Iran, Information Speed, and Futuristic Weaponry
As sources of communication are cut off and the regime crackdown murderously escalates, developments in the Iran uprising appears to be shifting from Internet speed to a more traditional pace. If you’ve been following the story you’ve probably read many reminders that the ‘79 revolution against the Shah took nearly a year to resolve itself. I wonder how many of the folks who greened their icons as a gesture of solidarity with the marchers will still be paying close attention six months from now, or nine. We burn out on news stories faster when doled out in tiny pellets of information than we would on in the old media landscape, with its daily papers and six o’clock newscasts.
The story would already be over, though, if another developing technology was already in the hands of the regime. I’ve mentioned my fears about pain ray weapons before, but these events put the issue in a stark context. Popular uprisings against repressive regimes are games of chicken played for deadly stakes. The people confront the security forces, hoping that the enforcers willl reach a point where they can’t bring themselves to apply the degree of violence needed to suppress them. Newly effective means of non-lethal force remove this tactic from the equation. A protester can consciously decide to risk her life to stand up to a man armed with a gun, but she can’t consciously choose to keep going when pain shuts her body down.
The weapons are being designed by the US with supposedly the best of intentions. It’s better to incapacitate than kill, right? And of course the technology will only be used to quell the bad protesters, whoever those are. Which you can tell thanks to the Orwellian name, Active Denial System. And from history we know that new weapons technologies never escape their original underwriters, get taken up by the powerful commercial arms industry, or trickle down into the hands of states we disapprove of.
Widespread availability of this technology will spell the end of the popular revolt, full stop. And that’s perhaps two generations away from us.