Posts tagged: World War

How To Survive The War

How To Survive The War A general view shows damaged buildings and debris in Deir al-Zor, June 13, 2013.Picture taken June 13, 2013. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi (SYRIA – Tags: CONFLICT) – RTX10N7S

One might never know exactly the day when war comes to your homeland, leaving you no choice but to grab a few things and run – if you are lucky. It happens unexpectedly: events are moving so fast, have such an immediate and strong negative impact on your life, even though you are far from the epicenter. War dramatically overturns usual way of life, since you never expect anything as terrible as it is in reality, never guess the extent of an imminent disaster. Since then every first day of your life is war, with all deaths, terrors, looting, famine, soldiers, casualties, and increasing physical fear.

Caught unawares, civilians have to leave their homes in search of either hospitable land to wait through or remain home, hiding in a less hospitable bomb-shelter. Most of the people choose to abandon their homes and seek refuge in the remaining peaceful parts of the state or move to neighboring countries. The decision is tough, but obvious: protecting your own nest is a right impulse, but it must not overlap the selfpreservation instinct. Due to applications of guided missiles, the destructive capacities of conventional weapons have increased drastically. Thus, the value of human life has decreased tragically.

There are several advice from those survived in the war zone to give you a clear insight of how to behave in wartime:

1. Search for and remember the location of all bombs-shelters in your area, make sure they are accessible and have enough room for every family member. Owing to underground bomb shelter arrangement, an intense humidity allows to keep canned food (lots of water, beef, pork, vegetables, and fruit), tea, pasta, flour, oil, salt and sugar without refrigerator for the relatively long time. Prepare flashlights, matches, and candles; plaids, blankets, and a cushion; saucepan and pot to cook on fire and boil water; personal hygienic items and first aid kit.

2. Watch your relatives closely, do not lose sight of them during the day; especially kids should be taken over the control 24 hours a day. If you did not have a chance to flee your home, do everything possible and impossible to provide both physical and psychological protection to your family. Do not allow them to see people suffering and hear cries for help. It is important to keep composure and encourage people around you to hope for the best, because this is the only right direction for psychological adjustment.

3. Keep your phone charged all the time, try not to waste battery power and save for an emergency. Do not let the battery drain, recharge frequently, as far as possible. Due to the hostilities, the system voltage may continuously appear and disappear. Fill with tap water all available reservoirs: jars, saucepans, basins, buckets, etc. Water is probably the most important substance during the wartime, of permanent shortage.

4. Make sure you have enough provisions for all family members for a specified period, during which you do not have to think of what to feed the children. Make purchases on the wholesale markets, which is cheaper than retail acquisitions. Count every penny, because you obviously have no job and the future prospects are difficult. In addition, any conflict area suffers from economic blockade, with all the negative consequences for your already very limited budget. Get ready for the total deficit of the food, fuel, and other daily necessities.

5. Change your habits, become unpretentious, economical, and enduring. Learn to leave off many usual things, such as the Internet, rich and fancy food, gadgets, fashion, regular socializing, and all the signs of usual daily routine, which you thought was boring. Learn to accept the war as a significant part of your current being, since your life will never be the way it used to before the war.

6. Remember: there are many indigent people around, who urgently need your sympathy and protection. Share everything you do not urgently need, like some groceries and canned fish/meat, good conditioned clothes and shoes for kids and adults, good old toys and books. You can live without a heap of rags permanently squeezing your wardrobe and feel better helping out.

7. Learn the specifics of communication with armed individuals, who aim and get used to kill the same human beings. They are running the show, not you, regardless the rank and influence you had in civil life. Keep up with their requests and follow their advice, because they naturally have at disposal a broader image of the existing circumstances in the war zone. Even if you do not support them and your heart and mind resist, never demonstrate it, never stir up a discussion and never let it involve yourself. If it is impossible to support soldiers, at least do not jeopardize your family and keep neutral.

8. Do not trust television/radio broadcasts, because there is no objective reality in the war. If the very notion of objectivity no longer exists, it means that all stories are equally true. To distinguish more evident and obvious story from fake, you should apply your own personal experience. Remember: modern war is not only conventional confrontation but also confrontation in politics and information field.

9. Prepare your car for a long journey through outside the warzone: inflate all tires, check the oil level, empty the trunk, put the toolkit in, tire inflator, a can for gas, check a spare tire, and fill up the tank. Do the vehicle inspection to prevent an unexpected breakdown on the way to peaceful life.

10. Remember: your paramount goal is to save your family, their lives, and your own. Do not risk for no reason, never hurry and follow the designated itinerary: there could be minefields along the roadside, unexploded missiles, and hidden grenades.

War changes human personality definitively and irrevocably, for your surroundings luckily avoided war, you will not be the same any longer. Independently of the age, your outlook has radically altered. To survive the war would be the most challenging task you had accomplished, but not the last. You would have to subdue the memories, or even erase them all connected with the war to continue your new old boring life in harmony with yourself and surroundings.

When Technology Backfires: The New Warfare

A couple days ago, I stumbled upon this very interesting article on Wired:

When Technology Backfires - The New Warfare

A very trendy subject nowadays, when we’re on the brink of getting into a war or two… when Europe is crashing down to pieces… the Arab world is angry at pretty much everyone… and the Asians are now working on weaponry taken straight from Star Trek…

We’ve got to face it: war is much scarier and more complex than ever before. Cyberspace has officially become the “fifth domain” for warfare, next to the classic: land, space, air, and sea. The Anonymous hacker organization has already won several battles against governments all around the world, with just a touch of a keyboard.

This is the future of warfare: a few brilliant youngsters and their supercomputers. The times of men freezing in trenches, waiting to shoot the enemy without getting bombed first is soon to be over.

Today, the US drones can shoot down a target with one single “laser death ray”, as tests have recently shown.

war plane
source: unsplash.com

According to CNN, Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), the service’s technology development arm, announced the new Laser Weapon System had successfully tracked, engaged, and destroyed a drone in flight, during an over-the-water engagement at San Nicholas Island, California.

Next step on the list: controlling the death ray with nothing more than thoughts. That’s right, as you’re reading this, scientists are working on ways to control machinery with the power of the human mind. And, but the looks of it, it won’t take long until they’ll turn this sci-fi scenario into reality.

3source: www.scientificamerican.com

If you can’t read the chapeau of this article, it says: “The idea that paralyzed people might one day control their limbs just by thinking is no longer a Hollywood-style fantasy”. Indeed, it’s already happening:

I was blown away by this video! That man can move a prosthetic arm with his thoughts. So why couldn’t a trained soldier control a drone in the same manner? Right now, it sounds very likely, doesn’t it?

In fact, a lot of the things we used to watch on Star Trek are now about to take shape into the real world.

According to Russia Today, the National Intelligence Council (a US-based coalition of spy agencies) has just released its “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds” report. The most amazing minds of this century have gathered to write this 140-page report and share with us their predictions for the next two decades.

These include: physical enhancement (aka turning yourself into a superhero), limb-replacement, retinal eye implants that enable night vision and neuro-enhancements that could provide superior memory recall or speed of thought. Also, human-like cyborgs could very well walk among us in as little as 18 years’ time.

4source: rt.com

It all sounds amazing, doesn’t it? People enhancing their bodies to get stronger and live longer and healthier lives… no more war victims… cures for today’s most destructive diseases… oh, yeah, and mind control over every top-notch machinery. Sounds amazing… and pretty scary, doesn’t it?

After all, if a soldier can fly a drone by focusing his thoughts on his mission… what stops a brilliant hacker from taking over? Can you be 100% sure that a more powerful mind and/or a more powerful technology won’t force a US drone to start shooting its death ray the other way around?

I tend to believe the US intelligence is overestimating their technology and their staff… while underestimating our enemies. It’s not the first time they do it. Right after the government set up TrapWire and installed “hi-tech” surveillance cameras all across the country… hackers have already found a way to cheat the system.

Here’s just a comment one of them left on a forum: Pretty awesome hack to make your face invisible to cameras!”

And let’s not forget about the computer virus that infected a nuclear plant in Iran, controlled from a PC miles away:

5source: news.cnet.com

Today, you can control anything with technology and, soon enough, you’ll be able to control any technology with the power of your thoughts. That will be the moment when the human mind becomes the most sought-after battlefield. As the article on Wired very well puts it:

This new battlespace is not just about influencing hearts and minds. It’s about involuntarily penetrating and coercing the mind.”

By Alec Deacon