in regards to that last rechost, the further militarization of drones is actually a part of why i haven't been flying mine as much lately. like there have always been military drones for reconnaissance and the terrifying missile carrying ones, but then they just started using hobby and industrial grade stuff for violence.
about a month or so into the ukraine war there had been a post on twitter by the drone racing league about an upcoming race and in the comments some guy had said something along the lines of "are you guys planning to send any of these to help with the war efforts in ukraine?" and i'd made a joke about it being an incredibly lib take and, "me showing up to the frontlines with my optimized race quad build to help defeat the russians [attached gif of someone ripping through race gates at like 90mph]"
and like that sorta ended up happening within the next couple months? like it wasn't specifically DRL, despite them being affiliated with the US military and literally an air force recruiting avenue in the past, but they just started taking off the shelf hobby freestyle/racing drones and strapping explosives to them and flying them into vehicles and infantry and etc. they were using the same open source flight control firmware, video systems, control links, and even frames/motors that i use myself but applying it as a weapon.
it just kinda hit like a truck in a really weird way. like this thing that was a huge collaborative project for people to be used for fun and to do creative cinematography is now the source of a lot of death because it happened to have existed and was easy to adapt into a weapon. and i know it probably doesn't mean much, like gps was literally an invention for the military, the internet has been used for ages by military/governments, but for some reason it's just been this strong association between these things i learned to build and fly purely for enjoyment and catharsis being used to kill that's been hard to get around for me.