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Ray Gun Puts Voices Inside Your Head
Sportsqs writes "The Sierra Nevada Corporation claimed this week that it is ready to begin production on the MEDUSA, a damned scary ray gun that uses the 'microwave audio effect' to implant sounds and perhaps even specific messages inside people's heads."
It's more scary than cool.
The article at NewScientist says:
MEDUSA involves a microwave auditory effect "loud" enough to cause discomfort or even incapacitation. Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums.
Also from NewScientist, a member of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois in Chicago who has also worked on the technique has commented that while feasible, attaining the necessary volume might involve power levels that could cause neural damage.
Paranoia is serious. I lost a best friend of many years to paranoia when he became so convinced that the government was out to get him that he hung himself. This very week my brother in law attempted suicide due to his hallucinations that involve his believing that the FBI is invading his mind. He is now being held under the Baker Act for 72 hours. Just maybe a different prescription might quiet his hallucinations. Paranoia can and does frequently cause murders where the sufferer becomes so convinced that someone is out to do him harm that he strikes first as a desperate act of supposed self defense.
Believe it or not mental illness means nothing in Florida. If you are so crazy that you think Santa Clause is an FBI agent out to kill you and you strike out that does not meet the standard for legal insanity here. The idea that you feel it is right to preserve your own life will be taken as proof that you have a knowledge of right and wrong, Society is sick.
TFA doesn't give much in technical details, but as I understand it, they are using the human skull as a heterodyne circuit. Basically mixing two microwave signals inside the skull to create audio.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14250-microwave-ray-gun-controls-crowds-with-noise.html
Nothing sucks like a Vax, nothing blows like a PowerMac G4
Tasers are a great example of why you can't trust your end user.
A Taser was designed to replace a gun. "Instead of shooting someone, you can INSTEAD tase them to incapacitate them."
Once they got into the hands of the end users, the got into usage creep. "Fighting is hard work. I'll use the taser." "Arguing takes effort. Taser." "Talking meh taser."
Now they're used for when you owe the bus driver a dollar.
(Despite what the article states, they have said in radio interviews that they use the tasers for non-compliance, including non-payment of fares.)
They're being overused as a compliance tool instead of their intended purpose, which was to prevent acute lead poisoning.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
Everything in your post is informative, up to the statement that "paranoia can and does *frequenttly* cause murders..." I work in mental health, and have had experience with the circumstances you describe. However, there are 1000's of more paranoid folks who don't go on to commit homicide/suicide than those who do. Just a quick google turned up this:
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/318/7193/1225
which estimates roughly 8% of homicide perpetrators having contact with the mental health profession, but that certainly doesn't equate to them all being paranoid, or even having a true psychiatric diagnosis.
http://www.psychlaws.org/BriefingPapers/BP11.htm
puts the a conservative estimate around 9%-15%, but again this is all mental illness, not just mental illnesses that involve paranoid ideation which is certainly less,And finally here:
http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/355/20/2064
cites a study showing an approximately 5% prevalence rate of schizophrenia amongst persons convicted of homicide. Now I understand this is orders of magnitude higher than the general population, and there is certainly an increased risk of self-inflected injury or homicide as compared to folks who don't have a history of schizophrenia. But the fact still remains that the overwhelming majority of folks with a psychiatric illness, including paranoid schizophrenia are not at risk for perpetrating violence against themselves or others.
Not necessarily disagreeing with your post, per se. Just pointing out the other side of the equation as there is a common misconception that those with mental illness are a risk to themselves and others.
thx,
jeff