Tech Wars In Meat Space

Starfish writes: "Police and protesters are asking if new technologies used by both sides will turn street protests into bloodless, but also meaningless rituals. Real protest robots, phaser-like weapons, and other cool gadgets are discussed in this Village Voice article. Good heads up about the Ruckus Society's tech action camp in October."

Comments

Re:Cops will have the bots...

[BadDoggie]

It's worse than that. Non-lethal weapons are more likely to be used because they are non-lethal (http://austin.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_ id=590) And because the repercussions are lower when non-lethal force is used in any crowd control situation, the police are that much more likely to use such force, and using as a defense "I was in fear for my safety and the safety of my fellow officers. It was just a beanbag/foam/pepper spray. At least I didn't kill him." And you can't really argue with that because there is a need to have police, a need to protect the police who protect you, and there is also an easily understood concept that when you have to make someone stop doing something bad, it doesn't necessarily mean you have to take his life -- worst case you Rochambeau.

Would I rather be shot by a beanbag or a bullet? Not a tough choice, that one. But the rules of engagement change with non-lethal weapons and the threshold for their use is lowered by virtue of the fact that they generally don't kill -- not intentionally, anyway. It becomes much easier to pull that trigger.

I could write a dissertation here, score a five, get some cool responses and maybe some E-Mail, but I don't have the time or resources. There's a lot of information about this; check out some of it. Google, teoma, even Yahoo.

Let me note that the military's use of non-lethal weapons has historically been to disarm/disable an enemy so that lethal force could then be used, from the days of catapulting rotting carcasses into the keep to the gas attacks of WWI.

woof