Submitted by dccrowe (not verified) on Wed, 2009-05-20 13:23.
This is a fantastic piece. I did want to question one bit of logic, though:
"Some military contractors also make consumer products that can be boycotted. For example, iRobot manufactures both the PackBot, a hugely successful bomb disposal robot which can now be armed with a shotgun, and the popular robotic Roomba vacuum cleaner. As this market for personal robots—which was valued at $17 billion by the end of 2007, according to a U.N. report—continues to grow, boycotting those corporations that also make robots for the military will be an increasingly effective tactic for activists."
I disagree with this reasoning. If anything, the robotics makers will become less vulnerable to citizen boycotts as their profits increasingly come from public sources. Once these companies start getting massive federal investment, losses on their commercial products will have a smaller effect.
Boycotts
This is a fantastic piece. I did want to question one bit of logic, though:
"Some military contractors also make consumer products that can be boycotted. For example, iRobot manufactures both the PackBot, a hugely successful bomb disposal robot which can now be armed with a shotgun, and the popular robotic Roomba vacuum cleaner. As this market for personal robots—which was valued at $17 billion by the end of 2007, according to a U.N. report—continues to grow, boycotting those corporations that also make robots for the military will be an increasingly effective tactic for activists."
I disagree with this reasoning. If anything, the robotics makers will become less vulnerable to citizen boycotts as their profits increasingly come from public sources. Once these companies start getting massive federal investment, losses on their commercial products will have a smaller effect.