Killer robot turns on its masters

I love the Bad Robot signature J.J. Abrams’ production company sticks on the tail end of each of its TV programs (Alias, Lost, etc.). I was reminded of it after reading about SWORDS, the remote-controlled, machinegun-toting robots that the U.S. Army deployed to Iraq last year. Seems the robots were suddenly pulled from duty. There was no explanation until earlier this month, when Popular Mechanics got the scoop:

“[T]he Army’s Program Executive Officer for Ground Forces, Kevin Fahey, was asked what happened to SWORDS. After all, no specific reason for the 11th-hour withdrawal ever came from the military or its contractors at Foster-Miller. Fahey’s answer was vague, but he confirmed that the robots never opened fire when they weren’t supposed to. His understanding is that ‘the gun started moving when it was not intended to move.’ In other words, SWORDS swung around in the wrong direction, and the plug got pulled fast. No humans were hurt, but as Fahey pointed out, ‘once you’ve done something that’s really bad, it can take 10 or 20 years to try it again.’”

Bad robot!

Why Objectivists support the war in Iraq

I’ve been listening to an audio edition of Ayn Rand’s The Virtue of Selfishness during some of my drive time, and I came across the following this afternoon. It’s as succinct an example of Randian foreign policy as one could hope to find. And it’s certainly one of the reasons I’ve never considered myself an Objectivist.

“Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave-pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the non-existent ‘rights’ of gang-rulers. It is not a free nation’s duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has a right to do it, when and if it so chooses.”

— “Collectivized ‘Rights’,” Objectivist Newsletter, June 1963