Drones
2015 | Rock
“My mother, killed by drones. -- My sister and brother killed by drones. -- Our lives between your fingers and your hands. -- Can you feel anything? -- Are you dead inside? -- Now you can kill from the safety of your home with drones. -- Amen."
Trivia
- Drones hit #1 on the billboard 200.
- The album was recorded between October 2014 and April 2015 at the Warehouse Studio in Vancouver, and was produced by the band and Robert John "Mutt" Lange.
- In an interview in the same month, Bellamy described Drones as "a modern metaphor for what it is to lose empathy ... through modern technology, and obviously through drone warfare in particular, it's possible to actually do quite horrific things by remote control, at a great distance, without actually feeling any of the consequences, or even feeling responsible in some way."
THE HOT TAKES
Luke Tatum
Another chilling tune. Muse is absolutely on point by calling out the use of drone warfare. It turns indiscriminate murder of people in other countries into a fun video game for brainwashed children. We've spent thousands of words attacking the warfare state and the military-industrial complex, but relatively little focusing in on the drone war. These killing machines are seemingly used with only the slightest pretext, and thousands of people are killed other than the intended targets. It's messy, gruesome, and it swells the ranks of the organizations it supposedly targets by radicalizing people who would rather not get involved.
Sherry Voluntary
This unexpected choral number points out one of the most terrible problems of drone warfare. It's the same problem with the internet, or masks, putting a barrier that allows anonymity between a human and it's target, allows them to disassociate from their actions. Boy the atrocities that The State will perpetrate with this technology.
Nicky P
A short and concise look at how impersonal we've made war. The Prussians created school as we think of it to engineer human beings to toss aside their humanity in an effort to not fear killing. Too many soldiers were missing on purpose because contrary to some ideas we're not predisposed to murder each other for others. This old model came in very handy for controlling factory populations later on as well. Those factories, bastions of productivity, did some funny things to society over time. They made workers value increase to a point where it was difficult to fund soldiers. Moreover, it became more difficult to justify possible death without a more direct threat. Enter drones. Drones increase killing efficiency and reduce loss of our own soldiers. They depersonalize war in unimaginable ways. We've literally found a way to take the most inhuman of acts and remove what little vestige of humanity could prevent unnecessary loss of life from happening. Drones represent the true fix for what the Prussians tried to solve back then. Congrats I guess.