The Ancient History of Drones Explains Why They Freak Us Out Today

What’s the deal with drones? At first glance, they’re basically glorified remote controlled airplanes with computers and cameras stuck to them: not exactly the kind of thing that you’d expect to quicken the blood or excite the soul of most normal human beings. And yet, ever since the start of the 21st century, drones have collectively fascinated, frightened, and repulsed us.

Drones definitely are compelling.

But why?

The answer to that question is something I’m hoping to explore in a book. But in this piece, I want to look at a key element of that answer: the drone technology of the past. And I don’t mean the recent-ish-past of the 2000s, or the hazy and far-off days of the mid-1990s, or the primordial soup (that I have only read about in legend) of the 1980s and 1970s.

No. To understand what the deal with drones is, we need to look to the earliest origins of human society itself.

While drones may seem like the archetypal example of a frighteningly new and unprecedented technology, many of the ideas underpinning drones are actually, to use a technical term, old as hell. While the omnipresent civilian drones of the 2020s are “new” in one sense, in another, they’re simply the culmination of a far longer process.