
Worries Mount Over Drone Safety After Venezuela Attack - DyslexicAtheist
https://www.wsj.com/articles/worries-mount-over-drone-safety-after-venezuela-attack-1533601121
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taneq
Frankly I'm amazed that it's taken so long for someone to try something like
this. Drone tech has been available to any halfway competent hobbyist for over
a decade and you can now buy very, very capable machines off-the-shelf.

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pjc50
I'm slightly surprised that it took this long for someone to try a drone
assasination of a public figure. Drones have already been weaponised in Syria.

Of course, there are at least three competing suspects for this one -
Colombia, Venezuela itself (false flag or internal opposition), or the CIA.

Edit: for "drone" read "quadcopter or similar multirotor electrically
propelled craft"

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theandrewbailey
The US military has been using drones to kill people for decades.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1_Predator)

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garrettgrimsley
They’re referring to the use of an inexpensive, commonly available drone, not
a four million dollar weapon.

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bilbo0s
I think theandrewbailey is maybe talking about the relatively low likelihood
that the CIA would use a cheap and ineffective drone to assassinate a South
American leader. Especially when there are so many more clean ways to do so.

I think a few years back a whole slew of South American leaders came down with
cancer for instance. Not that the CIA was behind that, it may have been
coincidence and happenstance, but you get the idea. When you decide you need
someone dead, then you need them dead. You can't " _miss_ ". I don't think it
likely at all that the CIA would do something so ham-handed as using a
hobbyist drone to attempt an assassination.

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bumholio
Bypass Paywalls is the extension you are looking for.

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywall...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/bypasspaywalls/?src=recommended)

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gruez
[https://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/wo...](https://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/worries-
mount-over-drone-safety-after-venezuela-attack-1533601121)

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dhimes
That didn't work (I didn't log into facebook)

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gruez
Are you using something like noscript or a referrer blocking addon?

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dhimes
Yes- uBlock origin. Does that screw things up?

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gruez
strange. I use ublock and it works fine for me.

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monochromatic
Paywall, no thanks.

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neom
I feel like there is a pretty long established history of wsj paywall articles
being ok to make the FP.

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phkahler
But they aren't fluff pieces. I want to read this one. If it keeps happening
enough, I'll pay to read good stuff. For me it's not even about the money - if
it's once in a blue moon it's not worth my time to figure out how to pay.

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cecja
Oh god, I bet the crazy US govt is gonna ban drones instead of firearms.

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justaman
Guns are not the problem. Crazy people are the problem. Same applies to drones

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mbrumlow
I have read your comment and the parrent 4 times in 4 different ways. Can we
please get some clefication.

1) Parent is anti-gun and thinks US Gov is crazy because they would ban drones
before banning guns when guns are actually killing people. And you are pro-gun
and think it is actually crazy to to ban firearms. Thus you both disagree, and
are now mortal enemies.

2) Parent is anti-gun and thinks US Gove is crazy because they would ban
drones before banning guns when guns are actually killing people. And you are
anti-gun and make your comment in a attempt of sarcastic humor. Thus you both
agree, and can now be friends for ever.

3) Parent is pro-gun and thinks the US Gov is crazy because they would ban
drones and consider banning guns because people kill people, not drones, or
guns. And you are pro-gun and think its actually crazy to ban firearms.Thus
you both disagree, and are now mortal enemies.

4) Parent is pro-gun and thinks the US Gov is crazy because they would ban
drones and consider banning guns because people kill people, not drones, or
guns. And you are pro-gun and make your comment in a attempt of sarcastic
humor. Thus you both agree, and can now be friends for ever.

In any case this thread is confusing af. Please fix.

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mbrumlow
Thanks, now if the parent can please clarify, and if found to be #4 mods can
swiftly remove the flame war sure to come of this.

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chriswarbo
Article seems to be behind a paywall :(

Still, the first thing that came to mind when hearing of this attack was the
"slaughterbots" video (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterbots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaughterbots)
)

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grizzles
Too bad it failed if it was a real attack. They didn't even manage to rip the
umbrella:
[https://twitter.com/nukestrat/status/1026564955087228928](https://twitter.com/nukestrat/status/1026564955087228928)

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bumholio
Extrajudicial killings and assassination attempts rarely help democracy. Quite
the contrary they are the perfect environment for strongmen to grab and
consolidate power. Look at the Erdogan coup, the burning of the Reichstag, the
Arab revolutions that turned violent, the rise of ISIS in destabilized areas,
the violent history of postcolonial Africa and so on.

What makes Maduro possible is a political system that even has a strong
popular component. If you remove the exponent, that system will produce
another even stronger strongman, poised to "defend" the country.

~~~
grizzles
I think you are overestimating the predictive power of the cited historical
events.

Whether or not killing Maduro would bring back democracy is irrelevant, the
bottom line is if people like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin were removed from power
earlier in their lines it's reasonable to imagine that tens of millions fewer
people would have suffered and died.

Maduro hasn't quite reached the level of those despots yet but his removal
from power would certainly be a good thing for Venezuela. I've seen pictures
of babies starving to death. The guy has turned the entire country into a
concentration camp through his ineptitude.

Case in point: The Communist Party of China has ruled the mainland
uninterrupted since 1954. Look at the phenomenal progress that's been made
since Mao's death in 1976. There's no democracy in China, but different
leadership has made a huge difference. There are no more famines in China.

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bumholio
> if people like Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin were removed from power earlier

It's a bit ironic that you criticize the predictive power of my examples, then
go full time machine to kill known mass murderers before they had the chance
to do their deeds.

There is little doubt that killing Hitler would have changed the course of
history for the better - as much as alternate historical timelines make any
sense in a discussion. The problem we are trying to solve, however, is not
"how to use a time machine"; it is preventing future dictatorship without full
hindsight of who will turn out to be the dictator. The year is 1933 and a new,
44 year old Chancellor is using political violence as a pretext to suspend
democracy. As it would later turn out in this story, democracy matters quite a
lot.

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grizzles
Wikipedia puts the dates of the holocaust at: 1941–1945; according to a
broader definition, 1933–1945

You don't need a time machine. It's a documented fact that people around the
world knew by 1942, and some well before then. It's hard to slaughter millions
of people without other people finding out about it.

    
    
      > The problem we are trying to solve, however, is not "how 
      > to use a time machine"; it is preventing future 
      > dictatorship without full hindsight of who will turn out 
      > to be the dictator.
    

Nope, I'm just saying that Maduro's gotta go. If you can't figure out that
he's a dictator that's on you.

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bumholio
So were Saddam and Gaddafi. Their elimination directly led to tens of
thousands of preventable civilian deaths and ongoing civil wars. Again, a
simplistic world view can lead to trying to solve the wrong problem.

Venezuela is still at the 'restoring democracy by any peaceful means' stage.

~~~
grizzles
You don't need to start a war to drone one guy.

