The Reality of Ray Guns

Sep 25, 2007 13:50

This scares me.

Granted, the article is meant to be a bit sensationalist. But. Yikes.

science, articles, weapons

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Comments 4

threadwalker September 26 2007, 16:35:41 UTC
Um yeah, especially as we're already teaching troops torture techniques. Wow. No recourse- you won't even be able to show it was done. Wow. Yuck.

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stellae September 27 2007, 10:11:05 UTC
Indeed. I mean, generally, I think it's cool when stuff that was science fiction starts to be somewhat realistic. For instance, I personally would love to be able to travel in outer space someday.

But this reminded me way too much of the Box of Pain in Dune, the very idea of which bothered my 14-year-old self so much that I couldn't read any more of the series and unnerves me to this day. Sigh.

I wish sometimes the world weren't the kind of place where I worry about how new technology is going to be abused in warfare before I get to be interested in what it's doing. I can think of a lot of positive ways that this kind of noninvasive neural microstimulation could be used to really help people, especially with certain kinds of neurodegenerative diseases. Essentially, adaptations of it could eventually turn into a sort of touch sensory aid similar to certain varieties of hearing aids and other neuroprosthetics.

But no. We're using it to hurt people (and potentially torture them) instead. Mad.

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lnghnds September 29 2007, 02:11:42 UTC
But this reminded me way too much of the Box of Pain in Dune

I thought of exactly the same thing!

And yes, this sort of thing scares the shit out of me. Just thinking about how this sort of technology can extrapolate and the consequent misuses gets me too worked up to really think about it.

Oh, and hi..btw...it's Dan. :)

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stellae September 29 2007, 02:56:58 UTC
*wave*

Hi Dan!

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