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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

#421

Post by immibis »

tonyhart7 wrote: post #385
martin-t wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thinking is dangerous and wrong. You cannot fight against violence without violence. Violence is most effective when it's implied/threatened, before it is materialized. The goal of protests are: 1) To serve as a show of force (they are literally called demonstrations in some languages because you demonstrate your ability to organize and act - large numbers of people are capable of large amounts of violence). 2)…

"You cannot fight against violence without violence." well you wrong, in fact you can. latest news is US Navy bomb houthi as we talk right now You cant do violence if you well die , it is effective

Is it a nonviolent bombing?

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

#422

Post by immibis »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #293
vkou wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, the moment a single cop lobs a tear gas can at a peaceful protest, is the moment when the protest starts doing damage to its cause? That would explain why they seem to be so eager to employ violence against peaceful protestors.

> the moment a single cop lobs a tear gas can at a peaceful protest, is the moment when the protest starts doing damage to its cause? No. The trigger was "a protest that was starting to get a bit rowdy." Not a peaceful protest that gets gassed. The latter is extremely effective at generating public sympathy.

So all the cops have to do is send one of them undercover to throw a couple of bricks, and then they have casus belli to gas the whole protest.

Ever wondered why protests always turn violent very shortly after the government decides it's time to disperse them?

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

#423

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

jbm wrote: post #317
macintux wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"whataboutism" is pernicious, widespread, and devastating to civil society.

No it's not. People make grand statements all the time and appeal to values they claim are universal. Then when you hold them accountable for the fact that they value they are claiming is not the same as the values they have supported, you get the "whataboutism" canard thrown at you. If you support "Freedom of Speech" and support prosecution for speech, then you do not support freedom of speech. Even in a steel-manne…

Sure it is. The fallacy here is focusing on the messenger: THEY do this, THEY do that, if YOU do this, if YOU do that... But the messenger is not the topic.

Instead, focus on the initial charges and whether they are factually correct. The messenger doesn't matter. They could be a total hypocrite, they could have 0 values, they could eat babies, and still be 100% right on the issue. Not to mention, other messengers say the same thing, and attacking them won't make the claims incorrect, either. This is why the phrase "don't shoot the messenger" exists.

When you use whataboutism, you behave at least as poorly as the person you claim has no values, or who you claim is a hypocrite. This is because you yourself refuse to criticize the behavior present in the initial charges. How does sinking to what you believe to be their level, help resolve the initial charges?

tl;dr: there's a reason why 'no u' is considered a joke and not a serious defense of one's behavior

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

#424

Post by hayst4ck »

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #390
energy123 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing is for sure. These technologies don't make protest or revolution any easier. They give asymmetric power to whoever wields them (the state) against whoever doesn't (a loose collection of angry people on the street without the same tools). 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. Survei…

The encryption gives asymmetric power to the people. Tor and Matrix for communications that can't be broken by the rich, no matter how powerful. Bitcoin for free transactions, vpn and torrent for the media etc.

You have a lot more faith in technology than me. There is a strong history of compromising data at rest (such as in phone backups) and getting metadata either directly or through side channels. It's not very hard for me to imagine a system that tells you who is talking with who, when, and with what IPs no matter how anonymized you think you are. That all assumes good opsec too.

My understanding is that Tor was compromised several years ago.

Pegasus alone means that once you become a target, you're done.

It also means these "defenses" are only generally available to the technically savvy.

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

#425

Post by immibis »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #367
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 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…

Outrageous, out of the question, and practiced at 99.9% of protests that disagree with the government's foreign policy.

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

#426

Post by K0balt »

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…

FWIW there was some nice MILsurp LRAD kit on eBay a few years back. Looked like there was some corrosion but repairable, possibly functional in its current state. Wasn’t the truck sized one, but big enough (about 1m emitter) to do what is seen in the video. Sold for around 3000 iirc lol. I don’t think anyone knew what it was or it would have sold for a lot more. The seller had no idea, or at least wasn’t letting on if he did.

So, it’s not like LRAD is controlled like SAMs or something. Also, pretty trivial to build. Idk what the IP looks like on it , but back of the napkin you can build a 1kw unit for around $7000 buying the parts at retail. The expensive bits are the transducers. Everything else is a few mosfets and MCU/software.

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

#427

Post by Fluorescence »

impossiblefork wrote: post #399
defrost wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution is then always an organized military response. In actual history, not always, and not that often. Case in point, for example, the Peterloo Massacre : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterloo_Massacre took place at St Peter's Field, Manchester, Lancashire, England, on Monday 16 August 1819. Eighteen people died and 400–700 were injured when cavalry charged into a crowd of around 60,000 people who had gath…

I think Britain is special. It's always been about repression, Richard II said "You wretches detestable on land and sea: you who seek equality with lords are unworthy to live. Give this message to your colleagues: rustics you were, and rustics you are still; you will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example in…

> Richard II

You quote someone famously deposed by rebellion and died in prison as an example of uniquely British repression preventing revolution?

It's absurd and toxic to claim the sentiments of Richard II are uniquely British. European monarchies are better understood as an interconnected transnational class. Richard II aka Richard of Bordeaux, born in the presence of the kings of Castile, Navarre and Portugal, married the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor and then the daughter of King of France...

> Here in Sweden though, when we have attacked the government we have generally been successful

Oh? Möre uprising, Västbo peasant uprising, Värmland rebellion, Böda Uprising, Morning Star rebellion... etc. all suppressed and leaders executed.

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

#428

Post by Vilian »

impossiblefork wrote: post #383
mmooss wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Once there's violence targeting you, the politics is over You are missing the fundamentals: violence is the continuation of politics, and is resolved by politics. > If someone has attacked you and there has been no apology or attempt to solve the situation, he must be eliminated. Really? If someone assaaults you, you must "eliminate" them? That is bizarre, extreme, dangerous behavior. People have become highly indo…

I don't really agree that it's necessarily a continuation of politics. It's an interpretation of things from Clausewitz. It's to some degree a great interpretation, explaining certain aspects of warfare, but you choose the role that your violence plays. You can make it an extension of politics, you can make it simple self-defence, purely a matter of destroying your enemies. >Really? If someone assaaults you, you must…

Even in warfare, what dictate the end of it is politics, most war stop because of that, killing yourself just because "gun go brrr" in a democratic country is stupid, and probably is going to back fire, no one normal like people shooting each other for nothing and putting innocents in risk

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

#429

Post by Vilian »

Cyph0n wrote: post #265
mmooss wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds bold and exciting, but it's clearly false and terrible advice. Violence, like warfare, is politics by other means. Every expert knows that law of warfare - the first law of warfare, in a sense - that it ends when and only when there is political agreement. Even in warfare, violence just buys time and changes your political position. In countries with rule-of-law, you can use the political / legal system t…

Read some Fanon, then come back and review your comment.

He still right, nonviolent means are effective, go ahead start shooting each other in front of a school because "violence is the only mean" and see how many support you

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

#430

Post by CaffeineLD50 »

perching_aix wrote: post #374
CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What's going on is that you just refuse to accept that going back to the Serbian government not having a sound cannon, and simultaneously that not resulting in a Tienanmen scenario, would plain be a possibility. I tried my earnest to extract it out of you why exactly you're stuck in this state, but short of you being maximally insufferable and equally sure of yourself, I was not able to get anything out. All the whil…

OK, the govt doesn't have a sound cannon. Now they politely tolerate protest?

Or they fire warning shots and arrest everyone?

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