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

Destin works for defense contractors and he's never been shy about his interest and involvement in weaponry. He has a bible quote at the end of his videos. I seriously doubt I would agree with him about pretty much any politics and definitely not his personal beliefs, but he keeps his channel pretty strongly focused on the episode's subject without bringing his personal views into it. He seems to do the channel because he likes geeking out about nerdy stuff and wants to share that love with others.

I personally feel that the knowledge he's sharing is more important than knowing we probably disagree on some things. If he starts including prayer time or turns his channel into military porn, I'm out. But his channel is a positive influence for now, IMO.

Rober is different. He acts like cool science bro that worked for NASA and wants you to think he's Bill Nye or something. But he seems to be doing it for views and to push the stuff he's selling. He doesn't seem genuine. He's at risk of turning into a prank bro channel if his quality goes downhill.

Rober's always seemed a little off to me, like one of those who enjoys being famous more than the stuff that made him famous in the first place.

It's hard to exactly articulate the point where a content creator loses me, but I can feel it in my nerd-bones.

You've articulated my thoughts more clearly than I could myself. I've felt the same way for some time.

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this video

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It's a really good video about a great drone project that he obviously loves, I don't get what your problem with it is? He wasn't sponsored, but still said good things about people delivering blood in inhospitable regions using clever tech and organization?

I think most of us watch his videos because we're interested in this sort of stuff

Almost like the mrwhosetheboss touring a fucking prison a while back.

The channel Boy Boy (I Did A Thing's brother friend) did a great response video to that one.

I had to stop watching his videos because I can’t stand his overly enthusiastic personality.

Unfortunately engineering and military have a huge overlap in the US. It's kind of inescapable. I found out recently that Destin from Smarter Every Day also worked for a weapons manufacturer before starting YouTube. These people just don't want to think about the fact that they probably have blood on their hands.

If you take a look into the fitness bubble on YouTube you will see military propaganda too. They're often competing against real soldiers/SEALS/whatever to demonstrate how well prepared they're are in the case of war. Back in the subject of engineering, William Osman was also sponsored by the Navy (I think) one time.

I don't know how I feel about pitching anti-terror or war machines to children through the lens of, "Engineering is cool!" That said, there are many more examples of that pitch out in the world in other forms.

Kids have been sold military toys since forever. GI Joe, tin soldiers, toy guns, toy armor and swords, model kits of tanks and fighter aircraft...

Mark is not a genuine person he is a pretengineer. He can barely make a functional robot.

Backyard Scientist and Sripol however are the real deal.

That's his videos now. Get you to watch them to hype Crunch Labs.

sponsor block would like to introduce itself

Such a weird take, I just watched a program about education resources, was that bad because they didn't also cover all other problems our society faces?

I mean they're have been drone attacks already. Like it has already killed people, with Ukrainian forces uses them and the Houthis attacks in the Red Sea.

I mean its like they are comparing SciFi tech for warfare, though some people like that too shrug

yea, thats about how far i got. Last thing we need is more fear of something that likley wont happen...

Why have a drone drop something off, when you could bring in something much larger in a backpack

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Sci-Fi Short Film “Slaughterbots” | DUST (piped.video)

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I made a nightmare after watching this short.

I mean what's being shown here is effectively "how do you stop something like a slaughter bot or a 'terrorist bomb bot'?"

I thought it was a neat video ... We need people thinking about these problems.

Sure, and I went through the video looking for some nuanced explanation of the technology, the risks, and what safeguards were being put in place. Unfortunately, I didn't see any, and the cheerful music throughout the video seems to be promoting the content more than anything else.

I find that there are other engineering channels that discuss technologies while focussing on the technology itself, both the good and the bad. I'm not opposed to such content being accessible to children, but the way this video goes about it did not sit right with me

Given that his own kid is on the autism spectrum, I'd like to think any involvement he has with autism related organizations comes from a genuine desire to do good by autistic people.

I'm sorry to be that guy but I'm genuinely curious. Source?

I mean, one should assume every single "real" video that features "random strangers" is staged until presented with evidence of the contrary.

I do wonder what's up with fascist nerds and Tolkien names.

This reads as borderline schizoposting

Keeping your faith completely private is borderline acceptable, but please keep your symbols of faith out of your videos

Someone just being religious is "borderline acceptable?" Please go outside. People are often religious. It doesn't necessarily make them bad people. "Keep your symbols of faith out of your videos?" What a thing to say to a religious person who isn't trying to convert anyone with said videos. Like, I'm not Christian, I'm no fan of their bible, but I'm not about to give SmarterEveryDay a dislike and a block because he puts a bible verse at the end of each video.

No?

There are crazies in every religion, and even agnostics and atheists have their fair share of crazies that go too far. It's also not a great idea to just not expose kids to religious folk (even if that was conceivable, which it's not given how many people are religious) and it's not a great idea to demand they keep it private. Preaching is too far, but it's perfectly acceptable for a teacher to tell their students what the teacher believes in and to wear iconography like a necklace of Jesus on the cross. In fact, I would much rather they be extremely public about what they believe in rather than be silent about it.

What's wrong with Palmer Luckey. I don't have much research on him but I believe Oculus was better before he sold out to Facebook.

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Yeah it's very odd, it's probably one of the least scary things around at the moment - makes no sense everyone worked up about a clearly defensive measure that's far less likely to hurt anyone accidentally compaired to alternatives like spraying bullets or airburst missiles.

I really don't get what makes it scary, it's like being in a house fire when you live above a gunpowder factory but you're worried you'll drown because one of the taps is dripping

I think fear is fairly subjective, and to me these are scarier than bombs and guns. Bombs have a blast radius and bullets don't stop after they hit their target, which means collateral damage has to be considered before using these. If you don't have to worry about that because you're going to just drop an anvil on someone's head it would make it that much easier to order someone's death.

Like yeah you're probably not going to see any mass killings with these drones, but it certainly makes individual targeted killings easier.

Oh, great! What are the terms of your guarantee?

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.

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.

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.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-2tpwW0kmU

That sounds like a solution without a problem.

After the trading of salvos between Iran and Israel, I think its a new entry in Delusion Olympics, as we spiral into a new kind of Cold War.

We already have guns that can shoot down drones and our own recon drones at every level from squad to corps.

Anti-air defenses are notorious for being a losing gambit. It costs more manpower and materials to block an opponent's shot than it does to launch the volley, which is why threat of reprisal is still the most effective form of deterrence.

But nobody really likes the MAD end-game. So we have to build up this fantasy of an Iron Dome to convince ourselves that we can strike out without consequences.

https://youtu.be/a_TSR_v07m0?si=P7jdUMD8MwKqsCcJ

10:18 timestamp.

Maybe it's distasteful, but I didn't see anything majorly wrong with what he did there. Someone stole something he worked quite a bit on, so he pranked the guy.

If you remember the details (and how to structure a coherent sentence) please post again!

Should debt

Can you elaborate? I'm interested in this subject.

Been tried quite a bit now in the Russo-Ukrainian theater. Not as easy as it sounds.

You shoot much?

I have to think no because then you’d know how difficult it is to hit a stationary target and then be able to extrapolate that to one that moves and changes direction on a dime in 3 dimensions.

Then you’d also consider what’s happening to the projectiles that inevitably miss even in a computerized targeting system.

We've had that technology since the 70's, it's called the Phalanx system and it automatically defends naval vessels against incoming missiles.

To do this the Phalanx fires 4,500 rounds per minute. While it only has to fire for 1-3 seconds per incoming object, that's still an ungodly number of rounds, each one about the length of your hand.

To do the same with a human operated firearm would take such a degree of luck that you may as well pray for the incoming drone to get struck by lightning.

Those fpv drones are almost invisible until they're about 5 m out and then they hit you within about half a second. It's almost impossible to describe the speed maneuverability they have, and combined with their tiny size it's very hard to even see them, let alone hit them.

I suppose that depending on the location you might not want to have stray bullets landing at random, also depending on the size and the speed of the drone it might be hard to target.

You'd think that a bot could target it, but some drones are just super agile

Not saying they'd dodge a bullet or shell, just saying that they're hard to aim at

One of the use cases is it flying around a packed stadium. Without the drone standing rather still so you can get under and shoot right up at it, there's no clear shot.

These other people are pulling ya, the answer is yes, you can shoot them down, we have a full sport for it called skeet shooting. A drone can't pivot out of the way in the 0.1 seconds it takes for you to pull the trigger and for the bird shot to travel and take it out. The biggest problem is the range of the gun (which isn't that bad) and spotting the drone beforehand. The noise a drone of that size makes is not that much consider it could be like 40 or 50 feet up in the dead of night with no lights, buzz past you, drop a grenade down, kablooie. If the drone backs off or otherwise pivots to try to avoid getting shot, it probably couldn't do what it was there to do anyways.

Obviously, a big array of military industrial camera technology running in a big fence is going to be able to spot the drone pretty quick, but the video doesn't focus on the tech there because presumably that'd be too interesting and probably the company would not like that.