Preemptive drone targeting rests on epistemologically fragile predictions

Evidence

Predicting the future is based on knowledge of the past. The archives of lives constitute the basis for claims that, by noting regularities and anticipating recurrences, it is possible both to predict the future and to change the course of it by taking preemptive action. Such claims are clearly founded upon very fragile epistemological bases, which in no way prevents them from being extremely dangerous but, on the contrary, ensures that they are. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 198 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Furthermore, in determining that status, one slips from an epistemology of manifest observation and statements of fact into an epistemology of suspicion in which a targeting decision is based on the identification of behavior or a pattern of life that suggests membership in a hostile organization. For example, your pattern of life might suggest a 70 percent chance that you are a militant, in other words a combatant, and we accordingly have the right to kill you. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Pattern-of-life strikes kill civilians through unconfirmed behavioral inference; Signal latency makes drone operators aim at obsolete images of an earlier moment; Drone precision claims will fail in actual battle conditions — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 726 (+7 more)

Related

• Preemptive drone strikes rest on fragile and therefore dangerous prediction claims. (similarity 0.95)
• Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. (similarity 0.93)
• Predictive threat-detection rests on epistemologically fragile assumptions (similarity 0.91)
• Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status (similarity 0.85)
• Pattern-of-life strikes kill civilians through unconfirmed behavioral inference (similarity 0.84)
• Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.84)
• Signature strikes kill based on behavior patterns, not confirmed identity (similarity 0.83)
• Drone precision claims will fail in actual battle conditions (similarity 0.82)
• Signal latency makes drone operators aim at obsolete images of an earlier moment (similarity 0.81)
• Surveillance can predict civilian behavior from recurring spatial and social patterns (similarity 0.81)
• Drone targeting presumes guilt until innocence is proven posthumously. (similarity 0.80)
• Most drone strikes target suspects whose identity is unknown at the moment of killing. (similarity 0.80)
• Drones operationalize actuarial risk-based surveillance (similarity 0.79)
• Drones produce constant terror because targets never know when they are tracked. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Preemptive drone strikes rest on fragile and therefore dangerous prediction claims. #corroborates (0.95)
• Predictive threat-detection rests on epistemologically fragile assumptions #corroborates (0.90) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 198
• Drone targeting decisions rest on probabilistic inference from behavior rather than observed facts. #expands (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 482
• Drone targeting hinged on remote visual guesses about sex and combatant status #exemplifies (0.60)