Thursday, January 14, 2016

Tell No Evil


Soldiers are notoriously unreliable. The Afghan troops are disorganized under US supervision, while their Taliban counterparts have fought the occupying forces to a stalemate.

Same tribesmen.

Different motivation.

This quandary befuddles military strategists, although modernists within the Pentagon tout the value of a soldier designed along the second stanza of Alfred Tennyson's famed poem THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'
Was there a man dismay'd ?
Not tho' the soldier knew
Some one had blunder'd:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Now the six hundred has been reduced to one.

A drone missile.

No sex.

No need for 'don't ask, don't tell'.

A eunuch warrior capable of violating Assimov's three laws of Robotics:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Next stage; the Terminator.

Nothing is evil for Mr. "I'll Be Back'.

No comments: