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Ender's Game in real life soon. Ukraine is now gamifying the war.
I learned about this a while ago. It's not quite as Black Mirror as it first seems. It is definitely gamifying war, but it's not like every buffoon with a gopro can participate. It's for drone operators only, and the idea is to make the effective units even more effective, by giving them the good stuff. And the way to measure that is by sending in videos of effective target strikes
Yes, for now it's drone operators at the front lines but who knows if the tech won't be developed further and all of the sudden you'll have 15yo kids flying murderbots?
This is just a basic incentive structure, it makes sense and given that most of the (best) drone operators are younger guys who credit games with helping them be highly skilled it makes and made sense to gamify this.
This is basically one of the subplots of S3 of Westworld. There was an app named RICO as a platform that allowed users to browse available criminal activities, select jobs, and even rate their accomplices, I believe there were a few movies that took the "Uber for crime" concept further as well.
To me, this is not really that scary, it seems like an inevitable extension of our culture into the real world of war, it started with Ukrainians calling Russians orcs, FPV drones just make it more and more like games and this is something that has been a discussion since the war on terror and kids in Las Vegas making games out of blowing up weddings in Afghanistan.
To me, a much scarier development is the expansion and rapid development of semi-autonomous drones, they are already there, they aren't sophisticated enough at the moment but as we miniaturize tech that is able to run AI-s and give these drones more and more anonymity, be it because of jamming, horizon issues at distance or any other problem we are basically creating robots that can kill, very efficiently, without human input.
And when I say drones I don't only mean the FPV type ones, Ukraine is using old Cesna planes already, they are using sea fairing drones a few meters long to shoot down 50 mil mainframes, they lost quite a few of those when Musk cut their Starlink off in the middle of a mission and I'm sure they are working very hard to allow them autonomy, those could house serious compute, in a few years they could imaginably have solar power panels and go on crazy long missions, how hard it is to imagine one of those going rogue?
I'm even less interested in trying to inject crypto into it, seems like a GH way of discrediting the system and making Ukrainians into what he decided they are, mercenaries for the West in it for the money instead of people trying to defend their home.
On May 07 2025 17:05 Jankisa wrote: in a few years they could imaginably have solar power panels and go on crazy long missions, how hard it is to imagine one of those going rogue?
US already has a sea drone that can travel pretty much indefinitely from the reports.
Jeez that is a big boy, so the future of MAD might be having these equipped with a medium range missiles with nuclear warheads and AI with a dead man trigger that weaponizes it if it loses contact to Washington, very chill.
On May 07 2025 18:26 Jankisa wrote: Jeez that is a big boy, so the future of MAD might be having these equipped with a medium range missiles with nuclear warheads and AI with a dead man trigger that weaponizes it if it loses contact to Washington, very chill.
It depends in which direction the overall drone development will go. Would be sad to have a billion dollar nuclear drone be sunk by $100k cheap hunter drone.
Overall I think drone development will accelerate now and armies really need to shift their focus. I don't think regular air force is going to cut it any more. Why train pilots and have super expensive stuff like F-35 etc. when you can have stealth air superiority drones much cheaper, with less maintenance required and easier to train crew?
On May 07 2025 18:26 Jankisa wrote: Jeez that is a big boy, so the future of MAD might be having these equipped with a medium range missiles with nuclear warheads and AI with a dead man trigger that weaponizes it if it loses contact to Washington, very chill.
What a nice idea of starting a nuclear war because of some technical problem with communication sotware or hardware.
Almost any safety checks - like trying to contact Washington several times first, or in different ways, or whatever - can fail as long as that drone has the very possibility to automatically fire the missile without an external command.
Yeah. If we would leave such decisions to machines the World would be already gone. There were at least several instances (that we know of) during ColdWar when some important system malfunctioned and only people judgment stoped us from nuclear anihiation. So I will take a hard pass on nuclear armed autonomus machines.
Yeah, I totally get all of your objections and I agree, however, I think that people are really fucking stupid and these kind of ideas might percolate up and actually be accepted given who is in control in the world's premiere superpower.
Obviously the scenario I mentioned is just where the thought took me when I saw the sea fairing drone, but it could just as easy be these fleets of smaller, unmanned fighter jets that are both going to be much, much more sensitive to latency and also huge targets for EW systems so they will basically have to rely on some level of autonimity to bail it out when remote control fails / gets blocked, or to just have mission objectives kick in and the AI goes on doing the mission itself.
That is when things get really scary, you can have 2000 mile range (much less weight needs to be spent to keep the meat puppets alive and comfy) jets with the carrying capacity to do a lot of damage, now lets say that the powers that be decide that it's a smart idea to have a central AI controlling these and we are in a Skynet scenario very quickly.
And that's just one aspect, the mothership drones are already a thing, we are disturbingly close to the slaughterbots scenario:
Even if we assume good control over AI and no rogue Sci-Fi scenarios these things in the hands of people in power today are more then terrifying enough.
I am honestly impressed that after the nuclear weapons race no one really pulled the trigger yet, but even when I try to strain my optimism as much as possible I fail to see how these systems don't make the future of war extremely disturbing and destructive, and with the massive re-armament that the world is going through first since Russia's full scale invasion and then with Trump deciding to both let that fly and to start threatening neighbors and abandoning allies, we are heading for dark times.
Ender's Game in real life soon. Ukraine is now gamifying the war.
I learned about this a while ago. It's not quite as Black Mirror as it first seems. It is definitely gamifying war, but it's not like every buffoon with a gopro can participate. It's for drone operators only, and the idea is to make the effective units even more effective, by giving them the good stuff. And the way to measure that is by sending in videos of effective target strikes
Yes, for now it's drone operators at the front lines but who knows if the tech won't be developed further and all of the sudden you'll have 15yo kids flying murderbots?
This is pretty much the definition of a slippery slope. Yes, it's possible. It's also possible it won't happen
On May 07 2025 18:26 Jankisa wrote: Jeez that is a big boy, so the future of MAD might be having these equipped with a medium range missiles with nuclear warheads and AI with a dead man trigger that weaponizes it if it loses contact to Washington, very chill.
It depends in which direction the overall drone development will go. Would be sad to have a billion dollar nuclear drone be sunk by $100k cheap hunter drone.
Overall I think drone development will accelerate now and armies really need to shift their focus. I don't think regular air force is going to cut it any more. Why train pilots and have super expensive stuff like F-35 etc. when you can have stealth air superiority drones much cheaper, with less maintenance required and easier to train crew?
Because the tech isn't ready yet. Everybody agrees it is the future. There are concept drones in use right now and multiple projects to develop future variants. They simply aren't there yet. I think people are assuming a roughly 10 year timeline until man-unmanned combos are more performant and cheaper than just manned ones for airplanes you expect to get back. Then probably another 10-20 years until you only man some of these at all or start only manning central coordination units.
Edit, so you buy F35 or similar now and assume you will pair it with drones in 10 years to extend the airplane lifetime.
Then when you replace the F35 you know more about what long distance autonomous drones are good and bad at, allowing a new design more tailored towards this.
On May 08 2025 01:10 Gorsameth wrote: And who is going to worry about a slippery slope when your fighting for your survival against a genocidal invader who wants to kill everyone you know.
Video games are basically one of the most advanced forms of (non-drug) addiction manipulation humans currently have to get people to keep playing. Frequently playing to their own detriment in their lives outside of the games (feel like I don't have to explain that here).
Bringing the same manipulation tricks from slot machines and video games into war is bad beyond words.
I want to be clear though. I'm not blaming Ukraine, and I doubt they are the only ones doing anything like this. It's just really fucking bad for humanity to be doing this.
I mean, I'm thinking about Trump and how I still somehow can't game on Xbox without having completely unprovoked N-Bombs getting dropped (aimed at myself or others) so I already hate this idea.
Surely you all realize Russians are gamers too? That Putin could do the same thing? That Russians could "play" this "game" completely/mostly unmotivated by the politics? Especially those that could play from safer places using longer range tech?
And we are all sure your so fucking full of yourself that you would let your house getting blown up and your family getting killed/abducted/raped over "videogaming" your defense.
On May 08 2025 06:21 Velr wrote: And we are all sure your so fucking full of yourself that you would let your house getting blown up and your family getting killed/abducted/raped over "videogaming" your defense.
Fits.
Relax bruh.
I mean it's easy to say "I oppose torture" when it's not my kids school that's got the bomb about to go off in it. I'd like to think I still would, but I can't say for sure. As far as gamifying war, I don't think it's avoidable at this point. Maybe Ukraine's the first to do this in their own "bomb in everyone's kids' school" type scenario and that makes it a bit more iffy (like if they didn't do it we'd go x more years before anyone else did first) but even if I said I wouldn't do it, I couldn't be sure.
That said, I'd probably be reluctantly supportive of it as a move of desperation, were I in their shoes. As I'm not, I'm just lamenting that gamifying war points to dark days ahead for humanity. Sorta like if we found out torture was actually extremely effective at extracting useful information, if you just did the torture to the children of the people you want info from.
I can probably paint a scenario where torturing someone's innocent kid is something any of us would do, but it doesn't mean I have to like that we as a society/collection of posters would start doing it. I definitely don't have to like that nefarious actors could exploit the same thing.
On May 08 2025 01:10 Gorsameth wrote: And who is going to worry about a slippery slope when your fighting for your survival against a genocidal invader who wants to kill everyone you know.
What if it doesn't? It's a pointless exercise because you can sit and invent any number of what-if scenarios with low likelihood
It's reasonable to debate what is happening, and it's reasonable to debate likely future outcomes. It's not worth debating "buh what if Enders game became true?!"
On May 07 2025 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm not familiar with Enders Game, but anyone that's spent any time in a Call of Duty lobby should know this is bad news for humanity.
I mean I get it you want to win and its war and all. but there is another cost associated in making the killing "fun and rewarding"
Ohh man, I don't think people (including myself) have even scratched the surface of the Pandora's box this opens + Show Spoiler +
(or is indicative of having been opened elsewhere/otherwise)
Only a matter of time until the "points" can turn into crypto that's used to literally buy loadouts, air drops, and "killstreaks". Missions can be given through any entity with access to crypto and Reward Points can be "redeemed" by any entity with the "goods" requested and the willingness/capacity to turn the crypto into weapons on-site.
Why would crypto be involved here? What value would you get from a distributed decentralized trustless ledger? This is just earning and redeeming points, 1970s arcade style.
I'd say the Blockchain would be a pretty efficient technology for distributing points and allowing you to trade them in for more drones, drone upgrades, better camo suits, etc. Sure, there are other ways of doing this, but crypto also allows you to trade these points on a larger market, allowing people to buy in and support the war effort. I could absolutely see this working in a similar way to Helium or some of the other alt coins tied to actual products.
Is it ethical? Fuck no. I'm 100% with GH on this being some of the creepiest perverse incentive shit we've gotten so far: gamifying war, especially if we tie RL rewards to it is scary as fuck. But using the Ethereum network to facilitate it seems pretty straightforward and offers a lot of advantages over the government developing their own internal market place with custom code.
What you're arguing would be effective is called a ledger and we've had ledgers for 600 years. They're really good, a ledger would be a good way of tracking points.
I think you're confusing ledgers with blockchains. Ledgers are efficient. Blockchains are, by design, hugely inefficient. That's part of the purpose of them.
Imagine if every time someone exchanged a paper $10 bill they wrote down the basics of the transaction, their name, the other party's name, the date, and then asked a shitload of other people to review the transaction and sign their names at the bottom. They buy something and do all of that. Then the shop deposits the $10 bill with the bank and does all the same. The bank then puts it in an ATM and does all the same. The ATM dispenses it and does all the same.
The $10 bill is going to very quickly become huge as people keep gluing additional paper to it so that it can contain all of the information. It'll be great for validating where it came from and why it's a real $10. You'll be able to see the full chain of custody back to when it was issued by the mint. It can't be counterfeited and everyone involved can authenticate everything. But that's an awful lot of additional work when all you want to do is pay someone a tip for delivering a pizza.
That's blockchain. Each block (transaction) is built upon the cumulative chain of blocks (previous transactions) in a permanent and verifiable chain that goes back to the beginning. The upsides to blockchain are that there is no requirement for a central authority to validate everything, it is self authenticating, and that it cannot be controlled or restricted by any central authority, the network of users creates a distributed pool of cosigners. The downside is that it is hugely inefficient for any possible use case.
What GH has done is the same thing a lot of tech illiterate randos do, they use crypto and blockchain as scary tech buzzwords. But what he went on to describe is the system you get at Dave & Busters, you engage in an activity on behalf of the establishment, the establishment you're at issues you points for success, and then you redeem your points with that same establishment for rewards.
You can have all the same scary Black Mirror "get a 10 kill multistreak and you can call in an air strike" bullshit without involving crypto. That's the part you're into. The perverse gameification of killing. You can agree with GH about all of that while recognizing that this is the worst possible use case of a crypto. You wouldn't want the enemy involved in validation of point issuance transactions. This is a token system that is by definition and by design highly centralized, there's a central entity (the ministry of defence) issuing tokens and redeeming them.
Actually you are incorrect here. A ledger is just a ledger and it is just a record of transaction. It says nothing about efficiency, blockchain is just one of many digital ledger system. Blockchain can also sacrifice decentralization for efficiency, but it will still come out more efficient. There's no central bank, no audit, and more importantly, transactions are FINAL settlements, not your typical digits on the your bank app.
But if any countries want to fund war, they definitely doesn't need to do it via crypto. That's what your standard fiat are for, issuing war bonds, monitor and control the citizen's wealth.
On May 07 2025 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm not familiar with Enders Game, but anyone that's spent any time in a Call of Duty lobby should know this is bad news for humanity.
I mean I get it you want to win and its war and all. but there is another cost associated in making the killing "fun and rewarding"
Ohh man, I don't think people (including myself) have even scratched the surface of the Pandora's box this opens + Show Spoiler +
(or is indicative of having been opened elsewhere/otherwise)
Only a matter of time until the "points" can turn into crypto that's used to literally buy loadouts, air drops, and "killstreaks". Missions can be given through any entity with access to crypto and Reward Points can be "redeemed" by any entity with the "goods" requested and the willingness/capacity to turn the crypto into weapons on-site.
Why would crypto be involved here? What value would you get from a distributed decentralized trustless ledger? This is just earning and redeeming points, 1970s arcade style.
I'd say the Blockchain would be a pretty efficient technology for distributing points and allowing you to trade them in for more drones, drone upgrades, better camo suits, etc. Sure, there are other ways of doing this, but crypto also allows you to trade these points on a larger market, allowing people to buy in and support the war effort. I could absolutely see this working in a similar way to Helium or some of the other alt coins tied to actual products.
Is it ethical? Fuck no. I'm 100% with GH on this being some of the creepiest perverse incentive shit we've gotten so far: gamifying war, especially if we tie RL rewards to it is scary as fuck. But using the Ethereum network to facilitate it seems pretty straightforward and offers a lot of advantages over the government developing their own internal market place with custom code.
What you're arguing would be effective is called a ledger and we've had ledgers for 600 years. They're really good, a ledger would be a good way of tracking points.
I think you're confusing ledgers with blockchains. Ledgers are efficient. Blockchains are, by design, hugely inefficient. That's part of the purpose of them.
Imagine if every time someone exchanged a paper $10 bill they wrote down the basics of the transaction, their name, the other party's name, the date, and then asked a shitload of other people to review the transaction and sign their names at the bottom. They buy something and do all of that. Then the shop deposits the $10 bill with the bank and does all the same. The bank then puts it in an ATM and does all the same. The ATM dispenses it and does all the same.
The $10 bill is going to very quickly become huge as people keep gluing additional paper to it so that it can contain all of the information. It'll be great for validating where it came from and why it's a real $10. You'll be able to see the full chain of custody back to when it was issued by the mint. It can't be counterfeited and everyone involved can authenticate everything. But that's an awful lot of additional work when all you want to do is pay someone a tip for delivering a pizza.
That's blockchain. Each block (transaction) is built upon the cumulative chain of blocks (previous transactions) in a permanent and verifiable chain that goes back to the beginning. The upsides to blockchain are that there is no requirement for a central authority to validate everything, it is self authenticating, and that it cannot be controlled or restricted by any central authority, the network of users creates a distributed pool of cosigners. The downside is that it is hugely inefficient for any possible use case.
What GH has done is the same thing a lot of tech illiterate randos do, they use crypto and blockchain as scary tech buzzwords. But what he went on to describe is the system you get at Dave & Busters, you engage in an activity on behalf of the establishment, the establishment you're at issues you points for success, and then you redeem your points with that same establishment for rewards.
You can have all the same scary Black Mirror "get a 10 kill multistreak and you can call in an air strike" bullshit without involving crypto. That's the part you're into. The perverse gameification of killing. You can agree with GH about all of that while recognizing that this is the worst possible use case of a crypto. You wouldn't want the enemy involved in validation of point issuance transactions. This is a token system that is by definition and by design highly centralized, there's a central entity (the ministry of defence) issuing tokens and redeeming them.
Actually you are incorrect here. A ledger is just a ledger and it is just a record of transaction. It says nothing about efficiency, blockchain is just one of many digital ledger system. Blockchain can also sacrifice decentralization for efficiency, but it will still come out more efficient. There's no central bank, no audit, and more importantly, transactions are FINAL settlements, not your typical digits on the your bank app.
But if any countries want to fund war, they definitely doesn't need to do it via crypto. That's what your standard fiat are for, issuing war bonds, monitor and control the citizen's wealth.
It’s not remotely efficient versus changing some digits in a database, it just isn’t.
On May 07 2025 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm not familiar with Enders Game, but anyone that's spent any time in a Call of Duty lobby should know this is bad news for humanity.
I mean I get it you want to win and its war and all. but there is another cost associated in making the killing "fun and rewarding"
Ohh man, I don't think people (including myself) have even scratched the surface of the Pandora's box this opens + Show Spoiler +
(or is indicative of having been opened elsewhere/otherwise)
Only a matter of time until the "points" can turn into crypto that's used to literally buy loadouts, air drops, and "killstreaks". Missions can be given through any entity with access to crypto and Reward Points can be "redeemed" by any entity with the "goods" requested and the willingness/capacity to turn the crypto into weapons on-site.
Why would crypto be involved here? What value would you get from a distributed decentralized trustless ledger? This is just earning and redeeming points, 1970s arcade style.
I'd say the Blockchain would be a pretty efficient technology for distributing points and allowing you to trade them in for more drones, drone upgrades, better camo suits, etc. Sure, there are other ways of doing this, but crypto also allows you to trade these points on a larger market, allowing people to buy in and support the war effort. I could absolutely see this working in a similar way to Helium or some of the other alt coins tied to actual products.
Is it ethical? Fuck no. I'm 100% with GH on this being some of the creepiest perverse incentive shit we've gotten so far: gamifying war, especially if we tie RL rewards to it is scary as fuck. But using the Ethereum network to facilitate it seems pretty straightforward and offers a lot of advantages over the government developing their own internal market place with custom code.
What you're arguing would be effective is called a ledger and we've had ledgers for 600 years. They're really good, a ledger would be a good way of tracking points.
I think you're confusing ledgers with blockchains. Ledgers are efficient. Blockchains are, by design, hugely inefficient. That's part of the purpose of them.
Imagine if every time someone exchanged a paper $10 bill they wrote down the basics of the transaction, their name, the other party's name, the date, and then asked a shitload of other people to review the transaction and sign their names at the bottom. They buy something and do all of that. Then the shop deposits the $10 bill with the bank and does all the same. The bank then puts it in an ATM and does all the same. The ATM dispenses it and does all the same.
The $10 bill is going to very quickly become huge as people keep gluing additional paper to it so that it can contain all of the information. It'll be great for validating where it came from and why it's a real $10. You'll be able to see the full chain of custody back to when it was issued by the mint. It can't be counterfeited and everyone involved can authenticate everything. But that's an awful lot of additional work when all you want to do is pay someone a tip for delivering a pizza.
That's blockchain. Each block (transaction) is built upon the cumulative chain of blocks (previous transactions) in a permanent and verifiable chain that goes back to the beginning. The upsides to blockchain are that there is no requirement for a central authority to validate everything, it is self authenticating, and that it cannot be controlled or restricted by any central authority, the network of users creates a distributed pool of cosigners. The downside is that it is hugely inefficient for any possible use case.
What GH has done is the same thing a lot of tech illiterate randos do, they use crypto and blockchain as scary tech buzzwords. But what he went on to describe is the system you get at Dave & Busters, you engage in an activity on behalf of the establishment, the establishment you're at issues you points for success, and then you redeem your points with that same establishment for rewards.
You can have all the same scary Black Mirror "get a 10 kill multistreak and you can call in an air strike" bullshit without involving crypto. That's the part you're into. The perverse gameification of killing. You can agree with GH about all of that while recognizing that this is the worst possible use case of a crypto. You wouldn't want the enemy involved in validation of point issuance transactions. This is a token system that is by definition and by design highly centralized, there's a central entity (the ministry of defence) issuing tokens and redeeming them.
Actually you are incorrect here. A ledger is just a ledger and it is just a record of transaction. It says nothing about efficiency, blockchain is just one of many digital ledger system. Blockchain can also sacrifice decentralization for efficiency, but it will still come out more efficient. There's no central bank, no audit, and more importantly, transactions are FINAL settlements, not your typical digits on the your bank app.
But if any countries want to fund war, they definitely doesn't need to do it via crypto. That's what your standard fiat are for, issuing war bonds, monitor and control the citizen's wealth.
It’s not remotely efficient versus changing some digits in a database, it just isn’t.
Not to say it’s not without use cases.
having central banks, brick and mortar banks, auditing, world bank, western union, paypal, visa, mastercard, SWIFT etc are inefficient. If your bank wipe the savings you have from their ledger, how's that for efficiency.
On May 07 2025 01:28 GreenHorizons wrote: I'm not familiar with Enders Game, but anyone that's spent any time in a Call of Duty lobby should know this is bad news for humanity.
I mean I get it you want to win and its war and all. but there is another cost associated in making the killing "fun and rewarding"
Ohh man, I don't think people (including myself) have even scratched the surface of the Pandora's box this opens + Show Spoiler +
(or is indicative of having been opened elsewhere/otherwise)
Only a matter of time until the "points" can turn into crypto that's used to literally buy loadouts, air drops, and "killstreaks". Missions can be given through any entity with access to crypto and Reward Points can be "redeemed" by any entity with the "goods" requested and the willingness/capacity to turn the crypto into weapons on-site.
Why would crypto be involved here? What value would you get from a distributed decentralized trustless ledger? This is just earning and redeeming points, 1970s arcade style.
I'd say the Blockchain would be a pretty efficient technology for distributing points and allowing you to trade them in for more drones, drone upgrades, better camo suits, etc. Sure, there are other ways of doing this, but crypto also allows you to trade these points on a larger market, allowing people to buy in and support the war effort. I could absolutely see this working in a similar way to Helium or some of the other alt coins tied to actual products.
Is it ethical? Fuck no. I'm 100% with GH on this being some of the creepiest perverse incentive shit we've gotten so far: gamifying war, especially if we tie RL rewards to it is scary as fuck. But using the Ethereum network to facilitate it seems pretty straightforward and offers a lot of advantages over the government developing their own internal market place with custom code.
What you're arguing would be effective is called a ledger and we've had ledgers for 600 years. They're really good, a ledger would be a good way of tracking points.
I think you're confusing ledgers with blockchains. Ledgers are efficient. Blockchains are, by design, hugely inefficient. That's part of the purpose of them.
Imagine if every time someone exchanged a paper $10 bill they wrote down the basics of the transaction, their name, the other party's name, the date, and then asked a shitload of other people to review the transaction and sign their names at the bottom. They buy something and do all of that. Then the shop deposits the $10 bill with the bank and does all the same. The bank then puts it in an ATM and does all the same. The ATM dispenses it and does all the same.
The $10 bill is going to very quickly become huge as people keep gluing additional paper to it so that it can contain all of the information. It'll be great for validating where it came from and why it's a real $10. You'll be able to see the full chain of custody back to when it was issued by the mint. It can't be counterfeited and everyone involved can authenticate everything. But that's an awful lot of additional work when all you want to do is pay someone a tip for delivering a pizza.
That's blockchain. Each block (transaction) is built upon the cumulative chain of blocks (previous transactions) in a permanent and verifiable chain that goes back to the beginning. The upsides to blockchain are that there is no requirement for a central authority to validate everything, it is self authenticating, and that it cannot be controlled or restricted by any central authority, the network of users creates a distributed pool of cosigners. The downside is that it is hugely inefficient for any possible use case.
What GH has done is the same thing a lot of tech illiterate randos do, they use crypto and blockchain as scary tech buzzwords. But what he went on to describe is the system you get at Dave & Busters, you engage in an activity on behalf of the establishment, the establishment you're at issues you points for success, and then you redeem your points with that same establishment for rewards.
You can have all the same scary Black Mirror "get a 10 kill multistreak and you can call in an air strike" bullshit without involving crypto. That's the part you're into. The perverse gameification of killing. You can agree with GH about all of that while recognizing that this is the worst possible use case of a crypto. You wouldn't want the enemy involved in validation of point issuance transactions. This is a token system that is by definition and by design highly centralized, there's a central entity (the ministry of defence) issuing tokens and redeeming them.
Actually you are incorrect here. A ledger is just a ledger and it is just a record of transaction. It says nothing about efficiency, blockchain is just one of many digital ledger system. Blockchain can also sacrifice decentralization for efficiency, but it will still come out more efficient. There's no central bank, no audit, and more importantly, transactions are FINAL settlements, not your typical digits on the your bank app.
But if any countries want to fund war, they definitely doesn't need to do it via crypto. That's what your standard fiat are for, issuing war bonds, monitor and control the citizen's wealth.
It’s not remotely efficient versus changing some digits in a database, it just isn’t.
Not to say it’s not without use cases.
having central banks, brick and mortar banks, auditing, world bank, western union, paypal, visa, mastercard, SWIFT etc are inefficient. If your bank wipe the savings you have from their ledger, how's that for efficiency.
Why are you equating the worldwide banking industry to the "plumbing" needed for gamifying drone kills. I agree you still need a secure backend, to validate and verify things, which is basically "built in" with ethereum, but there are centralized "traditional" software packages that will do that for you too. I am not the software engineer building that system (and I sincerely hope there are no software engineers building that system, but if I were, I would be looking closely at the advantages of building this on ethereum/solana vs a traditional approach. I don't think it's as clearcut as kwark and wombat do, in favor of traditional software approaches. I also don't think blockchain will immediately win like you seem to, but it'd be in there with a fighting chance. I do agree with kwark that GH mentioned crypto as a buzzword, not because he actually did the cost/benefit analysis of the technology.
Yeah, geeh, I dunno. Why don't we store state secrets in a decentralized ledger?
I've got to say, this is one of the dumber conversations I haven't been part of. "What if they used crypto?" as a reply to gamifying war is a genuine insane take. The military are not crypto bro's. This would be an awful awful use of it
EPT
