Surfing Videos Are Cool, But What's REALLY Cool Are Surfing Videos Shot By Drones

A drone, like all technology, is amoral before it reaches human hands.

At that point drones become an instrument such as a killing machine, conservation copter, life saver, and floating Big Brother.

In all cases drones provide a fresh ability to see the world.

A great example of drones being used simply for the sake of this novel function — decidedly outside any moral conundrums — is recording surfers.

Drone footage is popping up everywhere - great use of it to shoot surf at Africa's Skeleton Bay, a dream wave: http://t.co/2uN5AnEEfK

— Neal Mann (@fieldproducer) August 15, 2013

Here's a particular good video of a drone-recorded surfing run:

Now compare that to a surfer wearing a GoPro camera (it gets good at 0:25):

It's clear that drones, like GoPros, capture surfing runs more efficiently than any other way while giving new perspectives of the action.

As Business Insider Executive Editor Joe Weisenthal tweeted: "Between drones and GoPro cameras, this is a golden age of seeing the world from brand new angles."

So we may not like what we're seeing in terms of how drones are used, but doesn't take away from the added ability to see. And surfing will benefit greatly from that.