The Great Debate--Round 1--E_yew v. Codbrooks

[mattack91]

Wwlcome to the first round of the Great Debate!

Rules:
24 hours to post

No double posts

Bo one but the debaters and the judges are allowed to post
All Forum rules must be followed

Only Quality arguements

Don't begin posting until 12:00 Eastern Time

Good Luck!

[mattack91]

Wwlcome to the first round of the Great Debate!

Rules:
24 hours to post

No double posts

Bo one but the debaters and the judges are allowed to post
All Forum rules must be followed

Only Quality arguements

Don't begin posting until 12:00 Eastern Time

Good Luck!

[E_yew]

for what seems to be an eternity man has strugled with what one could consider his own eternal nemesis- his fellow man. his ability to manipulate objects from his surrounding, his ability to create works of art and masterpeices from crude unfashioned materials sets him apart from the other beasts in the bush. as does his ability to rationalise, understand how his world works, theorise, contomplate, understand all make him great. yet his one flaw; his animalistic urge to uphold territory remains. we call it War and its a disease that all of humanity suffers from. corrupts our gift of creativity which gives birth to weapons of war from bows to assault rifles, from catapaults to tanks. Our gift of intelligence is twisted and used to create these instuments of death, tactics formulated to kill more effiecnt and effectively, we create divisions and philosphies that harm our fellow man.

Countless bodies have been claimed in the name of war and of course the sad truth is this- war cannot be stopped, it is an illness that cannot be cured and will only die along with mankind. But we can at the very least drastically reduce the number of victims of this terrible aliment by reducing the number of brave soldiers (and when the technology is able to remove completely) in dangerous situations on the frontline while replacing them with unmanned drones.

[Spartas-Julius]

I dont want to interrupt but coudl we have the title of th debate? or is it right in front of me and I cant find it :P

[Myke08]

Unmanning the frontlines.

[codbrooks1989]

War, its a terrible and horrible action. countless men and women die. But just as many live and move on to become members of this great nations polotics. These men and women train for years, in the event they have to fight. they feel pain, they understand fear. They can decide from a first person view point weather it is right or wrong the actions they take. And here is the major flaw of unmanning the front lines.

It will no longer be a face to face war, a real person fighting another real person. it will be fought by machines, weather they be UAV's with stinger missles, or ground robots with saws. it will no longer be war, but a video game. a person on the other end of the monitor deciding the fate of a human being faced by this war machine. For the simple fact is you do not know if the people you are going to war with have the same tech as you.

You may send these machines in to raid a village full of hostiles, and civlians. All a man has to do is pull the trigger and a missle drops into the living room of a family. they see a group of men and because they are not their and cant survey the surrounding they seem a threat, so pull the trigger. What would keep these operators of these machines from killing with out hesitation? a camera flash may look like a muzzle of a weapon, a scared child hitting the machine with a stick may seem to be threating.

In the end when you remove human reasoning from combat and decide to place a cold metal machine in their place, this leaves the muman to become just as cold. they arnt in the battle, smelling the blood, feeling the hairs ***** up as combat starts. they are sitting behind a monitor using a keyboard, or controler, "Yeah man 20+ for the head shot".

[Spartas-Julius]

So wait....who is defending it and who is against it lol??? http://forums.ubi.com/images/smilies/16x16_smiley-indifferent.gif

[codbrooks1989]

im against it and hes for it

[E_yew]

I'm inclined to disagree. yes they are removed from the area of battle and war becomes less personal but is this really a bad thing?

"a person on the other end of the monitor deciding the fate of a human being faced by this war machine" as opposed to a human on the other side of a rifle? either way you will see you're effects and both will have an impact on the combatant who fired the round. as for going up against lower tech militaries, we already do that.
firing a stinger from a UAV is no more further removed from droping a smart bomb from a EuroFighter,firing the cannon of a Apache or that of a warthog. the only real diffrence is if the UAV gets shot down it ends up in a scrap heap. if a Apache goes down 2 mothers are sent a coffin.



the opperator is taken and placed miles behind the front line rendering him somewhat safe, this is our first and foremost duty to those that lay down their life for our way of life. due to this action he is less liable to get shot or in the worst case scenario killed reducing the stress on the operator meaning he's less likely to take such rash, snap decisions that one on the ground would, thus theoretically reducing the number of not only collateral but friendly fire incidents. the fact that the robot feels no pain and is most likely to be armoured means it could take few round while the operator assesses the situation.You so rightly ask "What would keep these operators of these machines from killing with out hesitation?" the the operator has to view his surrounding via a video feed suggest it could be quite easily be hooked up to a recoding device. i put it to you that this device could revolutionise the accountability of soldiers and would ensure an accurate and reliable account of events.

You're not removing human reasoning form the battlefield but enhancing it- you're allowing him to think in a clearer state of mind , you would be allowing him to think longer and most importantly you're allowing him to do all this as well as serve his country safetly and securely.

[The_Real_Azrael]

Why couldn't I have had this topic.... Yew wouldn't know what hit him... lol.

[E_yew]

so you say....

[codbrooks1989]

i have to disagree. while the diffrence is a soldier is behind a rifle or behind the screen wouldnt it mean we have more power? we wouldnt lose a life while the enemy does. we would lose machines(which brings up a rather greater point i will be agruing later.) what would stop us from sending this "Umanned" frontline into anywere in the world. were the enemy wouldnt stand a chance. then what would stop us from starting a full scale global war? no one would disagree in the govt because no "humans would be sent to their deaths".

wars end because alot more people die on one side. hence the end of the war. if we send machines out wouldnt it be a masacre? or if we fight another nation with these machines what would stop the war? both side could just mass produce these machines. instead of a 5 year war wed end up with a 50 year war.


Now here is a few more reasons why unmanned front lines would be cost inefffective. These machines would need to run on some type of enegry pack, one that could last and endure the hardships of war. bullet holes, rain, mud, sand, constant use. Not to mention the upkeep these machines need. anthing from the wiring that would need to be replaced to the broken servos. And if a machine broke down on the front lines who would get it? would you send a human team out to get back a fallen robot? were bullets could kill them. so rather then them giving their lives in combat, they lose it by playing AAA for battle robots?

This alos leads to the military as a whole. Everyone takes an asvab test. but a low score on the test wouldnt allow a person to work or fly helicopters. this makes the military unaccessable to a person who cant score as high. so what would you do with these men and women who come from back grounds were survival was number one and learning was lowest on the list. In anywar most soldiers who are in a combat MOS came from a low income family. would you tell them they cant join the military to work on these machines because they didnt score high enough?

Once you start taking one job from a human and giving it to a machine to "save a live" you tuen these people away. Lets imagine that a car company is a military. the men and women who put these cars together are front line soldiers. then you bring in robots because "they can do the job better and people wont lose limbs". what happens to the human element? they are replaced by machines and they are layed off. there are about 1079059 (from wiki) active duty men and women in the military. More then half are combat MOS's. thats means a little more then 500k would be out of jobs

[deamonomic]

now this is a good debate

[E_yew]

Wars end for 2 main reasons, the first the loss of human life is so great that one of the leaders of the 2 factions decides to throw in the towel. the second is the Economic benefits or presures begin to be out wayed by the cost of the war itself and if there is something that a hurts a country the most its in the coffers.
As you pointed out the manitance cost and that to replace these drones is more than enough for a government to think twice about conducting a trivial war, plus i was aware of such faults and did say in my opening statement that i would support complete unmanning once the technology is avaliable, though to be frank it's a little cold hearted to say you would rather human beings get shot due to them being "cost effective."

Would i disallow those who fail asvab or similar test from operators? yes. does this mean that soldiers will automatically become redundent? no. surely it would be upto, nay crucial for the military to maintian as many experienced soldiers as possible, which would result in them funding courses that would arm them with the knowlege and skills required to pass such a test and encourage not only those soldiers who show an interest in becoming operators but those who do not. plus as a knock on effect it would increase the pressure on the Gov't to pour money into schools and quality of education.

reducing the number of jobs avaliable for humans? you'd infact be increasing them. the drone itself you'd need an operator,the weapons specalist, an engineer. along with the construction of the drones themselves would see a boom in that market creating more spaces in the industry.

[deamonomic]

i am very tempted to join in on this arguement XD

[mattack91]

The three judges are Hanky, Duke, and myself. They will cast their vote here to choose the winner

My vote goes to

Codbrooks

[codbrooks1989]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by E_yew:
Wars end for 2 main reasons, the first the loss of human life is so great that one of the leaders of the 2 factions decides to throw in the towel. the second is the Economic benefits or presures begin to be out wayed by the cost of the war itself and if there is something that a hurts a country the most its in the coffers.
As you pointed out the manitance cost and that to replace these drones is more than enough for a government to think twice about conducting a trivial war, plus i was aware of such faults and did say in my opening statement that i would support complete unmanning once the technology is avaliable, though to be frank it's a little cold hearted to say you would rather human beings get shot due to them being "cost effective."

Would i disallow those who fail asvab or similar test from operators? yes. does this mean that soldiers will automatically become redundent? no. surely it would be upto, nay crucial for the military to maintian as many experienced soldiers as possible, which would result in them funding courses that would arm them with the knowlege and skills required to pass such a test and encourage not only those soldiers who show an interest in becoming operators but those who do not. plus as a knock on effect it would increase the pressure on the Gov't to pour money into schools and quality of education.

reducing the number of jobs avaliable for humans? you'd infact be increasing them. the drone itself you'd need an operator,the weapons specalist, an engineer. along with the construction of the drones themselves would see a boom in that market creating more spaces in the industry. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

actually war is very productive when the whole country is behind it. such as how we got out of the great depression.

also with the increase of need for jobs to not only build, but maintain these4 drones could send a country economic to soar and thus war never ending.

when war become fought with m16's that fire themselves what would be the need to learn from our mistakes. war becomes a video games people will just start doing it for less reasons then they do now. this is my closing