Everyone who thinks America will use military robots for self-defense, raise your hands!
They will use them for defense as well as for offense. I've seen several articles already of American cities ready to purchase military drones for law enforcement purposes, and I would be very surprised if they were not also added to strategic military bases within America to defend against potential attackers. At the very least, when countries are making strategy decisions that may involve the military, the mere existence of drones will serve as a deterrence.
On the other hand, you've made a wonderful argument that a strong offensive US military stifles cultural/economic/artistic endeavours worldwide due to fear of attack, though I'm sure you didn't mean to.
My point was to state the necessity of defense. If there are strong, warlike countries with military drones, such as the United States, then other countries had better start developing countermeasures to protect themselves. That, or ally themselves with the strong country in the hopes of falling under their protection rather than their ire. As such, staying ahead of the other countries is a valid strategy.
And I would certainly agree that US aggressiveness is stifling those very things in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, etc. The word 'fear' was poorly chosen. I was thinking more of what happened to Tibet and all those pacifists when they failed to muster an appropriate military defense: actual invasion and displacement or destruction.
I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate. And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it.
-- Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts
The Open Thread posted at the beginning of the month has exceeded 500 comments – new Open Thread posts may be made here.
This thread is for the discussion of Less Wrong topics that have not appeared in recent posts. If a discussion gets unwieldy, celebrate by turning it into a top-level post.