I am surprised that anyone would be caught off guard by this sort of thing. After all it is going to be much more effective to fly over a crowd and shoot at them than to try to hit them from behind a riot shield.
The Union outrage is interesting too, mostly because I agree that as your government (or companies) acquire tools for crowd control it certainly has a chilling effect on peaceful assembly. That said I don't see why these folks don't have drones of their own. They were used to good effect to document some of the protests in Turkey. As the drone is probably efiltrating its video during operation it is much harder for a repressive regime to shut it down and suppress the video.
>> That said I don't see why these folks don't have drones of their own
There's some important historical context here. The client was a South African mining company (I assume - it said mining company, and the company is in South Africa). There were recent riots in South Africa between a miner's union and the mine, and the miner's got slaughtered (literally). Most likely not the same company, but miner's in South Africa have a long, unfair history and it's getting worse. They're extremely destitute and there's no way I see them showing up to future protests with their own air support.
The use of UAVs for commercial use, including this application, is at present illegal in South Africa. So it's not at all certain that the client is a South African mining company.
You're oversimplifying the events at Marikana, which were somewhat more complex.
The shooting itself was preceded by days of violence in which striking miners armed themselves with pangas (machetes) and guns and massacred two police officers, two mine security officers and six other miners accused of not participating in the strike.
It was the South African Police Service, not the mine, which shot 34 miners on that horrible day. They did so after an operation to remove the miners from the hilltop went horribly wrong, causing armed miners to run towards a line of policemen who panicked and opened fire.
It also does not appear that the miners' union involved, AMCU, is negotiating in good faith. Their non-negotiable salary demand of approximately US$1170 in base pay plus another US$470 in benefits takes them into the upper percentile of all South Africans and is more than a software developer with a three-year degree earns on entering the workplace.
Moreover, each time the government and the mines reach an agreement with AMCU on wages, AMCU has added additional demands not previously mentioned. It's clear their main desire is to extend the strike, already the longest in South Africa's history and responsible for two successive quarterly declines in GDP this year.
Those types of wages aren't sustainable, so we're starting to see the mining companies adopt the same techniques used in Australia and elsewhere which are more automated and require far fewer workers.
In the end those who suffer will be the miners and their families, most of whom live in dirt-poor rural areas and have no other income options. They've been abused by the mining companies and their own union in equal measure and let down by an incompetent government. There's no good outcome for them now.
I would just point out to you in your rush to condemn the miner's desires for increased compensation that a software developer, even one with a three-year degree, is unlikely to be crushed or killed or suffocated or maimed in the course of their work.
That laborers who risk life and limb should demand part of the prodigious wealth they are responsible for extracting sounds eminently sensible.
I brought up the software developer salary to show what the wage levels in South Africa are. Compare it to what a new college grad earns at their first programming job in the US to get an idea of the disparity. In general, South African wages are low.
It also does not matter that the work miners do is difficult and dangerous, because wages are determined by supply and demand, not sheer effort. In a developed country with near full employment you do tend to see dangerous jobs providing much higher wages, in part because of the immense difficulty in hiring people willing to do them, but in SA with its enormous unemployment there are thousands of unskilled and desperate people willing to perform any job. It's not uncommon to see tens of thousands of people turn up for a job opportunity with only one or two hundred places.
South African mines are labour-intensive as a result of the cheap black labour made available by Apartheid, creating a migrant labour system in which black males left their families in rural areas to live at the mines for a few years, remitting money back. Over time, as the rest of the world embraced mechanisation and other productivity improvements, reducing the manpower needed to run a mine, local miners persisted with their labour intensive process because it was, frankly, cheap. It did not improve once the ANC took power, as they explicitly pressured mining firms to avoid doing anything that might reduce total employment in the mining sector.
It's in the context of that many people employed on each mine that the union's wage demands are unsustainable. While one can argue that the mining firms ought to have done more to improve the living conditions of their workers while the platinum and gold price were high, the fact is that both have been stagnant for years now and most South African mines, being deeper than most and expensive to operate, have become marginal with profit only just outpacing costs. This is why all major mining firms are looking elsewhere for their big investments and profit opportunities.
I've seen the figures: The only way the mines can sustain that high a wage is to close all of the marginal mines (noting that a closed shaft cannot be re-opened because of the immense depth) and to heavily mechanise the rest, retrenching most of their employees in the process. This isn't fair for those employees, it's not their fault the South African economy is in decline and precious metal prices aren't high enough, but that's economic reality. We can't wish it away, no matter how much we would like to.
As I said in the parent post, those who suffer the most will be the miners. Neither their unions nor the government gave any thought to investing in retraining programmes to help them find alternative employment, and none made any attempt to reverse the destructive migrant labour system. Inflation has driven up living costs to the point where most are now indebted to loan sharks far past their ability to ever pay. And most of the workers come from the poorest and most rural parts of the Kwazulu-Natal and Eastern Cape provinces, where, even in this modern age, the government has granted all land ownership to local tribal chiefs who can kick anyone off at any time, so the workers and their families don't even have permanent assets like property that they can fall back on.
With few to no transferable skills, no assets, and indebted to the hilt these people are in a terrible situation with, as I said, no good outcome. It's a human catastrophe that experts saw coming but nobody in a position of power did anything to prevent.
>Their non-negotiable salary demand of approximately US$1170 in base pay plus another US$470 in benefits takes them into the upper percentile of all South Africans and is more than a software developer with a three-year degree earns on entering the workplace.
Well, miners in general create more value for their country and the world than the average "software developer with a three-year degree". Without modern computers you'd live in a 60s - 70s kind of society -- not very advanced technologically but tolerable. Without mining we'd live in a 1000 B.C. kind of environment (actually worse -- they still mined stuff back then).
Heck, without miners there wouldn't even be computers for the software developer to work on (CPUs, batteries etc materials very much tied to mining)!
>Those types of wages aren't sustainable
Says who? The mining companies? The same companies who used child labor ("coal breakers") and paid miners a pittance while making a killing throughout the 20th century, especially taking advantage of immigrant and black miners?
No, they don't. As with most manual labour work, mine workers produce a relatively small amount of absolute monetary value per person compared to software developers and other skilled occupations. Wages are determined by those productivity levels and supply and demand. In general, the more people who can do a job, the lower the wage.
It goes without saying that this doesn't mean those with lower productivity are worth less as people, which is something many forget. All people should be treated with the same amount of care and dignity.
Your argument about us being perfectly ok without modern computers is odd, to say the least.
As for the wages being sustainable, the mining firms are public corporations, publish their financials openly and are audited by both private firms and the government. We are not merely taking their word for it.
>No, they don't. As with most manual labour work, mine workers produce a relatively small amount of absolute monetary value per person compared to software developers and other skilled occupations. Wages are determined by those productivity levels and supply and demand. In general, the more people who can do a job, the lower the wage.
Miners ages are mostly determined by supply and demand.
What monetary value they produce doesn't come into play. It's not like the mine owners share their huge profits with the miners.
>Your argument about us being perfectly ok without modern computers is odd, to say the least.
Well, I lived in an era without "modern computers" and it wasn't that bad at all. In fact in several respects it was better than today.
What does "perfectly OK" mean? I like my gadgets, shopping online, instant communications and everything. In fact, I'm one of those "programmers" (though with a better than 3-year degree).
But none of those things are indispensable. We managed without those, not in antiquity, but merely 40-50 years ago. And even 25 years ago mostly geeks had computers. The eighties, seventies are not some medieval dark ages of humanity. Much less so the sixties.
>Miners ages are mostly determined by supply and demand.
>What monetary value they produce doesn't come into play. It's not like the mine owners share their huge profits with the miners.
Of course productivity matters, as that's what determines how much profit is created and thus how much money is available for higher wages.
Since 2007, the wages of South African mine workers have increased by about 12% per annum on average, well above inflation, while productivity per worker has declined by 35% and total output has shrunk. For instance, during the commodities boom of 2001-2008, South Africa's mining sector shrank by 1% per year as opposed to a global average increase of 5%, largely caused by the cost increases of labour and electricity. As it is, labour costs are about 60% of the total costs of an average South African mine, compared to a global average of around 25%. And while Australian mine workers earn on average three times more than their South African counterparts, they produce 10 times more value per person.
So your assumption that mining firms in South Africa are making 'huge profits' off of their South African operations is incorrect. They used to, but that's no longer the case. South African gold and platinum mines are nearly all marginal in terms of profit and face a future of decreasing output and increasing input costs. That's why there's zero meaningful investment in new mining operations in the country, as all the mining multinationals have gone elsewhere in the world to find high-margin and high-profit opportunities. It's a dying sector.
The only way South African mines can remain sustainable is for costs to be dramatically cut, which is going to mean mechanising operations the same way as has been done in countries like Australia, allowing for the work force to be reduced massively and for higher-skilled workers to produce more. Those who remain will earn far more than even the highest union demand at the moment, those who are let go face certain poverty and suffering.
>Well, I lived in an era without "modern computers" and it wasn't that bad at all. In fact in several respects it was better than today.
>What does "perfectly OK" mean? I like my gadgets, shopping online, instant communications and everything. In fact, I'm one of those "programmers" (though with a better than 3-year degree).
>But none of those things are indispensable. We managed without those, not in antiquity, but merely 40-50 years ago. And even 25 years ago mostly geeks had computers. The eighties, seventies are not some medieval dark ages of humanity. Much less so the sixties.
We coped with that situation decades ago, the world has changed with the advent of better technology and thus the idea of us turning back the clock and suffering few consequences is what I find odd.
In any case, it's irrelevant. The software developer's salary was just an example of what a highly-skilled worker in South Africa earns, so it applies far more broadly than just to software. A country can certainly not do without a highly-skilled work force, its engineers, mechanics, scientists, etc.
What it comes down to is a simple calculus: The South African mining industry cannot afford to pay its 500 000 mostly-unskilled employees higher wages than the market is able to bear for even highly-skilled workers. Something has to give.
Uh, so what if they earn more than a recent graduate? I'm sure their work is plenty dangerous and also no doubt extremely profitable for the mining company, so if they want to organize to get a reasonable wage then fair play to them in my book.
The South African's aren't the only one, miners in the coal belt of the US, and in China today, have always been victimized by unscrupulous corporations.
In both those cases having documentation of the problems with video from a drone could have furthered the miner's interest in getting justice. That was what I was trying to say that with my comment about them (the miners) having drones of their own.
Oh I agree - I think they SHOULD have drones of their own, I just think they're a lot less likely to have access to them than miners in America or most parts of the middle east. Don't know much about China, but yeah. I should have posted my comment as a top-level comment because it ended up being a more general response than to your comment specifically.
The large companies are much more likely to have the protection of the state for their drones, while the worker's drones are more likely to be ruled illegal and confiscated etc.
The problem with the tools we are currently seeing created is this:
Nigeria (for example) doesn't derive its power from the people; but from its oil, currently being pumped by Western oil companies. The populace are simply an expense. The source of their money comes from Exxon and Shell; their military might from foreign weapons manufacturers. I know a number of people who work for said manufacturers.
Surely these won't be too effective. They'd be easily brought down by getting anything at all (fishing wire, string, etc) fired from a makeshift catapult caught up in the rotors.
High tech crowd control that can be defeated with stuff you've got lying around in the kitchen doesn't seen too useful.
Provided someone brought the kitchen with them, sure.
Though I think you may underestimate how easy it is to dodge relatively slow moving things in the sky. I could see that sort of thing being defeated by the operator flicking the drone up sharply when people start throwing stuff.
How about a cheap little suicide drone launched by the "protesters"?
But ya, it seems some sections of rope with weights on the end (or improvised rope launchers) might be standard protest equipment if these things become widely deployed.
> the countries there are more similar to each other than to other countries, so combining them is natural.
That seems like a very inaccurate generalization. If you think, say, Egypt is "similar to" Madagascar, Malawi, or Mozambique, that's difficult to agree with.
They're in rough geographic proximity, if that's what you meant. But downtown Manhattan and Ecuador are also the same distance apart and they're pretty different.
I had a feeling someone would mention Egypt. But despite where it actually is Egypt is usually called Middle East, not Africa.
And you didn't reply about people combining Europe - to someone in Europe France and Germany could not be more different - to someone outside Europe they are more similar than they are different.
That's precisely my point -- that it's important not to succumb to our internal biases. Just because we think they're "mostly the same" doesn't mean they are.
> Africa is a place, and the countries there are more similar to each other than to other countries
In what sense (other than "being located in Africa") are North African countries like Egypt or Algeria more like, say, any countries in central or southern Africa than they are like countries in the Middle East?
For a mining (or any) company to buy this to control workers is reprehensible, and it's rather shocking that they would publicize this as their first order. They could have just as easily said that an undisclosed buyer has purchased the first 25 of them. It's as if they are trying to market this as a slave-control copter.
However, this makes me wonder why we don't have small military drones with guns on them. It seems like they only have the large missile carriers and tiny surveillance drones. Something in the middle that is armed would eliminate most soldier-to-soldier battlefield confrontations. They could just send several small armed drones out and fire at their opposition with near perfect accuracy for every bullet since a computer would control the aiming and firing.
Define 'small'? Recoil and weight are the primary factors, I assume, in why no such beast exists.
Anything in the size of the average quad-copter is going to have to manage the fact that its flight trajectory would be significantly altered with each shot. The guys at Red Jacket invented something like that, and the way they mitigated the recoil was to have the barrel pointing straight down, which limits the effectiveness dramatically.
You're right, clearly, in that there's a lot of room between the missile and surveillance drones, but big enough to fire a rifle round might be a bit bigger than you suspect.
Float the barrel and have the recoil absorbed by springs or shock absorbers. Kind of like cannons on 18'th century ships rolling backwards as they fired absorbing much of the recoil until stopped by a rope.
Sure, there is still a flight modifying force. Calculate and correct it as much as possible with an equal and opposite force from the motors or a blank countershot.
I do think smaller weaponry of this type is coming.
Agreed that a quad-copter wouldn't be able to handle the recoil, and that weight is a factor - bullets are (relatively) heavy. I was just saying that something the size of a Predator drone isn't necessary for close combat. I'm sure that there is some engineering magic that could be done to manage both of these issues in a relatively small package.
I'm betting we will have exactly that before too long.
Small warfare drones. And semi-autonomous warfare vehicles of which several can be controlled by one operator. And... it looks like all those hours of video games may pay off (for certain countries) after all.
"Desert Wolf's website states that its Skunk octacopter drone is fitted with four high-capacity paintball barrels, each capable of firing up to 20 bullets per second."
If they sell this in the US our company paintball outings might get a little more interesting.
If I were a manager at the mining company that purchased the drones, I would be worried about retaliation in kind by workers who obtained a similar drone.
Managers at South African mining companies already have good reason to be worried about retaliation from workers. Details in my other comment on this thread - but in short, buying a drone is really just throwing fuel on an already well-fueled fire in this case.
Indeed. Here's something somewhat related, from PyCon 2012. It deals with using computer vision to fire a squirt gun at squirrels. The principle is basically the same.
While I'm absolutely against using this kind of technology on peaceful civilians, I think it would be interesting to see autonomous non-lethal or less-than-lethal weapons deployed against actual terrorists. Not only would it virtually eliminate the risk of collateral damage, it would also allow us to capture and interrogate them.
Fuck that and fuck you assholes who are excited about this torture weapon, it's gonna be used against people! The first order was probably for a mining company in Amazon, to torture the locals who defend their land against fucking mining companies. And soon, it's gonna be used everywhere in the world against people protesting for rights.
The Union outrage is interesting too, mostly because I agree that as your government (or companies) acquire tools for crowd control it certainly has a chilling effect on peaceful assembly. That said I don't see why these folks don't have drones of their own. They were used to good effect to document some of the protests in Turkey. As the drone is probably efiltrating its video during operation it is much harder for a repressive regime to shut it down and suppress the video.