Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia • Hacker News Board

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#361

Post by perching_aix » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 5:41 AM UTC

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #353

perching_aix wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Engaging in conversations with people like you is a severe intellectual defect of mine constantly on the forefront of my mind, don't worry. > There's * dozens* of mass killings that prove its not uncommon. Do you know what are there dozens of examples of also? Protests that didn't result in lethal weapons being used, or weapons similar to LRAD and ADS. But that doesn't fit the convenient headcanon you oh so desperate…

OK some protests aren't attacked. Agreed. In so called non Democratic countries they tend to be arrested/ imprisoned/ killed. Uhm. So what? Some protests never happen. Some protests people wear pink hats. Some protests people stay home. So what? I think being dead is more permanent damage than hearing loss will ever be. So yeah. They're not dead. Lots of pussies are right and real men are wrong. Not sure why you brin…

> nor did I say sonic or non lethals were "OK"

Nobody argued that getting killed protesting is better than being sound cannoned either, but that didn't stop you from assuming that, trying to corner people into saying so, and acting hostile as all fuck, hence this entire thread.

Glad we cleared it up. I guess like protesters getting suppressed being generally true, discussing anything with an intellect of your caliber carries a similar general penalty. Definitely a valuable way to frame it that I'll keep in mind moving forward.

> Please try harder next time even though I know it gives you a head ache. Cheers.

Enjoy.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#362

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 5:43 AM UTC

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #351

perching_aix wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This dilemma continues to exist in your own mind only.

This article is designed to improve awareness of oppressiveness of the Serbian government: basic PR/insurgency propaganda 101. We're supposed to decry some sonic weapons while having no understanding of what is going on. So what's going on?

[deleted]

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#363

Post by d1sxeyes » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 5:47 AM UTC

treyd wrote: post #103

d1sxeyes wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how active noise cancellation works in headphones. You stick little microphones on the outside of the headphones, then play back what’s picked up through the headphones themselves but with a very slight delay so all the peaks and troughs match up. The problem is that you need to put out sounds at least as loud, and that’s a pretty bad thing to get even slightly wrong if the energy levels are that high.

You do it with the waves inverted otherwise the delay would have to be dynamic and frequency dependent.

Sorry, you’re right. My understanding was that it was the same in practical terms to delay by half a wavelength, but that wasn’t correct.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#364

Post by observationist » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 5:54 AM UTC

ashoeafoot wrote: post #301

observationist wrote: post #27

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…

The opposition protesting here is 1/5 of the population of the country . Its basically all people. Like 1 million protesting in a country of 5 million , is all voters between 18- 59. Russia is loosing , the rot of oligarchy is dissolving.

Assuming average age distribution between 16 to 60 in the protesters, that leaves about 3 million non protesters in the same age distribution for serbia, with children and elderly making up the remaining population, which is around 6.7 million, give or take.

That's 1 out of 4 working age citizens hitting the streets - not all people, but a huge chunk. It's safe to say there are going to be a lot of sympathizers in the non-protesters, a lot of people who wanted to protest but couldn't. There are definitely those who support the government, but I'd wager they're less than 15% of the total population, with the rest in opposition, or at least not in support of the government.

The usual tipping point for revolution is lower - if 10-12% hits the streets, it's a strong signal that the movement behind that activity is taking power.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#365

Post by kazinator » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 5:55 AM UTC

BobaFloutist wrote: post #247

pclmulqdq wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Police also regularly use tear gas against US citizens. These are weapons that would violate the Geneva convention, but we're okay with them to disperse a crowd.

How do you feel about the defensive use of pepper spray?

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/1.5358303

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#366

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:01 AM UTC

tonyhart7 wrote: post #235

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're suggesting that the point of an authority using this weapon on a mass of people may be to cause those people to become violent so that the authority can use the subsequent fear to justify further abuses. Which I think is likely, but also a bad decision. Generally speaking, the job of a legitimate government is to make violent protest unnecessary. So depending on the situation, the best action may indeed be to…

Yeah but the problem is with mass movement people like this, there are good chance people that can take advantage of these protest (looting,rob etc) the point of these weapon is not "defeat" but mostly to crowd control right because you cant rule out if there is no crime even in peaceful protest, both things can be true at the same time also if such weapon is not permanently injure or harm people, I can see why this…

[deleted]

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#367

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:06 AM UTC

Philorandroid wrote: post #223

giraffe_lady wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no amount of pushback or repercussion that a rioter will feel is fair or humane I mean you're talking about using violence against people to stop or prevent property damage. Most options are off the table in the moment, in the same way you can't execute someone if you catch them vandalizing your car. Smashing their fingers with a hammer wouldn't probably kill them but you can't do that either. After-the-fac…

This reads like you suppose the only thing to do is let rioters vent their outrage against whatever objects happen to be in their way at the time, and hope that there exists some legal comeuppance after the fact. Why can't some reasonable degree of force be used to prevent property damage? What moral dilemma exists that makes protecting property deserve a comparison to executing someone?

> Why can't some reasonable degree of force be used to prevent property damage?

It can, of course. If a police officer sees an individual engaging in property damage, that officer may walk over to that person and arrest them. If that person resists arrest, the officer can use appropriate force.

If you're talking about using force against innocent individuals who happen to be nearby, of course that is both outrageous and out of the question.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#368

Post by kazinator » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:06 AM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #291

observationist wrote: post #27

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…

> It's better than troops just gunning people down Except you're far more likely to use it. This is why cops don't shoot to "injure" instead of kill (also, it's hard enough for them to hit center of mass in a tense situation; there's no way they hit a leg.) It's lethal force. Which means that for its use to be legal, that person has to die because they are an imminent lethal threat to others. If injury is sufficient…

> If injury is sufficient to resolve a situation, they weren't an imminent lethal threat.

That requires more explanation.

An injury could render someone with lethal intent and capability unable to perform.

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#369

Post by archagon » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:07 AM UTC

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #281

hayst4ck wrote: post #250

It'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…

Was expressing this fear to my wife and kids the other day. Ubiquitous cameras everywhere (like in the UK for many years) and other surveillance technology has always been a concern but had scaling limits -- but when you combine it now with the cheap ease of machine learning technologies we have a serious problem. And then consider drones, mobile devices. And then mass disinformation and/or disruption via LLMs. As a…

AI also has the potential to detect your every unique tic in a way that humans would be incapable of doing. You could be masked but your gait and other body movements will give you away, or at least place you in a statistically likely pool of suspects.

"Walk without rhythm and it won't attract the worm."

Re: Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

#370

Post by snozolli » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 6:08 AM UTC

spwa4 wrote: post #259

zozbot234 wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That very much depends on what you mean by "worked". And it's not like Western militaries are lacking the physical means to engage in heavier and more damaging attacks; they just have viable alternatives that they prefer.

1) Putin has conquered more population than he lost (even just counting fighting age men) 2) Putin has conquered more money/value/resources than he lost due to the conflict (by a factor of 10, maybe 100) 3) Even Ukraine's European allies seem to agree that Putin will get a ceasefire and sanctions relief where he gets to keep what he conquered It's true that Russia did not achieve it's war goals (destruction or total…

Putin has conquered more population than he lost (even just counting fighting age men)

What a weird metric. More civilians subjugated than soldiers lost?

it's war goals (destruction or total control of Ukraine

Russia wants to destroy the Ukrainian cultural identity. It's cultural genocide, and it's been a goal of theirs for hundreds of years. This is why they steal Ukrainian children and ship them off to be adopted in Russia.