> ---- los wrote:
this discussion is certainly getting a bit off the rails here; i find myself
arguing that the suppression of emotion in soldiers is
good/necessary,when i don't really think that at all. i'm not wholly
sure how we got here...
> You are using all the wrong examples.
true. no examples of front-line soldiers really sprang to mind, i'm
afraid.
> We are talking about fighting and dying here, FEAR and Panic
so we use a neural net and neuroelectronics/chemicals to make fewer
things happen at once. cut out fear and panic from your mixture and you are
left with only fighting and dying, hopefully less of the latter.
> Information overload,
so we use a neural net to handle things like image-processing, so that
rather than spending time and effort thinking 'is that a soldier in that bush,
or a rubbish bin?' you get an input (visual or neural, like a sudden
realisation) that there is in fact an enemy hiding in that bush
armed with a rocket launcher. it frees up time for decision-making and
cuts down on information overload. in particular, it overcomes the visual
bottleneck by going direct to the cortex.
> not somone who exist in a sterile lab environment
if tim berners-lee's lab is anything like the computer labs i've been
in, it's anything but sterile :-)
> Just take fear for instance. Management of this emotion is a primary
there are two sorts of absence from fear. there is the gung-ho no-fear
soldier convinced of his own immortality, who is a danger to his
section. and then there is the calm, fear-free soldier who will not
recklessly risk his, and others', life to prove how brave he is, and will also
not sit in a foxhole panicking and get killed because he was unable to fight
when he was needed.
> This one emotion is a double edged sword, vital to the success of one
i have no first-hand experience of armed combat (thank god), so i cannot
be certain here, but from the rest of my experience as a human, i find it hard
to believe that fear per se helps in combat. i can believe that the sharpened
awareness brough on by fear helps enormously, but i think it can be achieved
without fear. it's a question of training, neurochemistry and electronics.
> Seriously though, you still haven't shown me why this is at all
erm... ok, i give up. i started off with this idea that the suit should be
controlled by a computer, so that it could do some things automatically (both
physical and mental), and then the need arose to shut down the parts of the
human which did the same things, and it all got out of hand. the suppression
of the emotions, glands, etc, is a
somewhat far-out idea, and probably not a good one. maybe we will come
back to this one day, but for now, i agree with you: soldiers should keep
their fear. hang on, sf conspiracy interlude:
"i need my pain; it's what makes me human" - kirk, ST:V (199?)
"i need my pain; it's what makes me human" (or words to that effect, i
wrote them down somewhere) - koenig, space:1999 (1975)
the prospect of drugged-up cyborg emotionless inhuman troops does not
fill me with glee, but if they prove more effective in battle - and it
is still a pretty big if - then i think that's the way it will go.
i suppose that i'm not convinced that a 'regular' PA suit would even work. i
still think that the user's muscles should be worked by the computer that
works the suit, but certainly in cooperation with the brain. otherwise injury
may result. if we go the 'hardwired' route, then the question is moot, as the
machine becomes part of the man.
to recap your muscle memory statement, i would add that i have 'java
memory'. some bits of a program - 'main' methods, some sorts of i/o
operations, gui setup - are second nature; i don't need to think when i
write them, just type. i think that the brain's ability to adapt to new
extensions to its domain - tools, guitars, programming languages and
power armour - is tremendous.
> tom.anderson@altavista.net wrote:
> this discussion is certainly getting a bit off the rails here; i find
OK this is the last post from me on the subject too, BUT I'm enjoying the
discussion and don't feel we have exhausted it. If you want to just say, "it's
how my universe is and that's that", (I know you aren't saying that) then I
certainly can't argue with you. But I find it interesting to hear other
people's ideas on this subject. I respect your ideas. Also, when I read what
you say, what comes to mind is CYBORGS, which of course you mention further
down in the post. With the level of sophistication in tinkering with the human
mind and neural nets that your theory proposes, why risk a man at all? Sounds
like a robot is the natural route? (I know that's a whole 'nuther can of worms
that has been opened on this ML plenty of times.)
> so we use a neural net to handle things like image-processing, so that
Well, if you could ensure that your technology will always take the guesswork
out of identifying targets and threats, that will work fine, but remember
something: Every invention or technological advance has an equal and opposite
reaction. (Meaning more advanced ECM or whatever.) I happen to be one that
believes that the history of war, for all time, will always (in part) be a
story of technological parity. Meaning, someone will come out with a weapon.
There will be a short period of advantage, then a counter will be developed
and we will be back to rough parity between weapon and countermeasure.
> if tim berners-lee's lab is anything like the computer labs i've been
A neat desk being the sure sign of a sick mind? <g>
> i have no first-hand experience of armed combat (thank god), so i
Caveat here: (I know this is straying from PA) This is IMO, though there have
been many many excellent books written on this subject. I never really had to
explain this before to anyone, but here goes...
I've never known anyone, (besides someone who's insane I suppose), who's ever
been "without fear" in combat or in most dangerous situations. This sentiment
is also echoed by the vast majority of all combat vets in print or whatever,
that have ever cared to comment on the subject. People will go to great
lengths and varying degrees of success to "mask" fear, or surpress its
external symptoms, since for the vast majority of soldiers in "normally"
functioning units, it is the Fear of being afraid that is the greatest fear of
all. The actual fear of danger or death, lays just below or just above your
"consciousness" (grasping for terms here) Just to be a little bit funny, it's
like a fart dying to come out! Sometimes you have to consciously fight to keep
it back lest those around you (who are in fact doing the exact same thing),
get a whiff of that terrible odor of fear.
When all of the sudden, somebody decides to jump up in the face of great
danger and "do something", many times what they have done is said "fuck it",
I'll trust in fate. (this happens to me everytime I step out the door of an
airplane). OR their "blood" is up (fight or flight), and they use that emotion
combined with reason, to do something dangerous. (This has happened to me too,
especially when it's something dangerous like clearing a building).
In all cases, fear also acts a check and balance to a reasonable person to
prevent rashness from getting them killed. Combat is also competition, and
things you might be tempted to do on the football pitch, like make for a hole
or make a sudden move here or there (equated to the battlefield as perform a
risk taking action), can lead you to take a risk which will lead to your
death. Fear retards this rashness, which would get lots more people killed
than normal. To some extent, good judgment comes from fear. They are partners
that work together to control this sea of emotions that both fucks up your
mind AND makes you an effective soldier.
> i suppose that i'm not convinced that a 'regular' PA suit would even
> [quoted text omitted]
I just feel that the technology of negative feedback or whatever you want to
call it, would be much more readily attainable than the work that needs to go
in to monkeying with the brain at the level you are talking about. However,
I'll agree that the farther along we go in technological evolution, the easier
your level of sophistication becomes. I guess part of my resistance to your
theories is that it strives to make combat, soulless, and flies in the face of
everything that is a soldier and that has always been a soldier. If you
surpress emotion, you have really created a robot or a cyborg, that's much
less human than I care to contemplate.
Keep inmind that if you are able to successfully supress these emotions in
your PA model, then you have just made warfare infinately more deadly. Victory
in comnbat has always been about defeating an enemy's morale, or his will to
resist. Very seldom are there battles of annihlation.) Armies of PA troopers
along your model have just had their primary route to victory taken away from
them. War in this case resembles much closer two ant colnies fighting a battle
of annihlation. (Or a computer wargame with no morale rules)
(BTW have you ever witnessed this, it's very fascinating. TRUE STORY: When I
was a kid, I witnessed all the little red ants in my yard form up in a column
and march across the street, (where thousands were run over along the way, and
get into a huge goddamn war with all the little black ants at the house where
our bus stop was. The actual battle area was at least one or one and a half
meters in diamater. When we returned that afternoon there was nothing but ant
carcasses. What a sight! Why they were fighting I will never know.)
> to recap your muscle memory statement, i would add that i have 'java
Agreed, and I believe that the most effective PA set up is a combination of
both yours and mine trains of thought. I will be addressing these issues
extensively in a latter section of my Rot Hafen story. Thanks for the ideas.