/sci/ - Science & Math

No idea what they are playing with but I remember an air force pilot took a sample of his planes drinking water to a lab because he was sus on it and found it was full of amphetamines.
Infantry were also issued "go pills" years ago for when they were out of energy / falling asleep.

>Super-soldiers
It's a retarded concept. No human (no matter how boosted) can possibly hide from a drone in the sky or dodge an auto targeting robot with a gun.
Plus, significantly modifying humans just to fight in a war is probably a human rights violation.

>>12701504
Mentally enhanced humans can wage wars far better and war machines will remain unflexible thus a support role for real wars. Human (or transhuman) soldiers need to fight smarter, more resistant as well endure the war better. A super-soldier will be the brain behind the drone and the robot.
>Plus, significantly modifying humans just to fight in a war is probably a human rights violation.
Tell that to China.

>>12701504
I find it funny everyone always points to the most advanced weapons systems when talking about war while ignoring the fact the average contact is still men shooting at men without an advanced system anywhere to be found.
Drugs have played a role for a long time and will continue to until the forced march stops being the fastest option to move lots of people on short notice and night watch is replaced with an AI checking FLIR.

>>12701487
>around the world
>all locations in the US

>>12701487
This comes up on >>>/g/cyb and in the archive I find >>>/g/80082512
Search the thread for it and you will find this link
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-55905354

>>12701512
Look at the recent Armenia vs. Azerbaidjan conflict. Armenian forces where obliterated by Israely drones. Literally blown to dust. No matter how strong or fast or intelligent a soldier is, he is no match for a remote operated drone now and he won't be a match for autonomous drones in the future.

Enhancing the common, frontline soldier is not the way to go. Too expensie and ineffective. Special Forces are something different.

>>12702134
You know that footage is released as properganda right? They don't release this kind of footage because it doesn't show them to have a huge advantage just like the Germans in WW2 didn't release footage of the millions of horses that were their supply lines.
https://youtu.be/gU-3HAXiv74

>>12701487
>AI AI AI AI I AM USING SUPER ADVANCED AI TO SOLVE THIS PROBLEM AND WE COMBINE IT WITH REAL I SO IT IS HYPER AI EXTRA PLUS AND WE GIVE HIM POWER JUICE THAT MAKES THEM SOOOOOO POWERFUL ITS HARD TO BELIEVE. AND THEN WE WILL STEER SIX GORILLION AIPRLANES AT ONCE. WE GENERATE BRAIN READING EKG SPIKE AI BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY TO MAKE SOMETHING MAYBE 0.00 PERCENT FASTER HELL YEAH MR WHITE! I FUCKING LOVE SCIENCE!

>>12702010
What exactly have the Chinese done? I know that the US is more focused on cybernetics but the Chinese seem really be in love with CRISPR. No, wonder the first genetically modified (possibly augmented) human was chinese.

>>12702580
>What exactly have the Chinese done?
Generally speaking: far more than they will tell us.
Remember the CRISPR babies? Seems that doctor had originally the full blessings of the CCP and was even depicted with a party member in an article about this work. So it was officially sanctioned until it behoved them not to admit so. So where is that doctor now? Nobody outside China knows but I guess he is hard working on the next generation Chinese super soldier.

>>12701504
this

>>12701504
>It's a retarded concept.
Please state your credentials? Basement warrior? Served in the military? Do tell.
>No human (no matter how boosted) can possibly hide from a drone in the sky or dodge an auto targeting robot with a gun.
Now that is as if straight from /k/ where arguments simply cannot be stupid enough. We have had aircrafts with advanced sensors since WWII yet they still struggle in finding cooperating targets such as people lost at sea or in the woods. And where are these auto targeting robots with a gun?
Anyway, pic in OP can be done by augmentation or by genetics. With genetics it will be done on an egg cell and the resulting human will not be asked but will probably enjoy a superior eye sight, superior hearing, no diseases with genetic basis, stronger and faster muscles, better and faster healing and more. It will simply make this person more likely to survive and will also be a plus in civilian life.
>Plus, significantly modifying humans just to fight in a war is probably a human rights violation.
You tell the Chinese.

B7m9

Since a long time. Amphetamines IS the supersoldier serum irl.

>>12704664
Which are the best.

>>12701504
super soldiers will belong to the "police" and other enforcer organizations to keep population in check, once the new world order applies globalization in full force, thus dismantling local goverments.

>>12701504
this except as a proof of concept it's excellent
it's unlikely to go far since modifying genes is just too complicated right now
we will most likely not be able to effectively boost human capabilities without serious side effects
>>12701509
>Mentally enhanced humans can wage wars far better
but they don't follow instructions better
what you need is gene modification in the elites in politics, military planning, and industry
grunts are way way way fucking down the list

>>12704958
Much of this will also be very beneficial for the population at large. Strangely people talk much about such tech being reserved for the elite only, yet the really interesting scenario is when the entire society is enhanced.
Imagine a world (or country) with no hereditary diseases - that alone will save vast sums of money. Add to this great health, no dyslexia, perfect hearing and vision etc. With an IQ equivalent to 120 on today's scale, it will be a very different world.

>>12701487
Didn’t the Germans have some kind of pill in world war 2 that basically solved the first two problems on this list easily and was far simpler and easier than the suggestions given here?

Also I suspect drones are going to be the future of warfare assuming they aren’t already as shown in that scuffle in the Caucasus.

>>12705962
I am not sure what the Germans had, but please tell more.
I know that amphetamine was widely used and overcomes tiredness but hardly provides more energy. And after 3 days the grunt would collapse.

>>12706155
>but hardly provides more energy
Anon, the energy that you have is the energy... that you ate. All of these techniques only make you burn it faster, and metamphetamunes sure do that, although not exactly because they send your mithocondria into overdrive but rather because they send everything into overdrive.

>>12705962
>>12706155
The german super-pill was Pervitin aka Meth. It would give you power but it would make you an addict, cause harm to health and dull your mind/emotions.

>>12705939
The cost for such gene edits will also be very low and save a lot of money, so that it is imaginable that such treatments will be part of the health care system as the goverment could save a lot of tax money they would otherwise would have to spend on bad health, low intelligent people and mentally ill.

>>12701500
Why does his plane need to drink water?

>>12706265
How many lakes do you think are in the sky for refill?

you guys are literally retarded. Humans are just more advanced machines in this assets that you pay a higher price for losing. Modifications in every domain make sense.

They aren't here to replace shit. It's just tech

>>12701487
>that last one
They'll never take it. Thousands of dollars wasted

>>12706240
In Europe about a third of the national budgets are allocated health and social services, where much of the problems relating to social services also have health related root causes. I think gene editing will pay for itself in one generation, easily.

Add to this that an increasing fraction of the population have diabetes or haemophilia, who need imported medicine. In a war supply lines will collapse and you get a few percent of the population dead because of lack of critical medicine. So also national security required gene editing to be undertaken on a wide scale.

>I turned them into post-human warriors. You're a soldier, think of it as a necessary sacrifice. (...) The Ceph are coming, Prophet. Soon. You think we'll defeat them with ordinary human soldiers? This isn't a war ordinary humans can win. This is the future. Death's an inconvenience now. Nothing more. We are all dead men walking!

>>12701487
Grunts are already cocaine-fueled, high-tech super soldiers. Burnt out grunts are drunken messes
>>12701504
Drones aren't able to do anything other than assasinations

>>12708692
>Grunts are already cocaine-fueled
Cite? I heard about amphetamine but cocaine is news to me.

>>12701504
There is more to a war than just firepower, you're still going to need human soldiers present for certain things and it helps if they aren't as easily killed.

>>12701487
>So how far is the development?
if you want to look up this rabbit hole, research andy pero's case.
>What do we know about the chinese program?
Just as advanced. A chinese shill on /pol/ confirmed it. Unlike retard shills, this anon knew what he was talking about, including /k/ level stuff.
>What about the american?
They're only used for assassination missions. That is all they're useful for. But for conventional war, it would be a waste of time

>>12709005
No citation, just personal experience. It's a serious issue with deployments but it's not exactly publicized

>>12701487
I actually was an officer in the British Army. Not that that's an impressive achievement, but it is relevant to the topic. Anyway, there's actually a surprising amount of work done looking at 'enhancing' special forces soldiers. They regularly have visits from sports science types, trialling compression clothing, supplements, etc.

There was also a massive project done by Qinetiq, which is kinda like British DARPA. They were looking at the effectiveness of enhancing soldiers, particularly SF. In short, it transpires that most enhancements (strength, speed, endurance, etc) would actually have a relatively tiny benefit on the fighting effectiveness of a unit. You could make soldiers able to run 15mph with weight for an hour and capable of deadlifting 500kg, but they would still pale in comparison to vehicles, die just as easily to small arms and IEDs, and any extra equipment they could carry wouldn't really make them that much more effective - a guy on steroids still isn't gonna be man-packing a 20mm cannon. The juice isn't worth the squeeze. The one enhancement that would have an INSANE benefit for the effectiveness of a military would be any means of reducing the need for sleep. Any military where the soldiers did not sleep, or could go without it at full efficiency for extended periods of time, would annihilate a peer opponent. They would be able to maintain an insane tempo of operations, vastly increasing their killing potential - imagine pilots that refuel and rearm then immediately commence another sortie, officers that never stop adjusting and improving their plans, tank companies or SF soldiers who could just go from attack to attack without stopping, or roaming the enemy rear echelon for days at a time. It's what is called a 'force multiplier', essentially every asset would be worth maybe three or four of the opponents if employed properly (I.e. continuously engaging the enemy and putting them under pressure).

>>12709797
I remember that some US program used cybernetics to help pilots to learn faster and concentrate better. Do you know more about cognitive enhancements? Faster reaction times, prolonged concentration times and higher resilience would benefit military asset alot.

>>12709797
To add:

The only other enhancement worth pursuing would be anything that increases the 'longevity' of high value military personnel. And my definition of 'high value' here is essentially the cost and time taken to train them. SF training in particular (but also generic infantry training) invariably fucks up the human body over time, and a largely unspoken truth is that the likes of SAS and Delta Force soldiers are often effectively crippled by their service, many physically burning out in a few years. This is exacerbated by the fact that the 'ideal' soldier in such a role is a little older - maybe late twenties, early to mid thirties. This physical burnout is obviously a huge waste of expensive training and experience, so any method of regenerating human joints would be incredibly desirable to the military. It's less applicable to general infantry, since it's easier to just recruit another load of eighteen year-olds, train them for three months, then turf them out after a few years. Fighter pilots are another big one - by the time they complete their incredibly expensive training pipeline in the RAF, they are at an age where reflexes are beginning to slow and macular degeneration may begin to develop. Although a relatively minor factor, and considered to be compensated for by experience, when you're spending tens of millions on training and hundreds of millions on irreplaceable aircraft, maintaining youthful reflexes and eyesight would absolutely be worth bothering with. Again though, it wouldn't be worth bothering with for something like a sniper.

FINALLY another factor against most enhancements in modern democracies is that our 'citizen soldiers' are supposed to eventually return to the civilian world, so anything that explicitly causes long-term physical damage and dependency (steroids) or adverse psychological changes that make it impossible for them to reintegrate (steroids) is currently considered morally unacceptable.

>>12709827
>>12709827
I've just added a little more>>12709827

As for things like learning - I suspect it wouldn't really make that much difference. Pilots are insanely highly selected for trainability already - in modern militaries which operate tiny numbers of fighter aircraft, pilots can and are selected to be effectively the peak of human manual dexterity and motor skill learning potential (they are often utterly useless pricks in every other dimension, but still...). I doubt there is much room for improvement there at all. Plus, due to aircraft availability limitations and cost, even if they could possibly be trained faster, they probably wouldn't be (as weird as that sounds).

Once again, their reaction times are probably around peak human potential. Same for stress resilience. The biggest detrimental factor for either of those is fatigue. I.e. you could increase their reaction times, but the benefit from any currently conceivable method would fade to irrelevance when compared to the negative influence of the fatigue experienced at the end of a six-hour sortie. Which is why the military is far more interested in medicines and therapies that reduce the need for sleep and effect of fatigue than anything else. All other things being equal, a pilot who is immune to tiredness would wipe the floor with one who had some sort of realistic reaction time improvement in almost every conceivable circumstance (expect maybe a dog fight half an hour into the first day of a war, granted...).

>>12709933
Just because I don't have much opportunity to talk about this subject and spent quite a lot of time involved in research, some final points that I find interesting:

Cognitive enhancement or 'trainability' in general wouldn't be particularly useful since, frankly, the vast majority of military training isn't intellectually demanding. And if there was a need, far more bang for buck could be achieved by recruiting better recruits (pay more, forced conscription a la Forever War, whatever) than sticking needles in someone's head. Frankly, many military recruits are very underwhelming people (actually less so in the US than the UK, due to cultural affinity for the military and because of GI Bill benefits).

The benefit from most enhancements feasible in the next decade or two would be nowhere near as beneficial as cultural changes to improve diet and lifestyle. Making all SF soldiers and fighter pilots teetotal pescatarians (or an equivalent) would accrue far, FAR more benefit than smart pills and pumping them full of roids. Also changing military culture to improve training (I.e. instructors who want to instruct and teach, not fail people and bully trainees to massage their own egos, which is distressingly common).

Finally, as talked around in most of my posts, supersoldier enhancements would not go to the people a lay person might think they would. Far more value would be attained from enhancing key Strategic, Operational, and Tactical commanders, and high-value vehicle crewmen (all aircraft, drones, main battle tanks, key recce vehicles, warship ops room and weapons system crew, possibly some artillerymen) than from enhancing infantry grunts to run fast and punch through walls.

>>12709933
>All other things being equal, a pilot who is immune to tiredness would wipe the floor with one who had some sort of realistic reaction time improvement in almost every conceivable circumstance (expect maybe a dog fight half an hour into the first day of a war, granted...).
I think an army that could enhance its troops would choose to go all routes. The first hour of a war might decide it, force multiplier and all. It does make sense to first focus on higher resilience and then on enhanced abilities. Having a soldier that is attentive and combat ready for active weeks without a greater need for sleep or rest would be huge logistical boon and in irregular warfare it could be the biggest advantage. Such wars are won or lost by morale after all and if your enemy can't terrify your troops as they can keep press on for weeks without end then it will be your troops that will get demoralised. Your point on the impracticablity of cognitive enhancement makes sense (except may be enhancements that improve reaction times beyond human limits), so I don't expect such development to occur in the military first. Maybe if technology develops more into a transhuman direction we will see it and then also be utilized by the military.
All in all, we should expect future super-soldiers not to be Spartan but modern Special Forces that can do their tasks longer and faster.

>>12710172
Yeah, to be fair, fighter pilots are probably one of the few areas that an 'aggregation of marginal gains' (from the British Olympic cycling team, well worth looking up) approach of seeking out every advantage, no matter how small, is worth bothering with for the military. And as you identified, I am definitely guilty of setting up a false dichotomy in order to try and make my point that fatigue reduction is by far the biggest area for improvement.

Everything else you said seems like a much more succinct summary of my waffling! Only thing I'd point out is that soldiers who don't sleep are not just 'better' in terms of being more effective, higher morale, etc, but are worth literal multiples of their number. Think about a tank crew that makes an attack, then drives sixty miles and makes another one instead of sleeping - they are essentially worth two tanks. It's that massive an advantage. Nothing else in warfare even remotely compares to this in terms of advantageousness.

Bump

>>12702913
I've been trying to make connections with low level CCP recently in the hopes of starting a genetics lab with their blessing. Still about a hundred million dollars away but I'm hoping their more lax rules will let us do more with less and maybe edge out Calico within 30 years.

>>12711795
Try John Zhang, he got connections.

lmao

Super soldiers are a bunch of highly intelligent acrobatic small dudes who have incredible reaction speeds.

>>12702134
>Special Forces are something different
Okay, but >>12701504 says:
>It's a retarded concept
Is it retarded, or is it just retarded when applied to every soldier?

>estrogen
So they are turning the most macho men into trannies? That's fucking hilarious.

>>12714203
Trannies have a 43% kill rate, and that's WITHOUT military training.

>>12706187
It’s pervitin as this anon pointed out>>12706226
and while I am aware that it is pretty much just meth I don’t see any better alternative that could provide a shitload of energy and keep you awake as quickly as possible as meth.

I guess militaries don’t take much interest in super drugs these days and probably for good reason, but I’d love to see what a dedicated team could come up with if given the chance.

>>12701504
A boosted human could develop better auto weapons though

>>12701487
You just need Finns. And maybe a little Pervitin. That's all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q50dzl3TmcQ

>>12715017
Haha recycled joke funny

>>12717546
Stop being a joke.

>>12711795
I(n view of COVID one should consider genetics as part of the military interest sphere. Seems the UK is moving in that direction, and the Russians have already been wary of gene testing abroad for a while now.

>>12714154
>Is it retarded, or is it just retarded when applied to every soldier?
No it is not retarded. It is just that >>12701504 massively overstated the importance of drones and science fiction.

Vrak the vent core.