Wired and War

Dear Wired, have you become part of the war machine? From Live Feed (by Morgan Meaker), “As defense companies worldwide court Ukraine for access to real-time combat data, Kiev wants to keep the resource for its own booming arms industry.” This is sick! We need to end the arms race before the arms race ends the human race. “…the sheer number of weapons systems and high-tech sensors deployed have created a vast amount of data about how battles are fought and how people and machines behave under fire.” I can tell you how people behave under fire: they die, or are horribly wounded and traumatized for life.

You think this is trendy and with it? You have lost your way and have gone to the dark side. It seems you are intent on glamorizing the “military-retail” complex. War is good for business. Wrong! War is hell. We need to end war.

“The biggest thing we’re missing is coming up with new ideas,’ says Brockman. “It’s nice to have something that could be a virtual assistant. But that’s not the dream. The dream is to help us solve problems we can’t.” (The Transformers by Stephen Levy). Duh. How about diplomacy instead of bombs? Could you help solve that problem AI overlords? Is AI just too stupid to know what’s important? Or has Wired simply sold out to the Pentagon? As the world goes up in flames somebody is going to make a killing.

Want to help with the climate crisis and be part of the solution, not the problem? The Pentagon is the the world’s biggest polluter and is not subject to EPA regulations. Did you know that? How are you going to make a world littered with spent uranium ammunition sound attractive? We need help here. fast. Or perhaps you think we’ll all just mutate together? Some of us, maybe, if we survive the radiation sickness.