LOLMilitaryIndustrialComplex
Xtreme English sent me a link to a very funny Huffington Post article entitled "I can haz weaponz?" (amusingly noting "this is in your language, I believe...").
The article starts with the recent reportage that the Pentagon has confirmed a long-standing rumour that it had requested funding to develop a "gay bomb" which, when dropped on the enemy, would have an aphrodesiac effect so powerful they'd immediately forget about fighting (not to mention their natural largely-heterosexual orientation) and stop to make love, not war.
While that story has provoked much hilarity, it's only the tip of the iceberg, according to an ABC news story today.
Inspired by news that the Pentagon will spend about $78,000,000,000 this year researching such things as armour that makes soldiers invisible, camera-equipped remote-controlled sharks and "psychic teleportation", Huffington Posters Gabriel Delahaye and Max Silvestri came up with some other suggested weapons for study, starting with "Piranha gas that when inhaled turns into a piranha in your lungs with a hunger for lung meat".
Read the whole Homer Simsonesque list of weapons of mass delusion in the post.
ronnie
Labels: politics
posted by ronnie at
7:27 p.m.
4 Comments:
Hey! Not so fast! That invisible armor stuff is cool technology. Actually it is a fabric that bends light so that whoever is wearing it essentially becomes invisible.
Very early in the development process, but also very cool stuff.
I wonder if they have lumped the mechanical legs project in that $78B pile of cash. That is also something that is pretty cool. It is essentially a strap on frame that allows soldiers to carry much more weight and move at a faster pace.
Sort of like the first round of powered armor described in Robert Heinlein's "Starship Troopers".
Again, very cool stuff.
Along with bullets that can be shot around corners, etc.
Regards,
Dann
Yeah this stuff sounds dumb, but remember this is DARPA - the Defense Advance Research Projects Agency. They come up with these crazy ideas, but every once in a while come up with something that is so revolutionary that it boggles the mind. Currently they're developing Autonomous trucks - driverless trucks that can traverse a specific route without human intervention. Think of the effects of this on moving supplies in a war zone - or indeed moving goods on the highways in the civilian world.
And lest we forget, the only reason you and I get to read each other's stuff is because those woolly headed thinkers at DARPA had this wacky idea of connecting computers at research centers around the world so that scientists could share information. They called it "The Internet". The thing is you never know where this fuzzy brained research is going to take you. This is something that people like Mike Mansfield (whose 1973 Mansfield Ammendment restricted DARPA's research to projects with direct military applications and may have gutted American science in the process by removing funding) and William Proxmire with his "Golden Fleece Award" never got.
All right, all right, the invisible armour was a cheap shot :) And certainly military research has created many many things that have improved civilian life, including for my handicapped brethern. (Ever seen one of these?)
But still, you have to admit there's a mentality that allows them to spend willy-nilly on some ideas that are flat-out stupid (psychic teleportation?).
But I agree - the fact that they invented the foundation of the system that let me "meet" you guys gives them a very major pass :)
oh, save us! this is a country that can't "afford" health care for its citizens, but it can spend obscene amounts of money to develop toys like this for killing people!!
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