The obvious quote apropos here is Max Frisch "Technology is a way of
organising the world so that we don't have to experience it.", which I
probably cite a bit too often. But I'll offer a quote from Digital
Vegan which I think is not out of place here, and I hope conveys a
deeper message;<p>"" An immanent problem with enabling technologies, is that they enable
all connected parties and carry their values. Stare into the abyss,
and the abyss stares back at you. When picking up a technological
tool you had better know what it is for. What is connected to the
other side of it? And you should do so with the intent of mastering
it, and using it kindly. As Andre Loesekrug-Pietri, a founder of
European JEDI ('The European DARPA') project put it, unless the
people of Liberal democracies take control of technology "other
people or other political systems will impose their values on
us". ""<p>The rationale for remote weapons is risk reduction. Despite the
apparent diffusion of responsibility and decoupling of action and
consequences, the operator remains connected to the target. Blurry
pixels turning red on a screen are still lives being
extinguished. Unless you have a generally low IQ and very poor
emotional intelligence that fact is still inescapably bound to your
actions and will haunt you as if you had seen the whites of their eyes
and body parts. Indeed the trauma may be worse, because you now have
to fill in the gaps with your imagination, somewhere between
dispassionate official EKIA reports and gruesome media accounts.
You'll never know, and so you'll never get closure. Each technological
action has an equal and opposite reaction.