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

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

#431

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:25 PM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #424

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compro…

It's easy to encrypt the backups (don't use g$$gle or apple clouds, of course).

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

#432

Post by spwa4 » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:30 PM UTC

snozolli wrote: post #370

spwa4 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

I agree it's weird. But it's the metric, I think, that most determines if Putin can just start another war in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years. That's my reason for why it's important. It determines the next phase of the war.

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

#433

Post by nickfromseattle » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:33 PM UTC

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.

Serbia has the 5th highest amount of civilian guns per capita. [0]

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

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

#434

Post by gruez » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:45 PM UTC

mandmandam wrote: post #395

gruez wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>1. The ban sends a clear message: chemical weapons of any kind are too dangerous to use on people. That's a good and important message to send. This is begging the question. The topic being discussed is whether "all chemical weapons (including tear gas) are bad". You can't use "we should ban all chemical weapons because it sends a clear message that all chemical weapons are bad" as a reason to justify that, it's cir…

> This is begging the question. It's not. It's about setting a clear legal line. > It's only a moral contradiction when people fall for the non-central fallacy that all chemical weapons are bad. Who's begging the question here? > You can literally say that about any other bad thing that police does. Maybe police shouldn't be doing bad things? ... And maybe supporting them when they do bad things is also bad? > This i…

>It's not. It's about setting a clear legal line.

Which one is it? Are you sticking to the exact wording of the law (ie. that all chemical weapons are banned), or the principle (that we shouldn't use substances like mustard gas against combatants)? If you're going to stick to the exact wording, you should also note that the geneva convention only applies to conflicts between countries, so chemicals weapon use by police forces don't contravene it. There's no "legal line" being broken.

>Who's begging the question here?

It really isn't, given that I have plenty of other objections that don't depend on using the non-central fallacy, and the comment you replied to doesn't even mention the non-central fallacy.

>Maybe police shouldn't be doing bad things? ... And maybe supporting them when they do bad things is also bad?

I'm not sure how you got the impression, given that I specifically said otherwise in my previous comment:

"But that's fine, because you can still object to those things even if they're not banned by the geneva convention."

>Fascists and chemical weapons are not separate questions, because fascists are known to use extreme measures when suppressing dissent; systematically escalating past all previous reasonable lines.

None of this has anything to do with the geneva convention or the use of tear gas. Moreover this presumes that if it wasn't for tear gas, police would stand down, when realistically speaking they'll just escalate to more lethal weapons.

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

#435

Post by consteval » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #297

hellotomyrars wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who defines what counts as a riot? The people who have the state-sanctioned monopoly on violence are the ones who get to decide when a protest becomes a riot or unlawful assembly. I’m not saying they’re always wrong but when only one group gets to pull the card that allows them to shut down protest it creates perverse incentives.

> Who defines what counts as a riot? Practically, the media and the public at large. I forgot the source, but you can pretty much directly see the negative effect of e.g. bridge blocking on public sympathy for a cause.

I don’t think this is true. In order for the media to consider something a riot there has to be some violence. Gone are the days of print media, we expect videos now.

But it’s trivial for police to incite violence. We saw it all the time in the US during BLM protests. A protest starts peacefully, then the protesters are pushed by riot control, then rubber bullets are fired into the peaceful protest, and now it’s not peaceful. Sometimes the protesters would even get surrounded and flanked so they can’t escape the descent into a riot.

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

#436

Post by perching_aix » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:46 PM UTC

CaffeineLD50 wrote: post #430

perching_aix wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They'll use whatever methods they'd have resorted to beforehand, obviously. If that's beating then it's beating, if it's water cannons it's water cannons, if it's rubber bullets it's rubber bullets, if it's nothing it's nothing. Probably a mix of these.

What is the point of this conversation again? Oh right, according to you they were going to get steamrolled by tanks and shot if that fails. No, I don't think that's what would happen, not in Serbia specifically right now. Is it possible they'll get there? Sure. Just not the likely option, for now. Does having a sound cannon rule that option out? Also no. But ultimately I don't know why anyone would even entertain such an outcome, short of them somehow enjoying the thought of people suffering or dying. Which I'm pretty sure is why you were asked by that other user, whatever the fuck is wrong with you.

But let's go even further! Are there potential benefits to using something like a sound cannon as opposed to the aforementioned? I can certainly think of a few. But instead of bringing those up and actually characterizing the topic further, you were entirely too busy trying to ridicule and mock whoever you could, and try to frame others as wanting people's deaths. Was having a discussion on this ever really a goal for you at all? Is this how you discuss other things with other people too?

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

#437

Post by consteval » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:49 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #203

mrob wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Are chemical irritants preferable Absolutely. You can heal from those. LRADs are maiming weapons designed to cause permanent damage. Under any reasonable legal system their use would be considered a war crime.

LRADs are not designed to cause permanent damage. They are explicitly designed under the intention of being a way to disperse a crowd without long term harm. There hasn’t been much research on long term health impacts, but it’s not a tool to maim people. https://phr.org/our-work/resources/health-impacts-of-crowd-c...

I don’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to realize loud noise = hearing loss.

Just intuitively, I know many people with degraded hearing from concerts. And that hearing is gone, that’s how hearing loss works.

I think the people who designed these weapons aren’t anywhere close to stupid enough to think these won’t cause long term damage. Which means that the only explanation is they INTEND for them to cause long term damage.

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

#438

Post by consteval » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:53 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #417

Philorandroid wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Your disagreement essentially amounts to "it's appropriate because it accomplishes my goal", or do I misunderstand? In a discussion of ethics that seems specious to me. > Those looking to escalate will use any police activity against them or their group as justification to do so. As I previously pointed out, once rioters escalate against the officers themselves most people are unlikely to raise objections to targeted…

Also important to note, most of the riots I have seen don’t start with the protesters escalating. It depends on the country, but based off of what I have seen, it is almost always the authority who escalates. Often, there is preemptive and disproportionate riot control.

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

#439

Post by red-iron-pine » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 1:53 PM UTC

hayst4ck wrote: post #415

cnotv wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They already know words are meaningless and don't count for anything. Democrats have been trying to use words to get their way or even compromise and republicans fully understand they don't have to pay attention to them at all. Threats are laughable. If democrats had any power they would have used it. Their inaction is proof of their impotence. Words don't matter, only actions matter. "upvotes don't count." A street…

to paraphrase another person: if you're posting it online on a public social media channel, it doesn't matter.

the stuff that's going to change the government, for the better or worse, is going to get the FBI and Secret Service on you, and you're not saying on that on the front page of reddit.

every twitter meme that makes the rounds, every sneering HN post is a sign of impotence. if there was real opposition DOGE would be afraid to go to offices. the best the US Dems can do is spray painting a few Tesla offices (save for one in Oregon that had some bullet holes, done well after closing).

The Jan 6th rioters were fascist rubes, but at least they had the balls to go.

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

#440

Post by cue_the_strings » Mon, Mar 17, 2025, 2:00 PM UTC

neilv wrote: post #16

I wonder how the engineers and scientists who contributed to that less-lethal weapon feel about it.

I will always have more respect for prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers and thieves than people working in "defense".

Even an exceptionally violent and prolific gangster could never come close to contributing to the suffering of as many people as your regular MIC employee, no matter where they're employed.

If I were to try to imagine how I could realistically inflict the most suffering on the world, the clear answer would just be "get a defense job", I really couldn't do any worse than that no matter how hard I tried. Maybe starting a defense company would be worse. Team work makes the dream work, as they say.