Drone operators see strikes in vivid detail, overturning the distancing logic

Evidence

Their video view then allows them to see the effects of the strike. That is a very important difference from the experience of traditional pilots: ” ‘When you come in at 500–600 miles per hour, drop a 500 pound bomb and then fly away, you don’t see what happens.’ … But when a Predator fires a missile, you watch it all the way to impact, and I mean it’s very vivid, it’s right there and personal. So it does stay in people’s minds for a long time.” This new combination of physical distance and ocular proximity gives the lie to the classic law of distance: the great distance no longer renders the violence more abstract or more impersonal but, on the contrary, makes it more graphic, more personalized. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 403

Categorization

• XREF: Directly overturns the Grossman/Milgram distance theory built in paragraphs 398-99; contradicts the classic law of distance. — connects to: Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status; Drone strikes depend on a network of remote invisible human observers; Drone strikes amount tactically to the state’s version of insurgent bomb attacks. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 261 (+1 more)

Related

• Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status (similarity 0.88)
• Drone technology severs visual discrimination from physical proximity to targets. (similarity 0.85)
• Drone surveillance transforms the panopticon from a punishing to an annihilating gaze. (similarity 0.84)
• Drone killing is reduced to clicking on tiny on-screen figures (similarity 0.83)
• Drone strikes depend on a network of remote invisible human observers (similarity 0.83)
• Drone strikes amount tactically to the state’s version of insurgent bomb attacks. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones are less precise than rifles and grenades at discriminating targets. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone imagery functions as targeting rather than representation (similarity 0.81)
• Drone technology produces a strong moral buffering effect that offsets visual proximity to victims. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone technology produces a combined morale-buffering effect on operators (similarity 0.81)
• Faceless blurry drone imagery reduces moral resistance to killing (similarity 0.81)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.80)
• Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.80)
• Drones add the remote control’s range to the weapon’s range. (similarity 0.80)
• Drone missiles have larger lethal radii than conventional infantry weapons (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. #contradicts (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 282