Serbia had the LRAD systems on hand, after buying them in 2022, most likely from Genasys, but possibly from HyperSpike. https://genasys.com/lrad-products/ It's a legal gray area in Serbia where the use against civilians isn't explicitly forbidden, so they're playing fast and loose and moving fast to crush opposition. It's better than troops just gunning people down, but for a modern, supposedly civilized country it's…
Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
301–310 of 530 posts
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chemical weapons are tactically useless to the American combat doctrine, as described in that article. As we have seen, the Russian doctrine (and Ukraine's doctrine) relies on much more brute force to push a meter at a time and much more indiscriminate damage. It's hard to imagine chemical weapons being useless. He makes the mistake of looking at how the US military fights and thinking that is the only way to fight a…
> He makes the mistake of looking at how the US military fights and thinking that is the only way to fight a war Keep reading. "And, so, where do we still see chemical weapons used? In static-system vs. static-system warfare. Thus, in Syria – where the Syrian Civil War has been waged as a series of starve-or-surrender urban sieges, a hallmark of static vs. static fighting – you see significant use of chemical weapons…
There is a good book called "eating soup with a knife" (and the author has given talks on this) that talks about the importance of doctrine and culture in constructing a fighting force (in this case, the book is mostly about counterinsurgency doctrine and how the American and British militaries are uniquely unsuited to it). An American-style doctrine simply does not work in Russia, even given unlimited resources, because of how the culture and the military work. The weapons are then built to fit the doctrine, not the other way around.
In other words, the "static system" actually is the way to get the Russian military (and the Ukrainian military) to work. That difference in doctrine, by the way, caused a lot of headaches because US weapons are not made for it.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chemical weapons are tactically useless to the American combat doctrine, as described in that article. As we have seen, the Russian doctrine (and Ukraine's doctrine) relies on much more brute force to push a meter at a time and much more indiscriminate damage. It's hard to imagine chemical weapons being useless. He makes the mistake of looking at how the US military fights and thinking that is the only way to fight a…
Why would e.g. sarin be useful for indiscriminate damage when A) you could drop a conventional or thermobaric bomb instead, and B) you can circumvent sarin by wearing a $200 suit from AliExpress? I'm not seeing how it's meant to fit into Russian military doctrine other than in niche circumstances.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#304It's the most important time in human history to protest/fight unchecked power because it's likely the last era of humanity that we are going to be able to. We are getting to the point where the technology that fuels oppression, including extremely pervasive surveillance, privatized intelligence services with no oversight, scalable AI agents that do as they are told, and crowd "maiming" or other forceful dispersal te…
> it's likely the last era of humanity that we are going to be able to Athenians were saying this in respect of writing .
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#305Is there any counter measure for this? Hardcore hearing protection? Noise cancelling headphones? Handheld sound insulation "shield"?
Once there's violence targeting you, the solution is to bring real weapons and resolve it using ordinary military tactics, that is, you kill the operator.
Up until that point you need to paint yourself as the victim (the just/right/good side) to get more support to deliver more violence later what the time comes to materialize it.
Premature materialization leads to the oppressor/aggressor painting _himself_ as the victim and you as the aggressor. And because most people are uninformed, not terribly intelligent and conditioned to prefer peace over justice, they are more likely to take his side.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#306It's the most important time in human history to protest/fight unchecked power because it's likely the last era of humanity that we are going to be able to. We are getting to the point where the technology that fuels oppression, including extremely pervasive surveillance, privatized intelligence services with no oversight, scalable AI agents that do as they are told, and crowd "maiming" or other forceful dispersal te…
The silicon valley elite are practically going insane over the prospect of total authoritarian control of the "lessers" ... of course couched in pure libertarian nonsense about unrestained freedom of the ultrarich to do as they please to them.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
well if they turn out out to be violence and can be destructive (they called riot), yes they can
I don't think so. If the authorities are willing to point something that permanently damages hearing at thousands of people in the name of "crowd control" or "protecting property" then they don't deserve to be the authorities anymore. In the grand scheme of things, property just isn't that important. Also, did you watch the video? They were just standing there.
There are absolutely riots where deploying such a weapon would be justified. On one hand, you have loss of hearing. On the other hand, you have the possibility of loss of life. It has to come from the perspective of protecting the people, including those who are rioting, which is a difficult judgement call to make in any case.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#308LRADs have been used against protesters in Australia, New Zealand, the United States, France, and Germany.
I assume it was used to disperse riots, in Serbia it was used as people were standing peacefully, observing 15 minutes of silence.
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's likely the last era of humanity that we are going to be able to Athenians were saying this in respect of writing .
I don't think they were?
Yes [1].
Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia
#310It's the most important time in human history to protest/fight unchecked power because it's likely the last era of humanity that we are going to be able to. We are getting to the point where the technology that fuels oppression, including extremely pervasive surveillance, privatized intelligence services with no oversight, scalable AI agents that do as they are told, and crowd "maiming" or other forceful dispersal te…
>it's likely the last era of humanity No. Just no. No matter what what the thing is. It just isn't. That's not a reason to NOT protest/fight unchecked power. It just isn't the reason to do it.
This isn't the 1800s anymore where the most powerful tool was a gun, and you could distribute these symmetrically across state and people to keep the state in check.
Surveillance, crowd control weapons, access to banking, control over media, eventually AI and widespread robotics, have properties that empower the state. In the context of mass protest, the status quo gets harder and harder to dislodge.
None of this matters much while democracy is still existing, but it's a risk that's there. It makes the fall of democracy more of an absorbing state that you can't escape from.