US Military Tests Non-Lethal Heat Ray 420
URSpider writes "CNN and the BBC are reporting on a US military test of a new antipersonnel heat ray. The weapon focuses non-lethal millimeter-wave radiation onto humans, raising their skin surface temperature to an uncomfortable 130 F. The goal is to make the targets drop any weapons and flee the scene. The device was apparently tested on two soldiers and a group of ten reporters, which makes me wonder how thoroughly this thing has been safety tested. The government is also appealing to the scientific community for help in creating another innovative military technology: artificial 'black ice'. They hope to deploy the 'ice' in chase scenarios to slow fleeing vehicles." We discussed the military's certification to use the device last month.
if i recall correctly (Score:5, Interesting)
so what will happen with the OUCH ray is that someone will get hit in the eyes, and be blinded. or with the black ice, as any hockey player/ fan will tell you, someone will do a perfect backward fall and wind up with a concussion or brain damage
all i'm saying is that the nirvana of the perfect nonlethal crowd control/ imlpement of war is not very easy to obtain. all you do is trade in one kind of potential for damage/ death for another kind of potential for damage/ death. tragedy is not so easily avoided. we don't live in a world where improbable and deadly accidents never happen, and we don't live in a world where everybody has agreed that violence ion the name of advancing yout agenda isn't the answer (no matter what your ideology, from the right or the left)
Isn't this "ray" easily blocked? (Score:5, Interesting)
Stopping Fleeing vehicles try a HERF Gun (Score:3, Interesting)
and
HERF Gun: Make it in your basement [slashdot.org]
Supposedly the High Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) burst will disrupt all the electronic components in an engine. My understanding is that the Coast Guard is already using these to stop fleeing motor boats (sorry no link) and the air force is researching a HERF weapon to knock all the electronics in a area USAF Detachment 8 Continues US Research Into EMP-Microwave Weapons [defenseindustrydaily.com]
that's just the thing (Score:4, Interesting)
The only people against you'd want to use a non-lethal weapon is, well, people you don't want to give a lead poisoning in the first place. Like civilian demonstrations. That's what worries me. It's not a weapon of war, it's a crowd control device. Same as rubber bullets and water hoses, only a level meaner: when was the last time you heard of those used in a battle? It's not the kind of thing you'd win an offensive with, it the kind of thing you'd use to keep people from protesting against a puppet pro-USA dictator.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
"Iraq" is a stalking horse (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Torture (Score:3, Interesting)
OBLIG. MLK Quote: (Score:2, Interesting)
-- Martin Luther King, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence [americanrhetoric.com] (April 4, 1967)
Re:Useful Against Insurgencies (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I agree (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, the scientific method requires random assignment in order to prove causation, so you can't volunteer for a group. You'll have to take the coin flip like the rest of them
and needless to say, your participation in your own idea for an experiment negates the 'double-blind' nature of the experiment
btw, yes IAASR (I Am A Science Researcher)
PS I know that your post is meant to be a joke, but you'd be surprised how many students entering my Research Methods class don't see the problem with letting participants volunteer for their condition!
Re:split opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
Well not to pat myself on the back but I knew it was coming too, and that's with my piss-poor American public school education.
"What every terrorist fears most is human freedom -- societies where men and women make their own choices, answer to their own conscience, and live by their hopes instead of their resentments. Free people are not drawn to violent and malignant ideologies -- and most will choose a better way when they are given a chance."
Haha! I didn't watch the speech, because I can't stand to hear the man speak, and I didn't read about it either since I knew what he was going to say.
That's just a twist on a clasic Bush line. He used to give a much more direct and even more ludicrous statement when he was explaining why terrorists would want to attack the United States: "They hate us for our freedom." Oh man, that one had me rolling in the isles. Also crying, because a person who believes that (not that Bush necessarily does, but many believe it because he said it), then they have absolutely zero chance of ever understanding terrorism.
My personal favorite example of how ludicrous this whole line of thinking that Democracy will make everything okay is when the Palestinians voted in Hamas. The West's reaction was basically: Oh shit, you weren't supposed to be that free!
Ultimately, it's not democracy that makes Westerners, well, Westernized. It's a couple of thousand years of shared culture, history, and civilization. Democracy is an expression of the underlying mindset of the West, not the underpinnings of that mindset. It took the West a long time to get its societies to the point where they could support democracy. It took France a 150 years to build a supportable Republic, and France had one of the longest traditions of liberal Enlightenment thinking in Europe! How could anybody be stupid enough to think that we could have pushed Iraq to do it in a few years, much less a few decades?
Yeah, my history education was shitty and Euro-centric, but damn do I find it amazing that so few of my fellow Americans seem to remember this simple fact. Just like so many don't seem to appreciate how great our debt to France is. Is it any surprise that they also thought that getting rid of Saddam Hussein would turn Iraq into Oklahoma overnight?