Because we want our soldiers, combat pilots, naval commanders and others holding implements of destruction to be high as kites, right?
“After two long-running wars with escalating levels of combat stress, more than 110,000 active-duty Army troops last year were taking prescribed antidepressants, narcotics, sedatives, antipsychotics and anti-anxiety drugs, according to figures recently disclosed by the U.S. Army surgeon general. Nearly 8 percent of the active-duty Army is now on sedatives and more than 6 percent is on antidepressants ”“ an eightfold increase since 2005.”
The link also tells the tales of a B1 bomber pilot exonerated from charges of assault and auto theft after going on a rampage following an amphetamine-fuelled 19 hour flight, as well as the young Marine who died from the toxic interactions of the several medications he’d been prescribed.
then we drug them to counter the effects of combat.
Maybe we should dose the world’s water supply with oxytocin and vasopressin.
It is worth remembering that the Founding Fathers were all traitors.
starting to sound like ‘Serenity’ now… we’re making our own Reavers?
“It’s no longer IOKIYAR….It’s OK If You’re A Republican, but IOKBYAR–It’s OK BECAUSE You’re a Republican.” — Me
You don’t have to drug robots, or treat them psychologically. You also don’t need a GI Bill for veteran robots.
In fact I am all for robot warfare – for both sides. We should sell the enemy robot tech, so then wars will be our robots fight with their robots.
We’ll all be a lot better off – at least until the robots get smart enough to realize how we are abusing them…
Then…well, I don’t really have a plan for that, I’m afraid…
PC Magazine, By Mark Hachman, April 10
The government is looking for a few good robots. But never fear, this year’s DARPA Robotics Challenge isn’t a casting call for positronic killing machines—instead, teams are being asked to design robots capable of driving a vehicle, using power tools to bash through walls, and even replace a cooling pump, for a $2 million grand prize.
Up to $34 million in total will be eligible in contracts and funding, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said Tuesday.
The goal, DARPA said, is to produce a robot capable of assisting humans in dangerous or degraded environments, using unmodified tools designed for humans.
“The program aims to advance the key robotic technologies of supervised autonomy, mounted mobility, dismounted mobility, dexterity, strength, and platform endurance. Supervised autonomy will be developed to allow robot control by non-expert operators,” DARPA said, according to a document posted to the FedBizOpps Web site on Tuesday.