US Military Builds MMO Earth Simulator 525
transient writes "BBC reports that the US military is creating a second Earth with help from There. At the moment, only Kuwait City has been modeled, but the ultimate goal is to model the entire Earth using existing terrain data and a super-accurate physics model. While combat will be part of the game, 'the emphasis in the artificial Earth will be on human interaction rather than conflicts involving lots of military hardware.'"
Huh.... (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't understand another culture, talk to people who do. The gov't ignores those people, and just decides that it will decide things with an imaginary, "faith-based" approach. It doesn't work, guys!
BBC huh (Score:5, Interesting)
human interaction (Score:2, Interesting)
Riiiiiight. Why would the military whant to model the earth for combat training? It's clearly for human interaction. Or did they mean squad-level interactions?
Using the RFID chips implanted ... (Score:1, Interesting)
When they later place us into the pods, there will only be a brief moment in time lost as we switch to a virtual existance.
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:4, Interesting)
The more they understand the role society plays in terrorism, the better they'll be able to counteract it Firstly my two cents... You have Santa who controls the presents delivered around the world for millions of kids, and then
You're forgetting that it would not be in the military's best interest to live in a Utopia because the world would not need armed forces. Aside from that, when it comes to the US military, put your filtered Americanized book down and learn the truth for once. If you look at the majority of conflicts in this world, you would know the US played a major role through clandestine actions. Take the cold war for example. The United States engaged Russia to implode. Certainly their researchers had to have known about the nuclear factor that would come out of it concerning a splinter of countries with nukes. It would be moronic to think the collapse of the Soviet Union would make their arms disappear. So what do we have now, nukes on the black market. Irrelevant here, but you should know the role of the MIC (mil. ind, complex) a bit better from an outside perspective before you believe that the army is doing this in order for all of us to sing "I'd like to teach the world to sing...".
The ambitious project aims to help the US Army plan future conflicts which are unlikely to involve set-piece battles and instead be smaller in scale. Translation, lets simulate different combat scenarios here, so we'll know how to fight/kill (INSERT YOUR TERM HERE), when the time is appropriate.
Re:Spending out of control (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Virtual Wars? (Score:2, Interesting)
Pretty much useless, if you ask me.
What are the UN for? Isn't it supposed to serve the purpose of finding peaceful solutions for conflicts? At least in theory...
It boils down to the point of pure animal instinct: until you realise that your instistence in trying to win is going to inflict some serious phisical harm on you, there is no way in the world you, as a human, will stop fighting to get to the top of the food chain.
You could say "OK, and we just accept it as final", but if you lost, I bet you'd get the little guns again and call the simulation void...
Neal Stephenson connection... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this bring to mind, for anyone else, that nifty piece of software Hiro had in Snow Crash [amazon.com]? I mean, of course, the model of Earth updated in real-time with satellite imaging data, etc...
Eerie.
OK,
- B
Peace sells.. but who's buying? (Score:2, Interesting)
Now we know how it began... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, that was an obvious observation. But they're making an online world that mirrors our own world. It reminds me some years back when I went to Siggraph in Chicago and Virtual Reality was the "next big thing". Someone showed a demo on a virtual world where you could walk in, pick up a book and flip through it. Someone remarked wouldn't it be cheaper just to buy a book...
So wouldn't it be cheaper to build a fake city with actors playing a part for the people being trained to interact in? Be employed by the US Army for acting in a simulated city so they can better understand how to weed out terrorist and help people in need, yet do so in a safe environment. Also, working with actors trained themselves in certain ways AND with the ability to actually "think" would be WAY better than AI in a game.
Just a thought, but probably a stupid thought on my part.
Re:Neal Stephenson connection... (Score:5, Interesting)
Ender Wiggin could not be reached for comment. (Score:5, Interesting)
You thought you were running through the sim... you had no idea you just took a UAV on a live mission and actually killed 2 dozen people. Missions take place, with perfect human guidance - and not even the soldiers involved knew it actually happened.
Worse yet - consider the game world altering the appearance of targets. Your strike deep in the Tora Bora mountains may have been a cover for an FBI raid on a militant compound in Colorado. The four phillipino terrorists you just greased with an armed unmanned terrestrial rover... well who in the hell were they?
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd send some anthropologists to do that job, but hey, that's just me.
Hari Seldon Lives! (Score:0, Interesting)
The paranoid among us would start to worry real bad if they were trying to simulate the United States --- instead, here they are doing their initial simulation in an actual hotspot of genuine concern: the Middle East.
But maybe they should try to simulate the US, and make an accurate prediction as to US election results later this year! If one had a good model for prediction, one could make scads of cash at the bookmakers!
Combat is human interaction (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps this will all turn into a real-life version of the episode of Star Trek (original series) that had a centuries old war all played out on computer...and the citizens in the killed areas would disintigrate themselves as it was more clean (and real bombs have the habit of destroying the structures--which is never fun.)
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:1, Interesting)
China 1945-1946, 1950-1953
Korea 1950-1953
Guatemala 1954, 1960, 1967-1969
Indonesia 1958
Cuba 1959-1961
Vietnam 1961-1973
Congo 1964
Laos 1964-1973
Peru 1965
Cambodia 1969-1970
Lebanon 1983-84
Grenada 1983
Libya 1986
El Salvador 1980s
Nicaragua 1980s
Panama 1989
Bosnia 1995
Sudan 1998
Serbia 1999
Afghanistan 1998, 2001-2003
Iraq 1991-2003
Reminds me of Umberto Eco quote: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:2, Interesting)
As someone who happens not to be a citizen of the United States, here is a big FUCK YOU to you and your belief that the protection of the United States is the most important thing in the world. IT IS NOT. If God appeared before the world, and gave everyone a vote as to whether he should destroy the United States of America, or wipe out the rest of humanity instead, the USA would be a sea of glass within seconds.
As a spokesman for the world outside the USA, may I cordially request you get your fucking heads out of your fucking arses and take a look around you? How the FUCK do you figure that your "national security" is so important that "protecting yourselves" against a vague and unspecified threat is the only justification you need to drop cluster bombs on third world hospitals?
For what it's worth, I'm not a hardened anti-American zealot. Yet. But if America wants me to hate it, it's damn well going the right way about making sure I do.
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the problem: the US & other like-minded states lack the lack of heart & conscience to do what the Romans did. They're not into genocide, they're not into complete and utter violent domination of cultures. That's what they stand for - everyone getting along, and removing those who don't want to get along.
As the parent rightly mentions, you can't just kill the one person - you have to kill them all. I'll go out on a limb here and say that we will never see the entire Middle East wiped out of existence by any military force.
The approach of working smarter and not harder fits better with the goals set out in search of a free world. Bullets work, but since we don't want to do that anymore and because we really probably CAN'T, this might be a better approach.
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:2, Interesting)
Also, your argument about the Utopia is a bit suspect as well. Even if the military wanted no wars anymore Im sure they wouldnt get it as there will always be greedy people in the world who want more than their share(including the people who control that same MIC). Conflict is a fact of human existance, and the only way to hold on to what you own is to be willing to defend it.
Though, I would have to admit that you are right that the MIC does have a vested intrest in conflicts continuing around the world as opposed to the US seeking diplomatic solution. But I must say that 8 years of Clinton diplomacy has left the world in shambles and Im sure that 8 years of Bush warmongering will leave the world even worse off. What we need is a happy medium where the world can agree on a course of action with out the influence of a profit motive, but that will never happen. Hmm, maybe I should run for president.
Re:Psychological impact (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know if it's clear or not, but I wasn't arguing against wargames. I'm all for them: the military have to practice, in order to successfully practise. I was arguing against the use of an environment similar to a gaming one as a teaching tool. IMHO they should get out there and do it, not sit in front of a computer. I wonder if the computer will simulate the trucks getting mired in mud because someone drove it too fast... etc.
[Not aimed at you in particular, just on reading responses
ATB,
Simon.
Re:Now we know how it began... (Score:4, Interesting)
1) Is brown
2) Mistakenly refers to God as Allah
3) Hates freedom
He talks about #3 all the time even though it makes no sense. When Bin Laden was working with the CIA to free Afghanistan from the Russians, he liked freedom well enough. The Army of God has killed 3 people and injured over 100 in 4 bombings (Olympic Park, 2 Women's Clinics, and a Gay Bar). They fail tests #1 and #2, so Bush never mentions them.
-B
Re:Choose your weapon... (Score:1, Interesting)
ok, flamebait, I'll bite.
Ludicrous statement - mankind has proven that since inception, no matter how much the libs think (or try to mandate) otherwise, mankind won't tolerate Utopia (in so far as everyone is nice, fair, and all things tolerant to everyone else so that we are all one big happy human family and weapons are not needed). Invariably, somebody decides he can better his position by taking advantage of all the unarmed, believing suckers and -snap!- no more Utopia (see Marx, Lenin, etc... )
Therefore, while you're statement may be true, it's ridiculous because Utopia is, by humankind's historic example, unattainable and impossible. Hence, the world does need armed forces. And, in my case, I want as many of the best, most devestating weapons surrounding me and mine as possible so as to deter and/or kill the other guy (preferably before he kills me [read: preemption]).
Trust, but verify : Peace through strength. The only things that work. Thos who believe otherwise are already dead.
(mod- because I'm a stinking, rabid conservative)
Sounds like a typical PHB decision (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd rather see my tax money invested into helicopters that don't crash into each other and cannons that can't do "friendly fire".
Which foreign power? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for attacks by foreign powers, can you specify which ones? Is Castro bothering me? Is there some reason I don't know that Cuba has to be quarantined but not China?
How about Iran, whose current govt only came to power because they finally got fed up with the govt which had been foisted on them by the US?
How about the many central American countries who had govts controlled by US banana companies and backed up by US Marines?
I dare say 90% of the foreign relation problems the US govt has are the direct result of something the US govt has done, allegedly on my behalf.
I am sick and tired of people in power, non-elected people, doing things on my behalf, and when the inevitable backlash comes, they start new nasty programs on my behalf.
Re:of course ... (Score:1, Interesting)