[votingprawn]

> allows rich people in power to remotely kill people they deem as threats whilst selling a story of reduced casualties on both sides.

Don't expensive manned aircraft with (the same) expensive precision guided munitions allow rich people to do exactly the same thing?

A manned aircraft could perform these missions with the same level of "collateral damage" and minimal risk to the pilot.

[classicsnoot]

Absolutely, yes. It requires many years and oodles of cash to train humans to desensitise themselves to the degree it takes to be a good fighter jock [I have a few family members who have flown. They are brilliant. Flying is an amazing endeavour.]. I am sure it takes a fair amount of time to achieve the same level of "discipline" in an RPV team, as well. [Here follows a bunch of things that are personal observations.]I personally believe that both of these categories of specialization are symptomatic of a deeper mental illness in humanity. I am not really interested in less death or more death as some kind of assessment of a things value. Death, in all things, is unavoidable. We, as humans, see ourselves as individuals because it is empowering. In reality, we are largely indistinguishable from each other when one takes a broader perspective. Both fighter jets and military RPVs are cool as hell, but they are both death implements, or deathplements if you are grammatically frisky.

I heard an interesting interview on NPR with a retired CIA chap. He was legal council to some alphabet soup within Central. He pointed out the irony of the controversy over the "Enhanced" Interrogation Techniques" and the relative quiet on the part of the American public about the Dispassionate Remotely Piloted Death Eagle Master Plan[This is the official name of the CIA's RPV program. look it up.]. I found it poignant. he has a book. I believe the title is Company Man.