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Military grade sonic weapon is used against protesters in Serbia

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

#401

Post by Kostic »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #168
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you were at a protest that was starting to get a bit rowdy and somebody used one of these on you, what would you do? Leave. The moment it turns into a riot you’re doing damage to your cause. (If you’re in a protest and see hooligans, restrain them.)

You might enjoy reading Rules for Radicals if you haven't already. If your riot can provoke a worse response from the authority, it can help your cause. The reaction is the action. It may be that this protest in Serbia got a bit rowdy and riotous (see "diversity of tactics") and now the headline is about the government's use of a disproportionate weapon against protestors, not about a riot.

This happened during 15 minutes of silence for 15 persons that died in the collapse. Everyone was silent and mourning.

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

#402

Post by pjc50 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #117
tpm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be rational if you would think killing a few (or a lot of) protesters will intimidate the rest of the country into submission. It didn't, but it could have.

But nobody thinks that way. If they can kill your friends, they can round you up afterwards and kill you. Once it gets to that point, there's no reason not to immediately organize a military response.

Military responses are very hard to organize if you're not already the military. Having a bunch of demonstrators killed is usually the final step in consolidation of power. Especially if the rest of the public isn't 100% behind the demonstrators.

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

#403

Post by pjc50 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #30

It really isn't smart to do this kind of thing. Once an organization actually attacks you, it's very easy to decide that any legitimacy they view themselves as having is irrelevant and to come back next Monday with mortars and machine guns.

> come back next Monday with mortars and machine guns

Where the heck are they going to get those in Serbia? Weren't they rounded up after the war, especially mortars?

Also that sort of thing tends not to last very long against the regular army, who have a much larger supply of materiel and are better trained. It only really works if the army flips politically against the regime (think Ceaucescu, or less violently the Carnation Revolution).

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

#404

Post by pjc50 »

photodeveloper wrote: post #102
tptacek wrote: post #19

LRADs 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.

The difference between a peaceful protest and a riot is usually just a matter of who's doing the reporting. Or whether the police have bothered to plant a provocateur in the crowd to throw the molotov that justifies the police violence.

Famously: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-278930... - which side started the violence? Was the footage shown out of order? Was the state broadcaster complicit?

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

#405

Post by pjc50 »

impossiblefork wrote: post #36
hettygreen wrote: post #8

Is 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.

You're really up and down these comments advocating the start of another war in the Balkans, aren't you? How did that work out last time, and the time before that?

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

#406

Post by mrob »

Aloisius wrote: post #318
int_19h wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

160 dB way over hearing safe. Most rifle rounds are in >140 dB territory, and that is quite sufficient to give you permanent hearing damage.

That's peak power at 1 meter for a large LRAD, not what someone 75 or 100 meters away experiences.

There will be some attenuation, but the output is focused into a beam, so you don't get the usual inverse square falloff with distance.

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

#407

Post by pjc50 »

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…

During the BLM protests US police realized that they could do serious injury with "nonlethal" rubber bullets. Several people lost eyes including a journalist.

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

#408

Post by pas »

soco wrote: post #389
_heimdall wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument here is that its okay to use against a crowd because the risk of escalation is very low.

It's acceptable only because the authorities know the masses will accept it. And what could the masses do otherwise, gather signatures? So yes, it is how it is, until the masses somehow decide it's not - and then will get gassed again. Because the masses wishing for a change are rarely in a majority and authorities usually listen to majorities.

Well, by definition yes. The job of the masses is to resist by any means available. If it starts using terrorist tactics it stops being the masses. Of course besides gathering signatures there's many other peaceful adjacent things that can be done (leftist types love the meme of a general strike, but of course civil disobedience, road blockades, and so on are all on the table), and somewhere between guerilla warfare and spray painting stencils in the night there's a fuzzy ethical line. On one side it's Taliban style "we will wait until they leave" and on the other side it's again Taliban style, but the bad things.

Mostly the masses ought to be proactive, educate itself, and so on to avoid signing conventions that have these exceptions.

Yes, I know. :/

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

#409

Post by Philorandroid »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #274
Philorandroid wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 No one said that. It was suggested that physically injuring someone in direct retaliation for property damage wasn't appropriate. Add to that the fact that riot control measures are hardly targeted. There are many non-violent options available. Sometimes rioters will escalate violently against the officers carrying those out. It's far less likely anyone objects to p…

If threat of injury is what stops someone from destroying your car, then it's appropriately leveraged.

I'm also curious, what kind of effective, 'non-violent' means are there to control the initial mob-martyrs, and ensure level-handed justice is served? Those looking to escalate will use any police activity against them or their group as justification to do so.

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

#410

Post by cnotv »

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…

I think this is the last chance for the people in power to stop messing around before US, the people with knowledge, get pissed off and take them down with force, using the technology WE make for THEM.
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