On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 9:14 AM, Grimmund <grimmund@gmail.com> wrote:

On Wed, Jun 24, 2015 at 2:39 AM, Richard Aiken <raikenclw@gmail.com> wrote:

> In a combat environment, successfully being able to *ignore* the input from
> all but one of your data sources at a time would not be a survival-enhancing
> ability . . . .

Depends. If, for example, you have thumbnail video feeds from the
rest of your (say, 4 person & a skeet drone) fire team, being able to
ignore the other three views to focus on your own feed (unless, say,
you need to look at a situation from someone else's view, or the
skeet's view.)

[snip of remainder]

Agreed.

Actually, that's pretty much what I was assuming.

But the poster I was responding to was assuming that the troops they describe could control their drones without expensive and time-consuming special training, since they would be born knowing how to do this.

I was pointing out that young people today who seem to be naturally multi-tasking aren't really doing anything of the sort. They're simply blocking out other inputs as static until they choose to take notice of them. A cybered infant would have to do the same (or they would never attain a human-like sense of self).

A trained infantryman - on the other hand - will maintain a degree of situational awareness of those other view, so that if something possibly dangerous pops up in one of them, he'll be able to switch his full focus to it.

Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident." Robert A. Heinlein

"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." - Bill Cosby

"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester