

"Pain gun" gets deployed in Afghanistan - tomerico
http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/18/raytheons-pain-gun-finally-gets-deployed-in-afghanistan/

======
code_duck
Oh boy! I'm looking forward to when this is deployed on US citizens. It will
only be a few years out, you know. Maybe it will be another great innovation
like Tazers, which police can use to attack citizens as an alternative to
being civil. Need a handheld version first, though. I guess this model will
only be good for repressing protests.

~~~
hugh3
Even if you don't think it's likely to be used against US citizens, I imagine
the Chinese Government is not far behind in the development of this sort of
technology.

~~~
code_duck
Indeed, and each will be selling such technology to other governments
eventually.

------
Rhapso
Finally, a weaponized mobile microwave gun! If you are afraid of getting hit
by one of these, do not wear contacts! You can handle melted plastic on your
skin, but you do not want it on you eyes (contacts have a lot of water in them
thus they would heat up fast. Unlike your eyes, contacts melt)

~~~
wtallis
How hot do contact lenses need to be to melt? I would hope that by the time
your contacts could absorb enough energy to melt, you would already be in
enough pain to force your eyes shut.

~~~
Rhapso
There has yet to be a real study of such things, but... there is info like
this out there

<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1702897/posts>

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg18725095.600>

if too much water on the skin causes horrible burns I do not want to think
about what would happen to the water in contacts or even in your eyes.

------
raganwald
Given both of our countries' track records, if the police had easy access to a
device that could inflict great pain without leaving a trace on the human
body, the ethics of crowd control would be the least of my misgivings.

------
mfukar
I find it disturbing that an article about a new kind of weapon is neutrally
worded, with a positive spin at the end.

~~~
mseebach
If anything's disturbing, it's that it's on a gadget-site, usually devoted to
cellphones, gaming consoles and other consumer playthings.

~~~
maqr
I think the death ray in general is a kind of neat concept, in an evil way; so
that makes sense. But yeah, it's disturbing.

------
paul9290
Here's a video about it from The History Channel
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmuyLIrSjxI>

------
DanielBMarkham
Never before in the history of humanity have governments been able to
effectively control each person in a large population so effectively as today.

A famous general once said "It is well that war is so terrible — lest we
should grow too fond of it."

This has the same problem as tazers: some things are supposed to be difficult,
ugly, and nasty to do, like bringing a population to bear under rule of law,
or convincing an unarmed (or lightly-armed) mob that there is no need to
protest. The folks that think that these things are somehow more humane are
living in a delusional world. These things only solve a short-term problem at
the expense of creating a much worse problem later on.

Having said that, they also look very interesting in terms of doing things
like patrolling the North Korean border. Hard to launch an invasion if all of
your soldiers feel like they are on fire. And I support the use in Afghanistan
-- there are lots of good things these tools can accomplish.

But overall I think this is a step backwards, not forwards.

~~~
hugh3
_Never before in the history of humanity have governments been able to
effectively control each person in a large population so effectively as today_

Compared to, say, ancient Egypt?

~~~
DanielBMarkham
Yes.

There's a problem of scale with any centralized authority. While it's
relatively easy to have total control over a population of a few thousand,
span-of-control problems mean that multiple levels of managers must be
involved the larger the populace.

Note that I am not saying that folks are more _oppressed_ now than at any
other time in history (aside from obvious examples). I am saying that the
ability for a central authority to monitor and control each person's behavior
has scaled enormously.

Every large enough organization experiences a tremendous degree of infidelity
between the authority's wishes and how those wishes are actually carried out.
Most folks look at some huge thing like, say North Korea, and think that there
is one person completely in charge, and on paper it looks like that. But
reality doesn't work like that at all. Instead central authorities in large
systems constantly have to use persuasion, politics, and marketing tactics to
get their wishes fulfilled. This was true with ancient Rome and much as today.

So there is a constant give-and-take between the ideals and plans of leaders
and the zeitgeist of the ruled. This, along with regularly-changing
leadership, allows organizations to learn and adapt. Effective organizations
embrace this tension and provide a means for regularly changing course,
sometimes in a dramatic way.

But what if leaders didn't have to worry about all those middle-level guys and
discontent? What if you could have one central person/group that could monitor
each person's actions minute-to-minute, applying various forms of non-lethal
pain every time the person steps out of line? Don't like the food prices and
want to go downtown to yell at the leaders? Well maybe we'll let you feel like
you are on-fire for a few minutes and see how likely you are to try that
again. Caesar doesn't have to worry about the Senate or governors in the
provinces or the mob any more -- with computers and non-lethal population
control, he can effectively manage hundreds of millions as easily as he could
some bloke sitting in front of him in the same room.

The state-of-monitoring discussion is for another thread. The key point here
is that monitoring and control becomes a lot more palatable if nobody is
getting hurt, so by inventing lots of forms of non-lethally controlling folks,
leaders can squeeze tighter and tighter. Never before in history has it been
that way. When the United States passed prohibition, everybody nodded their
heads and drank anyway. Over time, it was painfully obvious what a disaster
prohibition was. It's not that way today. Back then, to enforce prohibition
you had to have tens of thousands of cops and FBI agents who were true
believers and willing to harm and kill people to enforce the law. Those people
simply didn't exist. The people who passed prohibition had morals, righteous
feelings, and a majority vote on their side, but they wanted the impossible
from the population.

Today we're cutting way back on the systemic checks -- it only takes one true-
believer in prohibition somewhere in the government to do some data mining of
cell phone locations over time to easily find out where all the gin joints
are. It only takes one or two guys to deploy some non-lethal force on those
establishments to make them off-limits -- all without the nasty political
fall-out of people harmed or killed -- or the practical requirement of
actually having a big enough percentage of the population that supports
enforcement (instead of just enactment)

We live in an incredible time in history. We're seeing this massive system of
state control develop on a scale that would boggle the minds of folks just
fifty years ago. I'm hoping for a century or two of Pax Romana before we end
up with a Caligula -- but I wouldn't bet on it.

------
tocomment
Could this be used a form of "organic" pest control. Would it deter insects
from crops? If nothing else it would seem to keep birds away from berries,
etc.

~~~
motters
That's a good point. You might be able to have a rotating beam passing over a
crop, although if aimed at the crop it might have a negative effect due to the
surface water heating aspect. Perhaps there are particular frequencies which
might be effective against insects, but leave crops unharmed.

~~~
qohen
Raytheon, the maker of this system, is already pursuing agricultural
applications, though apparently they are focussed on preventing frost-damage
(via Slashdot): [http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/06/25/raytheon-
turns...](http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/06/25/raytheon-turns-swords-
into-plowshares/)

~~~
motters
The other problem would be that only a minority of insects are pests, and
others are beneficial. You wouldn't necessarily want to deter all insects.

------
lwhi
Its deployment will lead to an increase in the use of moderate force to
control groups of people.

If the actual weapon is classed as non-intrusive, it could potentially be used
in situations where Police wouldn't usually use force. Political protests,
general non-cooperation, etc..

The idea worries me a lot. The people who invent this kind of thing really
must be quite peculiar, to be able to function without moral objection.

------
bombs
If it was able to penetrate a car body, it'd be a great asset for checkpoints
and roadblocks — surely better than live-round warning shots. Do they have
those anymore? It'll help in riots and other such things, I'm sure.

It sure is a nice, big target for insurgent RPGs though! I wonder in what ways
it'll be protected — even mounted on a heavily armoured vehicle, the dish
would be vulnerable to damage, right?

~~~
billswift
Home-made ARAD designed to home in on the device's frequency, sure it's a
narrow beam, but there are ways around that.

------
robryan
Does this thing have the ability to do something low level enough for people
to feel it without any real discomfort? I think if it works like that it would
be the only setting you need 99% of the time people would just scatter knowing
they didn't want what was coming next.

~~~
wtallis
There are ways to turn down the amplifier (by reducing the voltage to the
cathode or the cathode heater), but it would be more practical to simply turn
on the device before anybody gets close enough to be subject to really intense
radiation.

------
dhughes
I wonder if metal mesh clothing, a wearable Faraday Cage, would defeat this
device similar to the screen used on microwave ovens.

From what I have read it's been fine-tuned to a specific frequency that
penetrates the skin so far and is prefect for causing the nerves to react. If
so it should be easy to create a suit that would nullify the effect using a
metal mesh suit and helmet.

------
mrbgty
What kind of protection could be used to block it?

~~~
dagobart
And, given that it heats water, what if it gets applied to someone in heavy
rain, say with clothes soaked? Would it go so far to effectively boil the
person?

------
korch
I bet this contraption is trivially circumvented for less than $100 of gear.
It's just microwaves, and there are many ways of shielding and rending them
inert. But it's fantastic that DoD spent billions to create this high PR
weapon that they will probably never use effectively.

------
gaius
I bet most of the outraged commenters went right back to playing Call Of Duty
2: Modern Warfare after that.

