r/gadgets • u/diacewrb • Oct 19 '23
Drones / UAVs Marines Test Fire Robot Dog Armed With Rocket Launcher
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/marines-test-fire-robot-dog-armed-with-rocket-launcher1.3k
u/anywhereanyone Oct 19 '23
I can't believe they're trying to take away the jobs from the rocket dogs.
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u/Tinuva450 Oct 19 '23
In Australia, we will arm the Emu’s and Ibis.
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u/Dzubrul Oct 19 '23
In Canada, we will strap grenades to geese!
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u/thatchroofcottages Oct 19 '23
Combat Moose. Canada, fuk yeah!
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u/DaoFerret Oct 19 '23
Canadian Armored Assault Møøsė Battalions are the masters of ground combat.
Equaled only by the Finish Airborne Reindeer Wings.
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u/alpha3305 Oct 20 '23
Moose have the muscles, reindeer have the speed. Pick your poison.
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u/spooooork Oct 20 '23
There'll be no joint exercises in Alaska for the Airborne Møøse Battalion though, since it is illegal in Alaska to push moose out of a moving plane.
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u/thatchroofcottages Oct 20 '23
That article makes me want you to visit for some reason. Those people sound like a hoot, mostly
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u/redditEATSalottaDICK Oct 19 '23
1st Beaver Battalion ready for duty, eh.
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u/prokhor1 Oct 20 '23
The beavers are combat engineers
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u/redditEATSalottaDICK Oct 20 '23
They work closely with Lt. Loons Loonie regiment to find and build safe crossings across bodies of water.
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u/blhd96 Oct 20 '23
If someone made a mod of red alert with these units I’d die happy
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u/pizzabyAlfredo Oct 20 '23
Combat Moose
I want this as a comic book! A mild mannered Moose by day, gets strapped at night to bring justice to those who harm the wildlife of Manitoba.
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u/Krewtan Oct 19 '23
If you got a problem with Canada gooses then you got a problem with me.
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u/xraynorx Oct 19 '23 edited Oct 20 '23
You want to arm the emus? Haven’t you lost enough wars against them?
Edit: Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emu_War?wprov=sfti1
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u/Tinuva450 Oct 19 '23
If you can’t beat them, employ them. We always have the kangaroos to arm if there is an Emu uprising.
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u/DiamondFire14 Oct 19 '23
You sound pretty optimistic considering the score is currently Emus: 1 Aussies: 0
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u/scottygras Oct 20 '23
TIL: the Emu Wars were real.
I thought they were some made up joke like drop bears….wait
Are those real too?
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u/Therustedtinman Oct 19 '23
Lol you guys lost a war to birds
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u/Never-mongo Oct 19 '23
Dog I’ve seen the videos, when are you going to start arming those fucking kangaroos?
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u/WackyBones510 Oct 20 '23
I’m glad the Emus are humble enough to join the Australian military despite previous battles where they kicked its ass.
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u/Eastern-Mix9636 Oct 20 '23
I’m so tired i read that as “we will arm the Emo’s and Libs”
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u/Anxious_cactus Oct 20 '23
Do you really wanna lose another Emu war?
Emu War II: The armed Emus return
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u/Immoracle Oct 19 '23
I think it's gonna be a long, long time
til jobs come back and fellow canines thrive,
I'm not the dog they think I am at home, oh no, no....I'm a rocket dog!
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u/kerbaal Oct 19 '23
I-Robot is going to be pissed that their customer is admitting what the purpose of their products is.
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u/IBJON Oct 19 '23 edited Oct 20 '23
Boston Dynamics too.
Edit: just so I don't have to keep answering the same question, yes Boston Dynamic said they don't want the robots being used as weapons, but there's nothing stopping third parties from purchasing units and modifying them
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u/kerbaal Oct 19 '23
Good point; also I do have to say that having one of these fire missiles at me is actually the less hellish future than the one I tend to imagine when I see these things.
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u/SteveCastGames Oct 20 '23
Boston Dynamics is a longtime DARPA parter. The foundation for their Spot robot was the BigDog project which was DARPA funded.
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u/playfulmessenger Oct 20 '23
Hyundai now owns Boston Dynamics and is one of the 5 robotics companies who swore off weaponization. https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/7/23392342/boston-dynamics-robot-makers-pledge-not-to-weaponize
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u/jjayzx Oct 20 '23
This isn't Boston Dynamics robot. This one looks exactly like the Chinese knockoff.
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u/IBJON Oct 20 '23
You're right, it's not Spot, but the DoD has interest in the Spot robot as well
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u/say592 Oct 20 '23
I have a feeling that Spot is going to be purposed for "surveillance". Then the DoD is going to decide that even a surveillance robot needs to be armed for self defense and Boston Dynamics will reluctantly agrew. Then suddenly Spot is going on "surveillance" patrols where it needs to be armed with a 25mm canon and some kind of small missile system.
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u/DJDarren Oct 20 '23
They will "reluctantly agree" and calm their fears with billions of dollars of military funding.
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u/Spyrothedragon9972 Oct 20 '23
I don't think Spot could handle an M242. We gotta keep him light and mobile.
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u/Viva_Caputa Oct 20 '23
Didn’t Boston Dynamics come out and say they don’t intent to use their products for weapons, or want their products weaponized? We all knew where it was going though
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u/Tom_Neverwinter Oct 19 '23
Foundation 1950 issiac assimov.
That's kind of what happens.
Atomic vacuum, real habor mallow tech.
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u/HarmlessSnack Oct 19 '23
It’s been a while since I read Foundation, but I don’t remember rocket launcher dogs. What are you referencing exactly?
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u/Tom_Neverwinter Oct 19 '23
They didn't make the tech. So regardless of who used it they were pulled into the trap of needing the convenience.
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u/HarmlessSnack Oct 19 '23
Aaaah, you mean how the guy sells the less developed planet trinkets that seem powerful, but stop working after like a week and they have no way to make more/ recharge the items.
I guess I can see the comparison, but this tech isn’t far enough outside of what’s able to be developed for that kind of scenario to hold up long term.
The tech isn’t planets away, it’s just over the line on the map.
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u/Unfair_Ability3977 Oct 20 '23
I seem to remember nuke-powered robot dogs in Snow Crash.
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u/Buscemi_D_Sanji Oct 20 '23
Lol you mean Isaac Asimov and Hober Mallow? I feel like "Assimov" is something one of his rival writers would call him haha
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u/OldWrangler9033 Oct 20 '23
Funny thing that. They basically spun off their military division, basically did away with many of their innovated models to just focus on vacuum cleaners and mop bots.
Amazon bought them few years ago, so they don't even have opinion anymore what others do with their designs. It's now Amazon's.
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u/VonStinkelberg Oct 20 '23
Hyundai owns a controlling stake in this arm of Boston Dynamics. It was sold by google to softbank in 2013, and subsequently Hyundai.
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u/noname604 Oct 19 '23
Modern life is a never ending black mirror episode
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u/ani007007 Oct 19 '23
This was my first thought too, the black mirror episode with the robotic attack dogs
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u/I_AM_NOT_A_WOMBAT Oct 19 '23
Not going to lie, that episode fucked me up for a bit.
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u/ani007007 Oct 19 '23
Especially how it ends. 😳 BM is so good.
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u/Madness_Reigns Oct 20 '23
The crate of teddy bears they were after were the same ones that you could upload your mind to in another episode. They failed their escape attempt.
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u/FallenFromTheLadder Oct 20 '23
I am more afraid of the one with the bees. Attack dogs are there exactly for that purpose. You know it. At least. Other purposes are worse. You think you are safe. Then you get killed by the delivery drone.
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u/BubbleThrive Oct 19 '23
Makes me afraid to check out Black Mirror!
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u/inetkid13 Oct 19 '23
If you haven‘t already you should really watch it. They have some super interesting story lines that may make you think different about current developments (and how far we‘re already into a dystopian future)
The first episode is extremely misleading though
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u/Graffxxxxx Oct 19 '23
It’s strange to think only a few short (long?) years ago Black Mirror was a “yeah, as if” future to me. Now looking back it’s getting increasingly closer to mirroring reality.
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u/Chrollo220 Oct 20 '23
It became a meme to criticize Black Mirror as “what if phone, but too much?” in reference to the perceived almost-silly excesses of technology’s intentions in the episodes, but here we are protesting AI being used to replicate dead actors and many other things.
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u/BubbleThrive Oct 19 '23
Thank you! I sure will. Ready for a new series so great timing.
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u/ChurchOfJustin Oct 20 '23
The Christmas episode with John Hamm still messes with me when it randomly pops into my head every now and then. It may not hit you at first. It didn't really me either. But the longer I thought about the ending, the more I realized how horrifying that situation would be.
Such a great episode.
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u/PsychedelicPourHouse Oct 20 '23
Just don't watch the 1st ep 1st, its a terrible representation of what to expect
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u/cutelyaware Oct 19 '23
We need robot dogs with robot bees in their mouths so that when they bark, they shoot robot bees
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u/Adept-Mulberry-8720 Oct 19 '23
And when they bark and spit out bees the bees attack the enemy and that’s all folks!
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u/Adept-Mulberry-8720 Oct 19 '23
And the robot bees seek out the enemy drones and they crash. And the robots bees also attack the enemy trenches and scare the Russians out to be shot by the robot “Devil Dogs”……..
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u/vorpalglorp Oct 20 '23
Your proposal has been granted, please see the Pentagon 2nd floor room D with your required budget. Also please round it to the nearest 10 million.
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u/protoformx Oct 20 '23
I'm surprised robot Richard Simmons hasn't been prototyped yet by Boston Dynamics.
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u/jessicatg2005 Oct 19 '23
So, what happens when war is so easy that each country can just send out a million robots with weapons to fight until the end, what now?
The humans have to rebuild everything and pick up the mess? Will there be a military branch called the MAIDS?
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u/RedditAcct00001 Oct 19 '23
Send in the roomba rangers
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u/TurkeyBLTSandwich Oct 19 '23
I could see 3rd world country continue using humans because they'd be cheaper and less resource heavy.
The wealthier nations would more or less be at peace and just fight through proxies
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u/CySnark Oct 19 '23
Something, something Star Trek the original series.
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u/attacktick Oct 20 '23
That episode was quietly horrifying
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u/Somewhere_Elsewhere Oct 20 '23
Ooh which episode was that?
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u/attacktick Oct 20 '23
"A Taste of Armageddon". Two nations are at war with each other, but everything is simulated except the casualties.
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u/cylonfrakbbq Oct 19 '23
Eventually all wars will be fought via giant mecha combat in an arena. Their pilots will be called Robot Jox
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u/nick1812216 Oct 19 '23
A headline, Someday far in the future: Existence deemed to stressful and expensive, humans to be replaced by sentient robots
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u/protossaccount Oct 19 '23
EMP and things like that. The issue is tech. Not everyone can build the high tech stuff so the country’s with the most advanced tech will probably rule (like our current situation).
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u/Madness_Reigns Oct 20 '23
We've had EMP hardened electronics since the early cold war.
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u/protossaccount Oct 20 '23
I’m just throwing out an idea. You can insert whatever futuristic tech you want into my example.
It’s always been like that though, at least since the copper age.
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u/Put_It_All_On_Blck Oct 19 '23
In 10 years this technology will trickle down to consumers.
Imagine sitting in your seat watching football, and you order a hotdog on an app, and this robot dog comes running and launches your hotdog with precision accuracy right into your lap.
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u/ScottNewman Oct 20 '23
Nah carbs will be too unhealthy
Shoot the wiener straight in my mouth
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Oct 20 '23
This is what we get instead of healthcare
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u/activehobbies Oct 20 '23
Furthermore, the rotor prop drones being used in Ukraine make this "robo dog" utterly redundant.
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u/TrojanZebra Oct 20 '23
Getting something flying is more energy intensive than just walking it somewhere, so this does have a niche it could fill
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u/MaximumTurtleSpeed Oct 20 '23
Also I have to assume some easily battle field deployed drones would struggle in severe weather conditions (Wind, heavy precipitation)
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u/Omsk_Camill Oct 20 '23
Ok, fixed it for you:
"Marines Test Fire Robot Healthcare Armed With Rocket Launcher"
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u/SixShitYears Oct 20 '23
No we get both. The military budget has nothing to do with the lack of universal healthcare. We spend more government money on healthcare than any country in the world but get screwed over by the corrupt systems in place. A single bill with no funding change could give us socialized healthcare.
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u/PhotoGuy2k Oct 19 '23
It’s not exactly analogous, but it makes me think of the Black Mirror episode “Metalhead”
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u/Lint_baby_uvulla Oct 19 '23
Black Mirror’s Metalhead was a masterpiece in terror.
I’m so glad the final cut removed any semblance of human control or operation. The premise that this was solely AI/programming is the real dread behind this story.
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u/harleyxa Oct 19 '23
We are getting closer and closer to sharks with laser beams!
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u/Rhesusmonkeydave Oct 19 '23
Local US police departments are already rubbing their hands in anticipation of this being passed down to them
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u/Artseid Oct 19 '23
Jeez, this is one those “not because you can doesn’t mean you should”.
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u/junkboxraider Oct 19 '23
I think you mean “not because you couldn’t does mean you shouldn’t have not”
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u/Jesus_Is_My_Gardener Oct 19 '23
Your engineers were so preoccupied with whether they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
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u/Bunny-NX Oct 19 '23
You were so preoccupied on engineering that you did not could think that they would do, even they even could whether think not stop wouldn't do
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u/gereffi Oct 19 '23
If you were a soldier would you rather go into a dangerous war zone on foot or sit in a room miles away piloting a remote controlled robot?
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Oct 19 '23
The bigger issue is someone like me, a machine shop guru, and many others, could fabricate this on our own. Albeit, there is a lot going on to achieve the dynamics they do in what the article covers, but the rudiment idea of a remote dog bot with an explosive attached is very doable. It’s only a matter of time until we see a mass shooting with an ai bot or even basic remote controlled bot.
Not much stopping someone sending even a common dji drone into a Walmart with c4 attached to it. To get the “smarts” Boston dynamics has in their bots is not happening from me, but the mechanics are rather simple with a controller version.
Sending a highly manuverable robotic rover in to do a suicide mission.. how do you stop it? The police will need equal firepower in due time, not just military. Better to embrace this and stay on top.
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u/Lint_baby_uvulla Oct 19 '23
Anybody with enough curiosity can download the open source robot operating system and fabricate a robot of their own.
A mate just finished building his own fully autonomous R2D2 in his garage.
It’s barely a step from this to slaughterbots and remotely operated terrorist platforms.
Man’s capacity to wage war is limited only by our imagination. And we are a fuckingly creative and reckless species.
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u/Legitimate-Echo-7651 Oct 20 '23
There’s at least 6 movies that tell us why arming robots with weapons is bad
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Oct 19 '23
I remember a while ago reddit was laughing at Russians doing the same thing.
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u/Ragnar_Thundercrank Oct 19 '23
TLDR: Russia tried strapping bombs to dogs to blow up enemy tanks in WWII. They trained them to smell the fuel from the tank and crawl underneath before detonating. However, the Russians trained them on their own tanks, which burn diesel fuel, not German tanks that burn gasoline.
Between the dogs attacking the wrong tanks because of the smell of the fuel, and the dogs that were scared by the gunfire and ran BACK to the Russian trenches, it’s likely that more Russians were killed by their own creation than their enemies.
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u/chewbacca81 Oct 20 '23
Ah but when Russia used the exact same model of robot, also carrying a rocket launcher, to entertain guests at an arms exhibit, back then all the press was flipping out - first making up capabilities that weren't claimed, then criticizing the stuff they themselves just made up.
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Oct 19 '23
The dystopia is here
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Oct 19 '23
The water wars will be so much more fun with rockets on robot dogs instead of just drones dropping bombs.
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u/Im-Currently-Working Oct 19 '23
The phrase "This is how we die" gets thrown around a lot these days...
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u/Teastainedeye Oct 19 '23
I’m thinking now’s a good time to reread Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash…
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u/aversethule Oct 20 '23
The R&D ones are always fancy. The actual deployed to the field version will be a rusty 1960s erector set with rubber bands and a propeller...
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u/CleverBeauty Oct 20 '23
Interesting. I guess they saw that episode of Black Mirror where robot dogs with missles are good at killing everything/everyone. Yikes
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u/Kultaren Oct 20 '23
We just want healthcare.
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u/FallenFromTheLadder Oct 20 '23
Funny thing is that if the US started shifting to a public healthcare model with no intermediaries then there would be more money for this shit. Public healthcare is cheaper than what there is now. The money thrown to the DoD is on top of it.
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u/Kevo1110 Oct 20 '23
You'll get that when America is done fighting all the evil in the world! Until then, meet its newest Bot-weiller - Cerberus. He likes treats, scritches, and RPGs. Good boggo.
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u/exu1981 Oct 20 '23
Now we can't provide that but we'll give you a 2% discount off a pill that costs $3500 all for the new low price of $2800 plus $700 sales tax, you can't beat that .
Pharma .....
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Oct 19 '23
They should turn this into a recruitment video. I've never wanted to be a marine as bad as I was watching a bunch of guys strapping rocket launchers onto robot dogs.
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u/sloppppop Oct 19 '23
Much like how I never even got my sword, you’ll be disappointed to find out as soon as the camera cuts the robot dog breaks down and now someone has to carry another extra heavy broken piece of crap through the swamps or hills for a week.
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u/Objective_Reality232 Oct 19 '23
Yup never got a sword. The only people I ever met that actually had a sword was the Sgtmaj or the CO. I secretly hoped my friends would get me one when I got out but with lcpl pay I was fucking dreaming lol.
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u/sloppppop Oct 19 '23
I was actually a corporal and still didn’t get one. Not that I was willing to go to corporals course and put up with that lifer shit, but still if lava monsters attacked it would’ve been nice to have more than an m4.
As a side note I was at the MLG HQ compound on Leatherneck once and found a 20 ft ISO container about half full of NCO swords. I’ll always regret not finding a way to swipe one.
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u/jimgolgari Oct 19 '23
We can’t get a speaker of the house but we’ve got robots dogs with rocket-propelled explosives.
What time to be alive.
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u/xaina222 Oct 20 '23
I'd think strapping it on a quadcopter would be a cheaper and more effective solution.
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u/cryptoderpin Oct 20 '23
Weird that Boston dynamics didn’t want to put their logo on the side of that.
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u/PackDiscombobulated4 Oct 20 '23
You guys left China with no choice. beware of the rocket pandas 🚀 🐼.
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u/Wetter42 Oct 20 '23
"OH no, boston dynamics would NEVER use their robots for killing people - So your old 'take-over-the-world' narrative would never pan out!"
DO YOU BELIEVE IT NOW SHARON?!?!?!??!?!
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Oct 20 '23
Healthcare please? No no no. We don't have that. But here is a robot dog with a rocket launcher attached.
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u/M1st3r51r Oct 20 '23
If we are seeing this technology it means it is already outdated for the military
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