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Ukraine said it captured a Russian position using only ground robots and drones, no infantry, for the first time
(www.businessinsider.com)
Begun, the drone wars have
this post was submitted on 14 Apr 2026
518 points (98.9% liked)
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This is some ultrakill bullshit
Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrakill?wprov=sfla1
Spoiler
The Final War led to the invention of blood-powered machines as mostly soldiers and an arms race. A climate catastrophe caused by the war led to the Sun being blotted out, ending the war. Humans during the New Peace discovered and then started expeditions into Hell, up until their eventual extinction.
That's metal AF on so many levels. Gotta play this one.
Dad said "Mario Kart is a waste of time, son."
That's General son to you, Dad.
"Sarah Connorska?"
Sarah Connorshenko!
Can't wait for one of them to be chasing me down for the crime of "thinking unfavorably about Peter Thiel"
If it makes you feel any better, these are all being remote controlled.
So while you're off from your day job of piloting the robot that hunts down dissident Filipinos, some Filipino operator is driving the drone that bombs your car for its "Impeach President Newsom" bumper sticker.
Something Something Just Like Communist China.
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~BAHWEEP~
YOU ARE IN VIOLATION OF THE ONLINE DISCOURSE FAIRNESS ACT OF 2026. LIE DOWN ON THE GROUND AND PREPARE TO BE DEPORTED.
STOP RESISTING.
DISSIDENT NEUTRALIZED.
~WEEP-WOOP~
What an amazing entrée to untold horrors
This is nothing but an amuse-bouche compared to the future I foresee.
The age of drone on drone violence will make war more palatable to citizens.
Possible. It does seem like drones fighting drones should mean less human casualties, which has both a humanitarian side and an escalation risk side.
Then again a lot of people have thought their weapons would make war less deadly, and been very wrong, including the case of WWI-era artillery.
They "accidentally" told the drones/robots to attack the schools and hospitals. "We would never do that on purpose"
"Well why were the terrorists using school children as human shields!"
I doubt it will ever stop
This, but also if you aren't putting your soldiers at risk then war becomes more palatable (and thus more likely). For example, I doubt Trump would have attacked Iran if he had been quoted 1000+ American causalties in the first week.
No one will give a shit about robots dying. The drones will either be attempting to war crime civillians or intercept said war crime robots.
And drone intercept rates arent even close to that not being scary.
Yeah, destroying inanimate robots isn't really going to get your enemy to capitulate. Like shooting Iran's missiles out of the sky isn't going to change their plan.
People need to die in warfare for it to matter. Economic and infrastructure targets are really only useful in reaching that goal of killing.
People will give a shit about the robots dying once their side starts running low.
When shit turns into Helm's Deep, when the robots are taking out the last of your defenses, you'll give a shit lol.
Think of the drones and robots less like soldiers/planes and more like a thousand points that make up a force field. As that field decays, so does your protection beneath it.
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Until the drones start getting used on civilians. Which is absolutely going to happen and soon.
It’s been happening for ages already. What reality do you people live in?
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It's been happening for a good 20 years already. Do you think US drone strikes were all military targets? Do you think both russia and ukraine didn't absolutely dronefuck multiple population centers? Do you think israel didn't use drones to carry out its genocides? There are probably tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of dead civilians due to drone strikes already.
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We should probably secure rights to EMPs for self defense.
The thing I fear is that this just becomes a ridiculously futile war of resource attrition. It all comes down to who has more metals and chips and armaments to keep throwing at the other's pools of the same until one gives up. What a waste...
...But then again, writing this, I realize that's almost already how they treat human soldiers so...what will change, I wonder?
Exactly. We're already there with which side has more human resources. Meanwhile asymmetric warfare is an escalation of technology and the resources to produce them. Sure, you can tip the balance of power on the battlefield with very clever use of resources, but it's ultimately a contest of who is willing to dump the most into the conflict.
It could also be argued that technological warfare in a global economy makes resource blockades even more important. Nobody is 100% reliant on their homeland resources anymore. To effectively siege your opponent, you have to cut off everything that can fuel their ability to make war. That can be a huge perimeter in some cases.
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As always, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
things are going to get really weird
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Western Infantry officers will be in shambles if this could be repeated again and again. It has to be tough killing one UGV while quad copters are overhead let alone dozens of them rolling up.
Nah, infantry officers would be over the moon if they didn’t have to throw bodies at fortified positions anymore and could just be tasked with holding the AO that the drones assaulted.
Well, the future looks bright enough. We may work to death in captailist states, but at least robots will fight each other, so no need for soldiers.
...until one of the warring countries runs out of robots anyway. That's when the real fun starts!
Robots will fight each other over the burnt remnants of our homes.
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Wait, I'm on the side of the robots for this one?
One small step for man, one giant warning siren for mankind.
Yeah.. I really don't like the changes that the Russian Invasion of Ukraine are making to war.
Cheap Kamikaze drones, unmanned roving gun turrets, etc etc.. Removing men on the ground feels like its gonna make it easier to pursue and lust for wars as these technologies continue to advance further and remove the human components.
well said. No boots on the ground doesn't seem to mean less wars, just more wars with less boots on ground.
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Russian soldiers have been recorded surrendering to both aerial drones and ground robots in this war, including by writing messages of surrender that they presented to the operator via the onboard camera and surrendering after notes telling them to do so were dropped by drones.
Surrendering to a machine sounds humiliating but still a better option than going back to the Russian military.
sudo make the Russians retreat
You are not in the sudoers file, this incident will be reported
Sudo delete the incident report
What a time to be alive, male and between 18 and 50 🫡🫠
So... we got two ways to go. One the robot on robot wars end up wiping us all out by exhausting all or resources and of course killing civilians. Or we take to space and have the robot wars stay on earth. Mars at least I figure. For a few at least.
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Praise the Omnissiah!
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