A look at Anti-War Scientists, DARPA and more

[peace4all]

The Village Voice: Features: Make Robots Not War by Erik Baard

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0337/baard.php

As American warfare has shifted from draftees to drones, science and the military in the United States have become inseparable. But some scientists are refusing to let their robots grow up to be killers.
Clusters of scientists shut the laboratory door on the military half a century ago in reaction to the horrors of atomic bombs, and again decades later in disgust with the Vietnam War. But today such refuseniks are rare and scattered—in large part, they say, because so many of their colleagues doing basic research are addicted to military money.

"I would rather the military run out of reasons to keep existing, and I don't want them to have any credit for something I have accomplished—which they clearly would if they gave me the money," says Steve Potter, a neuroscience researcher in Atlanta whose astonishing robotic creations would make a 21st-century general drool—if the general could get his hands on them.

<big snip>

"DARPA and ONR and other DOD agencies support quite a lot of research that I think is valuable and virtuous," he says. "However, there is a slippery slope that I have seen in the careers of a number of colleagues. You start work on a project that is completely fine. Then when renewal time comes, and you have students depending on you for support, your program officer says that they can continue to fund the same work, but now you need to phrase the proposal using an example in a military setting. Same research, but just use different language to talk about it. OK. Then when the time comes for the next renewal, the pure research money is running a bit low, but they can still support your lab if you can work on some applications that are really needed by the military application. OK. . . . Then for the next round, you need to make regular visits to the military commanders, convincing them that your innovation will really help them in the field. And so on. By the end of a decade or two, you have become a different person from the one you were previously. You look back on your younger self, shake your head, and think, 'How naive.' "
<snip>

[peace4all]

1. kick

[G_j]

2. I have often wondered what goes through

the minds of some scientists, as the big money comes from the military.

What a perversion! The few scentists I've known have been pretty liberal, though they didn't do military work.

[peace4all]

3. perhaps the evening crowd will find something of interest here

?

[Dancing_Dave]

4. Science can be used for good or evil...good demands a movement!

Science can be used to bring more and more efficient Death and Destruction down on us until the whole human race self-destructs-- and that's path we're on now. But Science can also expose the truth hidden behind the neo-cons high tech dissimulation and illusions. That can be very effective when there is a major cultural activist movement like what came along in response to the Vietnam War!

Here's Science against Bush's dissimulations:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeffrey.king2/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

Here's the movement:
http://www.911truth.org/ ;)