They sound a bit like Iain M. Banks' "slap drones", flying robots tasked with following around known criminals and preventing them from reoffending.
This proposal seems awfully dystopian, but US schools apparently conduct surprise active shooter drills with simulated gunshots, so it feels like a choice between evils at this point.
Proper ethical oversight would needed though, and I'm worried that mission creep is inevitable (remember e.g. tasers themselves were originally intended as "less lethal" and an alternative to a firearm, but are now used routinely to simply get compliance.)
> US schools apparently conduct surprise active shooter drills with simulated gunshots
I thought this must be hyperbole, but holy crap. There's a story of an Oregon teacher who sued her school district when she was "shot" in 2013 in a surprise drill [1]. In 2021, Texas introduced but failed to pass a law requiring advance notice of simulated shooting drills [2].
That's craaaaaaazy to me. If the "arm the teachers" faction gets their way, do they stop doing these drills, or just accept a few more dead people from drills gone wrong?
A lot of people exist in bubbles and don't seem to know what is it like for the average worker in the US. There's a ton of shit like this going on that the average high and middle income earner has no idea about.
> US schools apparently conduct surprise active shooter drills with simulated gunshots
I didn't know that. It reminds me of this joke / supposition from the late comedian Trevor Moore:
"What if governments learned from the MKUltra experiments in the 50's that trauma allows you to control people, so they purposely orchestrate disastrous events to keep their citizens afraid + dependent on them, and that's one of the reasons that mental illness has been rising? lol"
This proposal seems awfully dystopian, but US schools apparently conduct surprise active shooter drills with simulated gunshots, so it feels like a choice between evils at this point.
Proper ethical oversight would needed though, and I'm worried that mission creep is inevitable (remember e.g. tasers themselves were originally intended as "less lethal" and an alternative to a firearm, but are now used routinely to simply get compliance.)