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Comment by Outdoorsman | Hacker News Reader

Up-vote--I'm reminded of a line from Pear Buck's The Good Earth...

>"The common people had to move, then, and they moved complaining and cursing because a rich man could do as he would and they packed their tattered possessions and went away swelling with anger and muttering that one day they would come back even as the poor do come back when the rich are too rich."<

In 1911 the Xinhai Revolution in China, which the quote alludes to, demonstrates what is possible when income disparities reach a tipping point...

Leaves me wondering what's truly possible if the "global economy" ever truly begins a move in the direction of a global stasis...

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> In 1911 the Xinhai Revolution in China, which the quote alludes to, demonstrates what is possible when income disparities reach a tipping point...

That is just the reason, many countries and many people of a specific fraction already arm themselves against revolutions.

What fantastic innovations are robots and drones!

Fun fact: Drones can be disabled by blinding them with excess visual or IR noise, jamming their control signals, or applying a fast-moving chunk of metal of appropriate size.

Further, drones are still limited to mostly open spaces. You can't clear a room with a quadcopter (yet), and a Predator missile strike is just as likely to kill loyal citizens as it is to kill the target.

Tanks are easily outmaneuvered by humans on foot. Planes cannot take a building and leave it intact. Drones have electronic weaknesses in addition to the usual flaws. And nukes are practically a joke--the fallout, physical and political, would ruin any nation.

TL;DR: Drones make terrible soldiers. Why do you think ISIS is still live and kicking?

The mere fact that a military tactic is stupid is no guarantee that it won't be employed.

But a stupid tactic is one that may result in defeat.

Sun Tzu's slightly-less-famous quote--"If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight"--has two meanings, like a lot of Asian philosophy does. The obvious part is, as the saying goes, sieze the day. The less obvious part is that you should only sieze the day if you know you can hang onto it.

In the case of nukes, only a damn fool would nuke his own food supply or factories, or perhaps a spiteful loser.

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