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StabledGenius t1_itkuggy wrote

Can we have some health care instead?

134

KidKarez t1_itkwm0n wrote

The swarm killstreak becoming reality

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anti-torque t1_itkwm63 wrote

I thought that's why I spent three months at Great Mistakes... to be a dungaree drone.

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[deleted] t1_itkx60a wrote

Lol, I thought it said 'anal probes' at first

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IGmeanwell t1_itkxcqs wrote

It’s just so ships Captains can get the satisfaction of saying “Release the drones!”

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maudde00 t1_itkyos3 wrote

They never read prey. I know it's not nanomachines but still.

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TheMotorcycleBoy t1_itkyxwx wrote

Replying to StabledGenius (#200,078)

I know that was a joke but just in case this sort of thing starts to creep into 'mainstream thinking'...

Military spending is 3.29% of GDP. You already spend more in tax per person in the US on universal healthcare than the UK does (probably plenty of other free-at-point-of-use countries as well, I just haven't seen the stats.)

It's not the misdirection of tax dollars into the military that's the (main) problem. The problem is the exorbitant prices of healthcare and drugs in the US. The companies involved in that lucrative arrangement are not keen for any reform of healthcare service provision, and they pay / lobby / donate / propagandise to keep things as they are.

One aspect of that propagandising is to reassure US voters that the richest country in the world is not able to afford free healthcare because it's money is tied up in 'military spending' to protect all these uppity European countries while those socialist idiots waste all their resources on their universal healthcare and free higher education. It's a hollow claim. US military spending is around 3.29% GDP and most European countries its around 2%.

Sorry to get all heavy - because it's a reply to what was obviously only a light-hearted and oft-repeated quote. Just needs to be said.

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catchingonfire t1_itkz9py wrote

When are we getting DoorDash delivery via drones?

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UpSheep10 t1_itkzuyo wrote

You guys like swarms of things right?

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HackTheSystem-90 t1_itl0nx0 wrote

Here I thought call of duty advanced warfare was being silly by having a drone swarm in the campaign, hahaha boy were so fucked, Elon is definitely Ted Faro.

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Abusive_Capybara t1_itl0nxh wrote

Only logical after we have seen how effective drones are in the Ukraine/Russia war.

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Ok_Tax7195 t1_itl0sta wrote

The US Navy wants a lot of things. Seamen being the number one thing.

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Derp_Herper t1_itl1xbd wrote

Phew, what a relief. I was afraid I was going to get murdered by robot dogs.

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antimeme t1_itl8bs1 wrote

The US would have to reestablish its manufacturing base, after decades of exporting it to China.

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Badfickle t1_itl8jy4 wrote

Thousands? Is the author familiar with the US military? These are rookie numbers. The Navy no doubt already has thousands of small drones. They are going to want to use thousands of small drones for a single engagement.

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stashtv t1_itldrzn wrote

There is going to be a point where militaries are going to fire a missile and it's going to track onto a target that is being lasered by a drone. Satellite images aren't real time fast enough and even AWACS won't reach far enough into hostile territory.

Little drone-y boys that are virtually invisible and audible that loiter for hours above targets? Yeah, that's going to quickly guide in those precision rounds.

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MadMadBunny t1_itlhw8s wrote

Let’s make sure they are impervious to classical Beastie Boys music broadcasts

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Enkurkur t1_itlq9lw wrote

Stargate Antarctic defense base incoming

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DTFH_ t1_itlqgym wrote

Replying to StabledGenius (#200,078)

Nah, keep the military its funding is not what is wrong with American society. The military's funding is not the cause of our social failings, we could just fix out tax code and actually collect wealth from the wealthy to fund social services like any other functioning system that cares about its society.

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ConstableGrey t1_itlrluk wrote

I think I saw this in the Call of Duty with Kevin Spacey

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Wangchung265 t1_itlu8p4 wrote

I just wonder how susceptible to signal jamming these drones are. I feel like it would be an easy avenue for large area countermeasures.

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anti-torque t1_itlv74a wrote

Replying to TheMotorcycleBoy (#200,481)

>You already spend more in tax per person in the US on universal healthcare than the UK does (probably plenty of other free-at-point-of-use countries as well, I just haven't seen the stats.)

I ran the numbers 3 years ago, and we were spending $10.7k per capita in health care. About $6k of that was in taxes. Iirc, Switzerland paid the second most, with $7.7k--all taxes, I think, which go straight to private insurance to handle everything. And I thin the UK comes in third in per capita expenses, just under $6k, with most Euro universal systems close behind.

It wouldn't be a problem if outcomes matched the expense, as they do in Switzerland. But the US outcomes match more closely with places like Costa Rica, where they spent about $3k per capita, annually.

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SequesterMe t1_itlyg3j wrote

And they're going to screw it up.

They're going to get all these top of the line drones ordered and by the time they get the last one they're going to be obsolete.

They need a drone program. One that allows for advancement that mirrors the growth of a technology. By spending the extra time to do that they would not only improve effectiveness but reduce long term costs.

I also believe that they should put in a bit of effort to ensure that they can be demilitarized so they can be sold to the public once they have served their effective military lives.

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KingNathan90 t1_itm1mg7 wrote

And all the ways the world wants to make Black Mirror real on the 5 o'clock news.

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Nyrin t1_itm3732 wrote

Replying to StabledGenius (#200,078)

We spend way, way more on healthcare than defense. If you diverted every penny from defense into healthcare, you'd see one of three outcomes:

  1. The optimistic one: modest but meaningful improvements take hold in healthcare outcomes; nothing revolutionary, but good enough evidence that dumping more money into healthcare without systemic changes can still improve things.
  2. The pessimistic one: corruption and inefficiency in distributing new influxes of funding into healthcare results in a situation where everything is even more corrupt and less efficient, and the extra money results (at least indirectly) in worsened outcomes and accessibility while accelerating the deterioration as those windfall profits are internalized.
  3. The mixed one: some small gains are offset by some small screw ups and the net impact of the monetary infusion is ambiguous, with some dimensions of healthcare getting some measurable improvements and others actually getting worse.

In all three cases, the consequences would likely be irrelevant fairly quickly because the geopolitical vacuum left by the US military vanishing would destabilize global economies (even more) and likely spark wars we no longer had any defense against.

Reducing the US role as world police and improving US healthcare need to be tackled as separate problems with different timelines.

  • For defense, we need phased handoff of accountabilities to trusted allies who step up to the plate; Russia is a really clear reminder of why the lifetimes of comparative peace (and outsourced violence) that most readers from Western countries enjoy is not a given — and with continuing pressure building from developing world population growth and climate change, the backdrop of instability isn't realistically going to improve all that much over time. If the US is going to pull back its defense spending, it needs to do it slowly and methodically. In reality, it may be better to just spend it more intelligently, which is something that e.g. semi-autonomous warfare initiatives like the drones discussed in this article could actually do.
  • For healthcare, we really need to fix the money-leaking system before we just dump more money into it. We already pay way, way more than anyone else in the world for "good but not always the best, highly inaccessible care" and we should expect vastly diminishing returns if we just throw extra funding at it. It's a lot more complicated than just wholesale switching to a single-payer system, but most of the "exponential profit machines" do need to be removed from the equation; without checks, free market is going to naturally converge towards highest cost for least-quality acceptable product, and even if that anti-capitalist sentiment is exaggerated and oversimplified there's still clearly some hard truth to it in what we see happening.

If we find a way to cross the streams and divert some incrementally and intelligently pulled back military spending into a reformed healthcare system that actually makes good use of that money? Then fantastic. But this is far, far more layered than "military bad, healthcare good, give military money to healthcare, good!" ... Which is unfortunately a prevailing sentiment.

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Slightly_Smaug t1_itm3mc4 wrote

How about no more spending billions on this fucking nonsense.

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Heroshade t1_itm6rqb wrote

Begun the drone wars have

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Trygolds t1_itmbbfn wrote

I have this vision of a squad of men moving forward on the battlefield with swarms of small flying and walking ruling crawling drones in a perimeter around them scouting and killing any threats.

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sp3kter t1_itmbnqx wrote

Been saying for years this was coming. It’s just too obvious strapping high explosives to drones

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PopUpWindowPest t1_itmd0q8 wrote

Replying to Nyrin (#204,545)

Appalled someone would downvote this. Your argument is sound. Allow me to clarify further.
There are at least 6 entities involved in health care (maybe more). They are:

  1. Insurance companies.
  2. Tort lawyers.
  3. Hospitals.
  4. Doctors and nurses.
  5. Pharmaceuticals.
  6. The patient.
    Each and every one of the above has a dog in the fight. And they all want a piece of the profit pie. Well, maybe not the patient. He or she just wants to get better. :|
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yippy_skippy99 t1_itmibns wrote

If you haven't read it yet, should read Micheal Crichton book "prey" and then reconsider using swarm algorithms for drones. This technology will eventually use alot of AI, so swarm preservation will have to be included. It will difficult to tell good guys from bad guys

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raptorxrx t1_itmje1g wrote

Replying to ShallowFreakingValue (#200,286)

I’m sure the Ukrainian war has enlightened us on a bunch of new ways to use them and more R&D will flow as a result.

They could be a real game changer in urban warfare. We haven’t seen heavy urban warfare in Ukraine but that’s something I’m curious to see develop. Imagine a swarm of 100-500 small drones all armed with a munition of some sort controlled by AI specifically designed to strike clearly uniformed soldiers. Now, I’m sure it’d brake all the laws of war; but we all know those end up getting thrown out the window.

And for every 20 munition drones you send out a recon drone. Perhaps with thermal imaging. Now the networks mesh together and the drones feed each other intelligence. The intelligence is also simultaneously fed back to intelligence and ground level. Friendly soldiers wear an identifying tag of some sort like tanks have for javelins.

Now imagine these drones getting packaged into a modified himars missile, something capable of delivering a huge cluster at range.

I’m completely spitballing but I think we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg for how devastating drones in war will be.

Edit: spelling

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WarshipJesus t1_itmlf2b wrote

Kill Decision by Daniel Suarez was all about swarming drone warfare. It's also nearly 10 years old but still holds up really well.

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littleMAS t1_itmmdsj wrote

I cannot imagine how much real-world testing for technologies such as this is going on in Ukraine. This horrific war must be an arms manufacturer's dream come true.

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SpotifyIsBroken t1_itmo9ss wrote

This should say:

​

"The US Navy wants swarms of thousands of small killing machines"

​

That is much closer to the actual truth.

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Snowing_Throwballs t1_itmqh4c wrote

Replying to Latyon (#201,836)

What this brainlet you are responding to doesnt seem to get is that an employer holding vital healthcare access over your head like a carrot on a string is the issue. People are compelled to stay at shitty jobs because they have healthcare, despite the fact that they get paid like shit and have poor working conditions. If employers didnt have to provide healthcare to employees, they would have to pay their workers more and improve working conditions to retain labor. Employer provided healthcare is just another means of control. Additionally, people should not go into crippling debt just because their employer provided healthcare doesnt cover certain things. This dude's pull yourself up by your bootstraps argument is fucking stupid.

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Supertrinko t1_itmymia wrote

Replying to MakionGarvinus (#201,486)

Yeah Americans have this sort of pride in the idea that "socialist" countries have to sit in waiting rooms for hours, or on waiting lists for months. That the American system is some point of pride because you get healthcare when and as you need it.

The fact is though, that you get it so quick because most people can't afford it. If healthcare were affordable, a lot more people would use it and the waiting lists would be longer.

Some people will then make excuses to keep such a system.

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MakionGarvinus t1_itn1c1c wrote

Replying to Supertrinko (#207,906)

In Canada, most hospitals around where my wife is from charge a $20-50 co-pay. That prevents people from coming in with a cold, and clogging the system just to be told to take a couple days rest. I think they do have a version of supplementary insurance that you can pay for, and get extra / 'better' care.

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Supertrinko t1_itn21hn wrote

Replying to MakionGarvinus (#208,190)

Couldn't that be better targeted by saying "If we determine that you come to the emergency room for a non-emergency, you'll be charged the co-pay fee."

In NZ, we pay $40 for a GP consult ($80 if it's a GP you aren't registered to), but it's free if you go to the hospital and hang around in triage until they finally get to you.

I would very much like it if hospitals just said "This could have been a GP visit, so pay us $80." It would stop people just using emergency rooms as a free doctor's visit.

But free doctor's visits could also help that.

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Blender_Render t1_itn4w4c wrote

Black Mirror already tried this. It didn’t end well for anyone with an opposing view. So let’s not?

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darthcaedusiiii t1_itn7vi3 wrote

Have they tried not adding jet fuel or sewage to their ships water supplies first?

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130n35s t1_itnaejx wrote

DARPA has their back on this one. They've been training locust drone swarms with AI implemented. It's a labyrinth course with drones learning to designate squads, do rolling attacks while another grouping heads back to camp to resupply. That, or if its a one time run, the first team has intense spotlights they can temporarily blind with while the second grouping drops its' ordinance.

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DoodMonkey t1_itnbm52 wrote

DARPA has been working on this for awhile now. 3D printers on ships that can spin up drone swarms on the fly. Fantastic idea.

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vinean t1_itnj3dc wrote

In 2001 VLAAS was offered to the Navy by LockMart. 3-4 stacked loitering LOCAAS drones in a modified ASROC missile. 215 knots. 17 lb warhead (EFP) 100nm range or 30 minute loiter.

Warhead sounds small but a hellfire warhead is about 20 lbs. A javelin has about a 19 lb warhead.

Will kill a tank or a small boat (like say a Chinese Type 22 missile boat). Probably mission kill a radar on a destroyer.

20 years ago. But nope. Navy wasn’t interested.

Ten or so of these on each Burke would pretty much eliminate small boat threats and give you decent stand-off against missile boat threats.

Spot them using helo, loft these at them and dead missile boat squadron.

By now we’d be block III or IV on these things and they’d be even more lethal.

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WhatTheZuck420 t1_itnppe8 wrote

Cool! Just be sure they're not DJ-fvcking-I drones.

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-lv t1_ito4n1a wrote

Replying to PopUpWindowPest (#205,553)

Sad part is: You ordered them after who gets to cut their slice prior to those below - and the patient only maybe gets a treatment from what is left, if 1, 2 or 3 doesn't find a way to not share the pie and instead have the patient pay themselves (or suffer / die, which is most likely in that scenario)

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PopUpWindowPest t1_itr35hs wrote

Replying to -lv (#212,236)

The list wasn't really meant to show who gets the most benefit first to last. Only to list the players. If each entity were to place themselves by priority, they would likely do so.

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