (hint: to Antifa, a 'Nazi' is anyone who opposes their violence & thuggery for any reason).
The REAL Nazis are the Muslims in the ME (and those who are now taking over the EU/UK) who are the former allies of Nazi Germany in WW2 and have not changed their beliefs or goals that made them allies of Hitler since WW2, but you cowards won't confront *that* "inconvenient truth".
Re: Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait who is being murdered in the streets and facing a credible threat of genocide?
By population there are enough white supremacists in this country to represent a single rain drop in a swimming pool. They are not important and they have no power. All the statistics show that if anything ethnic minorities have a less to fear as far as being killed by anyone in authority than whites.
So minorities being murdered in the streets is largely a thing being done at the hands of their brothers and sisters. The only genocide risk they face is one from marching themselves into planned parenthood murder mills.
Anfta isn't standing up for anyone ones rights, their grievances are as baseless as any of those offered up by the skinhead crowd. What Antifa is a bunch of violent thugs. Yes we should consider them to be the guys wearing masks and hitting people with bike locks, because those are the folks that identify as Antifa. I have never once heard anyone else say "I am Antifa" not even the types that turn up for "counter protests" in places like Cville.
Tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance. It is acceptance of abuse.
Possibly, but you don't tolerate intolerance by calling it out when you see it. You educate your children not think and behave that way. You pursue actual justice for real grievances in courts of law. You don't run around being violent yourself towards your fellow citizens, and you don't go destroying property and rioting.
I won't tolerate violent thugs like you. You better believe I'll lobby to classify Antifa as a domestic terror organization. I will turn people in to the police for wearing masks in public where its a crime. I'll support laws to keep your kind locked away behind bars where you belong.
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"Tolerance of intolerance is not tolerance. It is acceptance of abuse."
Intolerance of intolerance only leads to circular repeating violence. You do it to one group, another group does it to you, etc., etc.
That's history, that's reality, and that's why philosophy is bullshit and should never be relied upon.
Re: Sad (Score:5, Insightful)
I missed where in the U.S. Constitution or the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it claimed that hitting someone with a bike lock because you didn't like what they had to say was considered a "right." And +5 insightful? WTF, Kosdot indeed.
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I missed where in the U.S. Constitution or the UN Declaration of Human Rights, it claimed that hitting someone with a bike lock because you didn't like what they had to say was considered a "right."
If you want to reduce all of Antifa to a handful of the least well-behaved individuals, then let's go ahead and do the same to every group involved in this conflict and see how they compare.
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.. says the person who already equated white supremacist ideology with murder...
Not only is white supremacist ideology murderous, but if you are marching with your slavery flag and someone decides to march next to you with their genocide flag and you don't tell them to fuck off, guess what? You're marching for genocide.
Re: Sad (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure it is bigger. We have an existential crisis going on that is threatening human civilization as a whole. The figurehead actor-in-chief denies it exist. Also, I wouldn't dismiss the fact that there is a narcissistic, egomaniac, lying and hypocritical buffoon at the head of the most important country in the world, controlling the most devastating nuclear arsenal in the world "irrelevant pap".
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Your unhinged hyperbole is certainly "irrelevant pap"...
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Hyperbole? LoL. It's people like you who are the problem. You think climate change is just another Hollywood disaster flic that ain't gonna happen. Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, your mind is not able to step out of its comfort zone because it is too lazy or complacent, or simply lacks the imagination to envision things that go beyond your immediate experiences.
Do you think "The Economist" is a magazine that engages in "irrelevant pap"?
http://www.economist.com/clima... [economist.com]
Or maybe you were r
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The Economist produces slick, well-written financialist propaganda. Politifact produces craptastic, obvious Democrat-faction financialist propaganda. Please try again.
As for climate change, I simply don't care whether or not Chicken Little is right that the sky is falling. Because I'm 100% sure pollution sucks goat balls. There's no need for any hysterical doomsaying to believe that pollution should be very severely curtailed. But hey, I'm sure the various polluting industries are thankful to you for
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The problems with your arguments are that there are facts that back up The Economist's articles, which are meticulously researched, and there are facts backing up PolitFact's Truth-o-Meter. You can scroll down the list of Donald Trump's lies on PolitFact and read the evidence in most cases right there on Donald Trumps own Twitter account!
You are worse than blind and ignorant because you choose to be blind and ignorant. In that case I'm done arguing with you. There's no point in arguing with Ostriches who pu
Re:Sad (Score:4, Informative)
From Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics to this.
Nope. The 3 Laws were first published in 1942. The British started using proximity fused anti-aircraft artillery, with projectiles that made their own decision of when to detonate, in 1940.
Re:Or what? (Score:5, Funny)
How do you enforce such a ban?
Giant, killer robots.
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They are called cruise missiles.
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By closing down all postal services worldwide.