'Vortex Cannon vs Drone' - Mark Rober shows off tech from a "defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems". That seems bad

Otter@lemmy.ca to Technology@lemmy.world – 381 points –
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I've enjoyed Mark Rober's videos for a while now. They are fun, touch on accessible topics, and have decent production value. But this recent video isn't sitting right with me

The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrGENEXocJU

In it, he talks about a few techniques for how to take down "bad guy drones", the problems with each, and then shows off the drone tech by Anduril as a solution.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anduril_Industries

Anduril aims to sell the U.S. Department of Defense technology, including artificial intelligence and robotics. Anduril's major products include unmanned aerial systems (UAS), counter-UAS (CUAS), semi-portable autonomous surveillance systems, and networked command and control software.

In the video, the Anduril product is a heavy drone that uses kinetic energy to destroy other drones (by flying into them). Quoting the person in the video:

imagine a children's bowling ball thrown at twice as fast as a major league baseball fastball, that's what it's like getting hit by Anvil

This technology is scary for obvious reasons, especially in the wrong hands. What I also don't like is how Mark Rober's content is aimed at children, and this video includes a large segment advertising the children's products he is selling. Despite that, he is promoting military technology with serious ethical implications.

There's even a section in the video where they show off the Roadrunner, compare it against the patriot missiles, and loosely tie it in to defending against drones. While the Anvil could be used to hurt people, at least it is designed for small flying drones. The Roadrunner is not:

The Roadrunner is a 6 ft (1.8 m)-long twin turbojet-powered delta-winged craft capable of high subsonic speeds and extreme maneuverability. Company officials describe it as somewhere between an autonomous drone and a reusable missile. The basic version can be fitted with modular payloads such as intelligence and reconnaissance sensors. The Roadrunner-M has an explosive warhead to intercept UAS, cruise missiles, and manned aircraft.

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I was not expecting this amount of hate over this video when I clicked on this post. The video is... normal? I don't see issues? This whole thread seems oddly anti-military, anti-tech, and anti-Mark Rober. Like, what, is this tech going to be used to murder children more effectively than bombing a school? Even if it is, why is Mark Rober at fault and actually a phony who's just shelling out for fame/cash? I'm genuinely curious what I'm missing here.

It's simply, propaganda. The issue with its audience is they are too young to realise they are being sold the next gen of weapons and it's being promoted in a positive light. If you don't understand why that is wrong then do a quick moral check in yourself.

Maybe, but defense tech is cool.

defense tech is cool

"Defense" is mostly doublespeak since this tech will be used to attack and murder brown people in the other side of the world

The vortex cannon was shot directly at the youtubers in this video and they were fine. The attack drone is designed to take out other drones. What here is going to be used to kill humans exactly? Did you watch the video?

The drone hovers and goes down instead of up. A 200 mile an hour brick that if used right could go for multiple targets before failure.

I mean, yeah, you can modify most military tech to target humans.

There is no modify, only a down button, I suppose lazers are pretty effective but they are banned right? And EMP? I think I can survive that but I'm sure someone will be along to tell me I won't.

I've pointed out that they are weapons and being presented in a friendly way, that's all, why argue when you asked the question?

I wasn't refering to the video. "Defense" tech is obviously a much larget topic than the video itself.

"this tech", to me, implied a connection to the subject at hand.

I meant "defense tech" as "this tech". Might not be accurate grammatically, I'm not a native English speaker

You do realize that it's good to give information about weapons to people who'll be targeted by them the most?

Education in new reality of war is as important as any other.

And a sword is definitely a positive thing when many other people already have swords and you are choosing whether to have one.

Are you thinking the average person is going to be buying a jet drone cannon?

Average person isn't going to do anything comprehensively.

What use is the information in this case?

To me it can be summed up as: Lazers can be defeated (more like we are not willing to leave our best lazer tech lying around)

Signal blocking can be defeated

So we've resorted to flying bricks to defeat YOUR drones, don't even think of using them.

Oh and just remember they are presenting them in a "drone travels up" way....

But they could do the exact opposite to an "object" on the ground. (A highly deadly "penny off the empire state")

They'll think how to use their drones to still kill enemy's manpower.

Lemmy is slipping into a weird form of pacifism where they're really hype about certain types of violence (punch a nazi, execute billionaires, etc) but also hate democracies working together to defend against attack because they see government as a nebulous evil and they'd rather people die than admit their edgy ideology is overly simplistic.

And yes I know the west has been involved in bad wars predicated on lies, the west isn't the only place where people lie and do awful things for personal power and wealth, democracy isn't perfect but it's a work in progress best effort to work on making things better and it's actually working pretty well really all things considered. I certainly think having tools to defend it against attack is a sensible and good thing especially something as elegant and accurate as just smashing attacking drones with percussive force. Far less likelihood of civilian casualties or ecological damage.

But the West isn't a work in progress. We actively support genocide. We are the baddies that live on the backs of the rest of the world. We currently do this. Actively.

That's such a simplistic and idealistic world view, you really think the rest of the world would just be a utopia of mutual love and respect if it weren't for the existence of the evil race?

People the world over are all just human there are lovely Americans, lovely Arabs, lovely Chinese and Japanese and Ghanaian... however there are also greedy and manipulative people in all these places, people who will hurt others to get in a position of power - this is a reality of life, things are complex and sometimes interests and established beliefs clash leafing to conflict. This happens everywhere all through history.

The world is work in progress, its a lot if hugely difficult challenges many which come with added surprises and difficulties and unintended consequences.

I never said that everyone else is perfect. Don't strawman my words.

I didnt hate the video when I watched it, but Mark's videos are heavily aimed at family friendly vibes, and this video is heavily centered around domestic terrorism, even though it family friendly dances around actually using the term. Which is a weird vibe

Mostly I just hate when very obviously sponsored videos don't declare their sponsorships. The entire first half of this like, 15 minute video is an ad, and then the rest of the content is made by like 3 other people. The thing he did was a big dart launcher. Now sure, that's probably just for fun, it's a scaled up version of the science kit he's selling, it's probably laudable that he didn't want to show up his co-stars or whatever, but this is a video that has no content and basically no educational value. It's trash, basically, it just has science education skin on.

Veritasium has done a similar thing a couple times, like his video on the autonomous cars. Very clearly a sponsorship, I think he only says so at the very end of the video, he totally glosses over any problems or downsides the technology has and speaks glowingly of it the whole time, paycheck please, next video, credibility is basically totally shot. I dunno, when I was a kid, magazines like popular science sold me on shit like the hyperloop. I wish they had been as forward thinking and hyped about normal trains, instead. Especially considering how many people have probably fallen for similar garbage like this due to that kind of stuff.

This kind of thing happens a lot. Something "negative" comes up about a popular person and everyone comes crawling out of the wood work about how they "knew all along" and "this person really is such a horrible person" and "on my god how could they do this?"

I'm probably going to regret the few comments I've made in this thread ... but yeah, I really don't think that video was that bad. It shows off how engineering can be applied to defending from possible future attacks. Maybe someone could use this offensively and "promotes the military industrial complex" but I think a bullet or a bomb is a lot more economical than "anvil" and "anvil" is something folks could potentially see in real life in civilian defense applications.

I'd personally love to see more people taking an interest and inspiration from counter weapons systems rather than the mentality of "the best defense is a good offense." Not because I want to see more war, but because I think we've created some really nasty weapons and the shield and castle have long been out classed... People should be able to protect themselves.