2y ago

Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation

www.vice.com

Archived version: https://archive.ph/qlxZr

A Boring Dystopia @mander.xyz

fossilesque @mander.xyz

2y ago

Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation

www.vice.com /en/article/n7eky8/pentagon-scientists-discuss-cybernetic-super-soldiers-that-feel-nothing-while-killing-in-dystopian-presentation

chapotraphouse @hexbear.net

WayeeCool [comrade/them] @hexbear.net

2y ago

Pentagon Scientists Discuss Cybernetic 'Super Soldiers' That Feel Nothing While Killing In Dystopian Presentation

www.vice.com /en/article/n7eky8/pentagon-scientists-discuss-cybernetic-super-soldiers-that-feel-nothing-while-killing-in-dystopian-presentation

17 comments

This feels more like the pentagon's wish list, more so then a path forward.
I imagine those mind enhancing stimulants, those pain numbing drugs, and bioweapon on death, are not going to play well together at all.
Brains, connected to computers that allow telepathic communication.
Be able to regrow a limb, like a lizard.
Lab grow embryos that can be edited with muscle enhancing strength.
That is a lot of systems that have to work well with each other.
- Yeah none of that is anything more than science fiction.
  
  The world I'm living in is the science fiction of my youth.
  If someone made a realistic movie about life in 2023 and presented it in the 70's, it would flop for not being plausible.
I'm not sure how much of what is suggested in that article is possible, but it is chilling nonetheless. They reference all these heroic characters from movies while (maybe) not realizing that they sound just like the villains from those same films.
- Might not be possible now, but that doesn't mean it won't be possible in the near future. A lot of what science has advanced takes a lot of money and basic research to get there. That's something the military is good at bcz they don't care how much money they spend.
  Unfortunately, they're operating under the assumption of, everybody else is doing it too, so we need yo do it first.
  
  They've been talking about this stuff for 30 years. There's nothing 'near future' about it.
Names ot human robocopus, completely missing everything said in the movie robocop
- These people look at dystopian media as inspiration rather than warning
  
  Torment Nexus https://twitter.com/AlexBlechman/status/1457842724128833538
They could name the program "Universal Soldier"...
Holy shit so I remember when I was first stationed at Redstone Arsenal and they had this introductory lecture about RA and tech we were working towards (future tech) and they had this dude come out in this Bollywood Universal Soldier getup and all I could do was laugh out loud. It was the dumbest most out of touch shit I had ever seen.
Anyway 24 years later and we are still not getting that tech.
It’s a stupid waste of money.
- I completely forgot about Universal Soldier!
Metal Gear 4?!
Maybe it was 3, I’m not sure anymore, but that was a huge plot point for one of those games
- It was 4. When GW was shut down, all the soldiers felt the emotions suppressed by nanomachines all at once.
This always ends well, when the super soldiers turn on you.
That rationale of projecting the prisoner's dilemma onto literally everything is really dangerous. It makes me think of that one episode of Rick and Morty where they're split between these increasingly fragmented eigenstates and all the Ricks start trying to kill one another because they figure if they don't the others will kill them first.
If everybody abandons their morality because they're pretty sure everyone else will do it first if they don't, we definitely get a worse outcome. Like, okay, even if eventually some like Chinese Bene Gesserit space marines push for military dominance, we'd be better off making some little pocket of life on Earth that isn't rushing the dystopian options and eventually losing it than just making everything terrible to make sure we own the ruins.

17 comments