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Anduril announces Roadrunner, jet-powered VTOL drone

(www.anduril.com)
186 points drak0n1c | 1 comments | 01 Dec 23 05:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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goalonetwo ◴[01 Dec 23 06:27 UTC] No.38483814[source]▶
The whole defense industry leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Once you peel the narrative that we are supposed to be the good guys (hint: in some/most cases, we are not), you realize that you really just help to kill people.
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1. philwelch ◴[01 Dec 23 09:01 UTC] No.38484702[source]▶
Some people need killing. But that’s not really the goal of building better weapons systems. Wars only get started by people who think they have a chance to win. Having a large, well-equipped military with the best weapons and then pledging to deploy that military to the defense of half the world deters a lot of wars from even starting in the first place.

A lot of people will argue that defense companies want wars to break out to increase their business, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. In wartime, the military mostly needs cheap commodities—ammunition, supplies, food, fuel—nothing you can really differentiate on. And especially the most recent wars have mostly been against poorly armed terrorists, when the defense industry makes a lot more money selling weapons that would be total overkill against the Taliban but potentially useful against Russia or China.