The thing is a lot of people don't realise is that THEY have the power. Simply boycott such companies. If companies are viewed as bad people stop going to them. Tesco is a good example, they had scandal after scandal using workfare free labour, tainted food, bribery and tax evasion but seemed untouchable to the extent they could do whatever they wanted and had the government in their pocket. They always got planning permission and nobody ever investigated them. This happened from 2001-2011 then people got tired of them and a small number of consumers went elsewhere pushing most of their stores into unprofitably. As a result they fired more staff and whipped them harder which made even more people hate them. People went elsewhere and they are in serious trouble now. For instance I don't like ZHC (at will in the US) so I don't patronise any companies or organisations that use this sort of labour. I also don't like Ford cars as I bought a brand new one and it fell apart before my eyes. They will never get a penny off me again. Or shitty tactics like turbo tax thing. Never get any money again from me. But you complain.... yet still buy again from them are they going to take your complaints seriously? Unless of course there is a total monopoly on a product.

http://www.oecd.org/els/emp/oe... TL:DR Workers in China have more rights than US workers.

Me thinks Chinese copies will resolve this issue completely.

Revolt? In the past body guards of tyrants would join in the revolution often in Roman times they were the assassins. But if robotisation gets so advanced then what stops the political class living in compounds guarded by auto gun turrets which use lasers (so fewer moving parts and less maintenance and ammo costs) with killer robots to suppress crowds? Look at 1989 in China they locked the local Beijing Garrison and brought troops from many provinces away to suppress the Tienanmen sq protests.

Sorry I was unclear. I meant to say if a battleship had a CIWS like the Phalanx / Goalkeeper system which used lasers rather than the hard kill shells they use today. Then anti ship missiles and air power would be blunted severely against battleships.

Using a bomber instead of a pork barrelling machine may help even more!

I can't always find bloody campers on CS:GO heh..

What you mean is we'll only engage in war with tin pot dictators of 3rd world nations? As per usual then...

The weird thing is the battleship may well make a come back. As air defences improve and use hit scan type lasers vs hard kill munitions. Air power may become less effective over time. Take for instance the Harpoon, it's comparatively slow compared to the Russian stuff. But it is designed to be fired in huge numbers to overwhelm air defence systems. I remember Red Storm rising that a critical weakness of the Tico class was that it had a limited ammunition supply. While a battleship with a CIWS which has unlimited shots and can track super fast targets kind of cripples airpower and missiles (or is advertised to do so).

but what use is that when you have a gun that you can only fire a few times before you have to change the barrel? Simple! It makes the defence contractor wealthy as the USN keepson having to order new barrels.

This reminds me of the M1 Abrams tank, it is exceptional combat vehicle and it is almost indestructible (almost) the problem is it drinks fuel like crazy and as a result requires massive logistical tankers to keep it running.

Except if a laser is so powerful... how exactly do you aim it without it burning out the prisms/mirrors that are utilised to aim it?

In that sure you remove gun powder... but you still need to get the energy from somewhere to power those lasers/railguns. Unless your ship has a nuclear reactor on board won't this generally mean having to carry a whole load of additional fuel? Granted some fuels have higher energy densities. But doesn't this just transfer risk away from ship magazines to the fuel tanks instead?

Or they do what they do annoyingly in Japan/Mongolia (some places in China)and some places in Hong Kong and Taiwan. That is they put the ATM machines inside a small lobby of a bank and when the bank closes the shutters come down on the ATM lobby as well.

Because if they can fly and move in all directions they can become dangerous. For example an artillery shell/mortar has to travel in a ballistic path so if you park your tent behind a cliff face unless it is very high arc artillery you can't be hit. A mini drone can fly around the hill in a manner an artillery shell or mortar cant and into your tent with soft squishy humans in it then explode.