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DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

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Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#171

Post by emodendroket »

AlexandrB wrote: post #165
daveFNbuck wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These countries all have at least 10x the population density of the US. I'm not sure about healthcare, but the rest of your list gets cheaper as population density increases.

And the US has 10x the population density of Canada. Yet we manage it somehow (except for internet). I love how the US is simultaneously the most powerful economy in the world and completely hapless at putting any of that to use for the good of its citizens.

To be fair, the vast majority of Canadians live near Canada's southern border.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#172

Post by abecedarius »

zo1 wrote: post #141
omegaworks wrote: post #58

Hacker News, can we come up with clever ways to undermine this growing trend toward authoritarianism? How effective are ear plugs as a countermeasure? Parabolic mirrors? How can we divest from organizations employing these anti-populist, anti-democratic measures?

I've often suggested a form of "humble-bundle"-like funding model for government functions. An application of a bit of free-market capitalism to an otherwise involuntary system. So if you wished to punish or scale-back or defund the police because they were preventing protesting using means that are too-violent for your liking, then you can simply reduce the funding that you allocate to policing in the next cycle. Yo…

There is a mechanism design to make it easier to fund public goods voluntarily: dominant assurance contracts.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#173

Post by stevenjohns »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #68
stevenjohns wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

El Al security is not a good model at all. I'm still yet to figure out what they achieved by seizing my backpack (that had all of my personal documentation) and damaging my brand new MBP 2016 and Pixel tablet (by very clearly dropping them a dozen times) had to do with security. Especially when they lied about putting it on the plane and I arrived at Ben Gurion with literally nothing other than a passport in one pock…

Why has El Al security seized your backpack? I can see why they'd want to search a backpack, but can't for the life of me understand why they'd seize it. I know airlines can sometimes check-in your carry-on items when they run out of cabin space. Is this what happened to you?

Because they just wanted to screw with me. They specifically didn't let me take on a paper file which had my invitation letter, citizenship copy and various other things that would have made my life easier at Ben Gurion.

They promised they'd put it on the plane and they didn't. I got it two or three days later as El Al doesn't fly during Shabbat.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#174

Post by imjustsaying »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #106
wallace_f wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, one of the remaining only ways "doing the right thing" ever gets done in the States these days. Why can countries like South Korea, Taiwan or Japan provide public services like roads, internet infrastructure, police and healthcare at an incredibly small fraction of the cost that is lightyeaes ahead in quality and competency (for the 99%)?

Path dependence? US went a bit too far in the "individual liberty" direction, and it now can't get out of the mess. In principle, things could be fixed, but good luck getting enough lawyer mass on this.

>individual liberty causes high prices and low quality. this could be fixed with more lawyers

please elaborate

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#175

Post by mikeokner »

strictnein wrote: post #112

This is an example of why I stopped donating to MuckRock. What they're trying to imply here is not what happened, nor is it supported by the document they're citing.

Your comment made me go back and actually read the FOIA document, and indeed it does read as though the police used an LRAD (presumably at low power) in a manner similar to a loudspeaker to convey information, not in a forceful, damaging manner.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#176

Post by jjoonathan »

dboreham wrote: post #157
nostrademons wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little known fact: 1984 is based on WW2 and immediate post-war Britain. Orwell was a propaganda correspondent for the BBC; his wife worked for the Censorship Department. 1984 was based on his experiences then, and the disillusionment of the Cold War immediately following WW2. He had initially intended to title it 1948 . Actually, this is not that little-known: it's in the Wikipedia page for George Orwell and easily a…

Hmm...hard to believe this is not commonly known when the book is taught in schools, even in the US. I suppose the students need to be awake and paying attention..

Someone calling something a "little known fact" doesn't necessarily make it any of those things.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#177

Post by jsoc815 »

icelancer wrote: post #62
djsumdog wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

becoming? It's been this way for a very long time. Very few major media outlets cover the Democrat/Republican National Conventions, but you can watch videos online of the protests from past years going back quite a bit. Rage Against the Machine use to do protests at both the DNC and RNC which I thought was hilarious. It's very common for protesters to be smoke bombed, herded, arrested and detained. There are several…

>>whenever people call out Anderson Cooper caught in front of a green screen Huh? A quick Google Search shows only sources from absurd places like InfoWars. Have any conclusive evidence that can't be easily explained by motion compression algorithms?

Can't speak to djsumdog's allegations. While they're probably true, it's also possible that people are thinking of a key part of "Wag the Dog" w/ Dustin Hoffman et al.

Anyway, maybe the following links will help:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2003/03/16/hollywood-designer-c...

and

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/7/29/hollywood-an...

and

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Office_of_War_In...

I'm sure we all know that America's media has had a long history of telling the "right" story for the "right" reasons. I don't feel like digging around for cites, but it's pretty well known that the point of "embedding" journalists w/troops for the (formal) continuation of the 'Gulf War' was to make the journalists feel more sympathetic to the mission (troops) and thus tell the folks at home the appropriate story.

There's also a long history of the CIA recruiting journalists, editors, owners, etc... Real example from recent history: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/29/corres...

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/08/mark-mazzetti-s...

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#178

Post by aalleavitch »

dboreham wrote: post #156
icelancer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>whenever people call out Anderson Cooper caught in front of a green screen Huh? A quick Google Search shows only sources from absurd places like InfoWars. Have any conclusive evidence that can't be easily explained by motion compression algorithms?

And there we have the real Fake News. The term originated as a label for crackpot/tinfoil-hat/state-actor misinformation ops. It was picked up by Trump who presumably misunderstood the meaning, and used by him to describe MSM he didn't like. Sort of Fake News squared...

I don't think he misunderstood the meaning at all. I think he just realized he could turn the label into an attack on legitimate news sources that were printing unflattering stories about him while devaluing the use of the term against actual false reporting that benefited him in one fell swoop.

I'd find his strategy brilliant if it weren't for the fact it is an all-out assault on the very concept of truth and it's likely doing irreparable damage to the very institutions this nation is founded upon.

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#179

Post by jjoonathan »

tatersolid wrote: post #134
omegaworks wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also believe that these abuses do not represent all police. The institution of police was created to undermine labor movements. It may behoove you to re-examine your assumption that they're there to keep you safe.

Umm... not so much. Police forces pre-date the industral revolution by over 2000 years, dating back to ancient China, Greece, and Rome. Their common duty has always been enforcement if of natural law (prevention of theft and violence or investigation and capture of such criminals). Source: Wikipedia. My local sheriff and his crew actually do protect and serve the public. As do 99% of Police in the USA.

Slave rebellions weren't labor movements?

Re: DC police used sonic cannon to direct crowd flow during Women's March

#180

Post by jjoonathan »

ThrowawayNEF wrote: post #14

Is it just me or when did this become normal? I learned in Engineering class quite some time ago that it's theoretically possible to use the resonance frequency of the human body as a weapon. Back then this was something that everybody considered unethical. How have we ended up with things like tear gas and LRAD, that would be outlawed in military conflict but seem perfectly fine for "crowd control" purposes?

What's the Q of a human? My guess would have been "pretty low." Is that not the case?
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