Drones, as in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), come in all manner of different shapes and sizes. While the larger ones capable of raining death and destruction down from above are reserved for military operations, smaller ones designed for less harmful activities can be bought for a few hundred dollars.
This raises the very real prospect of someone flying a drone around your neighborhood. Perhaps innocently, or perhaps for more nefarious reasons. But what would you do if that drone hovered over your property? This question forms the basis for this week's We Ask You all about drones and people's reactions to them.
Determining Drone Decisions
We want to know, A Drone Hovers Over Your Property: What Would You Do?
This question was prompted by the recent story of a man in New Jersey alleged to have shot down a drone as it was hovering over his property. We're guessing most of you wouldn't pull out a shotgun and take aim at the flying intruder. Because that is madness. But it did prompt us to start wondering what MakeUseOf readers would do under similar circumstances.
Shooting a drone out of the air is a rather extreme reaction to what is usually a harmless, innocent activity. Sure, drones are increasingly associated with surveillance operations and the loss of privacy we're all feeling at the moment. But the average Joe or Josephine who spent a week's wages on a drone in order to fly it as a hobby is unlikely to be spying on his or her neighbors. In the future, it could even be Amazon Air delivering a package to your next-door neighbor.
http://youtu.be/kwkxx84wXNo
So, what would you do? Would you immediately get your gun and shoot that drone out of the sky? After all, the airspace above your property surely belongs to you. Would you call the police and report the drone and its operator as a nuisance which is disturbing the peace? After all, these things don't exactly run silent.
Would you identify who is flying the drone and head over in order to ask if you can have a go yourself? After all, actually controlling one of these things is a lot of fun. Would you assume it's a UFO, shoot a grainy video of it flying, and subsequently upload it to YouTube claiming an encounter of the first kind? No, probably not, but you get the point.
Simply let us know what you would do if you discovered a drone hovering over your property, and why. Whether you answer seriously or humorously, do please answer the question. Be honest, you haven't got anything else better to do. And drones are here to stay, so we should have the conversation sooner rather than later.
Have Your Say
All comments will be read and most will be replied to, before a follow-up post is published containing the We Ask You Results. One reader will win Comment Of The Week, receiving a geeky T-shirt chosen from those available through the catalog for their effort.
We Ask You is a column dedicated to learning the opinions of MakeUseOf readers. This column is nothing without you, as MakeUseOf is nothing without you.