Automated targeting thresholds centralize atrocity into a single parameter-setting decision.

Evidence

Here, the military atrocity was, contrary to Arkin’s assumption, not the result of mistakes on the part of lower-rank soldiers confused by the “fog of war” or carried away by the passions of combat. There was nothing spectacular about the point of origin of this atrocity. It was simply a matter of fixing the threshold of a relevant variable. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 679 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

All disembedding mechanisms take things out of the hands of any specific individuals or groups; and the more such mechanisms are of global scope, the more this tends to be so. Despite the high levels of security which globalised mechanisms can provide, the other side of the coin is that novel risks come into being: resources or services are no longer under local control and therefore cannot be locally refocused to meet unexpected contingencies, and there is a risk that the mechanism as a whole can falter, thus affecting everyone who characteristically makes use of it. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 310 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Proponents conflate firing accuracy with impact extent and target identification; Distributed lethal systems fabricate irresponsibility by diluting causal attribution.; Military atrocity originated in a fixed threshold, not soldier error — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 679 (+12 more)

Related

• Military atrocity originated in a fixed threshold, not soldier error (similarity 0.87)
• Proponents conflate firing accuracy with impact extent and target identification (similarity 0.80)
• Distributed lethal systems fabricate irresponsibility by diluting causal attribution. (similarity 0.79)
• Proportionality’s incalculability serves to legitimize the deaths it governs (similarity 0.79)
• Programmatic specification centralizes lethal command more tightly than separate orders (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Military atrocity originated in a fixed threshold, not soldier error #corroborates (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 679
• Disembedding mechanisms remove control from individuals and create collective risk #expands (0.78) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 310
• Distributed lethal systems fabricate irresponsibility by diluting causal attribution. #corroborates (0.70)
• Atrocity now operates within the law through its spelled-out specifications #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 680
• Pattern-of-life strikes kill civilians through unconfirmed behavioral inference #expands (0.65)
• Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482