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Microwave Pain Ray Keeps Frost From Killing Crops
An anonymous reader writes "Philip K. Dick's novella Project Plowshare was set in a world where deadly new weapons are 'plowshared' into consumer products. A few years after that book was set, defense giant Raytheon is spinning its raygun-like Active Denial System from a weapon into an agricultural tool to prevent frost from damaging citrus and grape crops."
So now they're going to microwave my food before it's even done growing? That's...nice...
Imagine the fun we could have with one of these on a corn field.
...and most of the former Eastern Europe, they used old T-34 (with turret removed) as tractors in the 1950'ties and 1960'ties.
No, not the usual "In Soviet Russia..."
The boundary of effect on the pain ray is pretty distinct. There was an episode of Futureweapons a while back where the host and some colonel were standing a few feet apart from each other; one was affected by the pain ray while the other wasn't.
So, you could aim the edge of the beam parallel to the ground to avoid any undesired effects to the soil (if there even are any - I'm guessing that the beam doesn't penetrate very far at all).
As for other wildlife, I would assume that birds and such would learn to avoid the area the same way people would.
why do people work for Raytheon? What sequence of moral thoughts goes through their heads?
Because they're also producing agricultural tools perhaps? Say it's for the money if you want, but results are results.
Okay, so the agricultural application is a recent development. And the military-industrial complex is full of greed. But if your question is whether anyone at all can work for a defense contractor with a clear conscience, there are—believe it or not—still people who hold onto the hope that the American military is in fact capable of bringing about more freedom and democracy in the world, no matter how poorly it may have been used recently. Just because you don't see it that way doesn't make them wrong. Not to mention, there are also people with enough knowledge of history to understand that, even if defending our home soil from invasion by a conventional foreign military is a farfetched idea right now, the only reason it stays that way is because our military is so damned powerful.
("To turns swords into ploughshares" is cynical nonsense, of course - why really? Is it just the money?)
Attempting to metaphorically turn swords to plowshares is uncynical, almost by definition. Or are you saying they're disingenuous when they say that?
"This algorithm runs in constant time. Come on, 2,147,483,648 is a constant..."
I don't think greed is an actual issue. I would imagine that there are two distinct major camps of people that work for Raytheon and similar companies. People that feel that they are doing the right work, and people who just don't think about it at all.
Some people who work for these companies (a friend of mine included) genuinely feel that they are doing the right work. They've come to the ethical conclusion that Raytheon and similar companies are doing work that makes them and other people safer. Think 2nd Amendment types who scream about the need to have a personal arsenal of weapons with which to "defend" themselves. Not that I agree with these people, but it's a legitimate perspective.
Then there are people who just don't think. I would say that this is the minority of the people who work in the more intellectual ends of the military industry. You have to remember that half of people are below average, and it doesn't relate just to academic (or cognitive) intelligence. Socioaffective (or emotional and interpersonal) intelligence is also an important mental factor. These people view their work in the same way that all of the rest of us view our work, just something to do between 9am and 5pm every weekday.
Of course, there's variations on the theme, but I'd say that in the end 90% of people in the military industry can be categorised one way or the other.
On behalf of the rest of the world; please don't bring us any more "freedom" and "democracy".
I might be wrong here - but doesn't the fact that microwaves pass through ice crystals more easily than squishyt fleshy stuff mean they'll cook the oranges and leave them with a light dusting of frost?
"Pain that's too cheap to meter!"
Some such rubbish was spouted about civilian application of nuclear technology (which also started as a weapon).
Or more realistically, how about private & city lands covered in helpful signs like:
"Keep off the grass. Violators may experience discomfort or agony!"
"Keep out. Or else."
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It may shock you to learn but plenty of people are perfectly ok with the idea of developing weapons. They understand that human history is fraught with wars, and that things often go badly for the losers of those wars, sometimes they are completely wiped out even. Thus they are fine with the idea that we ought to have the very best weapons for our own military. They understand that even if the US did give up all armaments, the rest of the world would not.
People work for Raytheon because it is a place where you can do interesting engineering, and they aren't troubled by the fact that it has military applications.
While you can certainly say the world would be a better place if humans stopped fighting, you are naive if you think that Raytheon stopping the development of armaments would lead to that.
Maybe this "Active Denial System" could be deployed on ships to ward off Somalian pirates? I mean, deploy a series of these around the perimeter of the deck of the ship, so the crew doesn't actually need to aim them, just flip a switch. This would create a "ring of pain" around the ship. The crew can be holed up in their safe room.
First Mate: "Captain! There's pirates off the starboard bow!"
Captain: "All hands to the safe room!"
In the safe room . . .
Captain: "Now let me read the instructions. Set power to 1000 W. Cook until pirates have fled. Cooking times will very depending on how tough or tender the pirates are.
Meanwhile, back at the pirate cove . . .
Pirate #1: "How was your pirating today?"
Pirate #2: "Terrible, I am like totally fried . . . "
Unfunny Comedian: "Thank you! Tip the veal, try the waitress . . ."
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Compared with advertising it's relatively squeaky clean in terms of morality.
was proposed in a 70's IEEE publication I read while killing time at the computer center help desk as a student.
It was thought at that time that microwaves could be used safely to heat the occupants directly, without raising the
ambient temperature. Apparently this idea did not fly after later scrutiny.
What sequence of moral thoughts goes through their heads?
"Non-lethal weapon are better than lethal weapons".
"Let's give violent resolution of conflicts a non-lethal possibility".
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
After looking at the body of a dead girl, slaughtered for the crime of going to school, I decided that wasn't happening to my daughters while I'm alive. The idealist bullshit here is nice, and I bought into it until I realized that the consequences would be slavery. Literally. War is a disgusting, brutal thing, but I now know why it's worth it.
Are you just going by the Slashdot article summary, or are you actually aware of what Raytheon builds? No-one who applied to work at Raytheon assuming that they build peacemaking equipment to reduce the suffering of war would be given a job - it'd be a classic case of showing a lack of interest in your employer at interview.
Are you aware of who Raytheon contracts to and for what purposes their clients buy those tools, or are you assuming that all its clients fight wars for defensive purposes and with the aim to create a minimum of suffering?
Raytheon isn't staffed by idiots, and, "well, they don't really know what's going on," isn't an answer. Because they know what's going on, I want to understand how they justify their employment. Everyone so far has come out with one of the extremes:
Is that all?
You might not realize this, but very few people in the US still seem to have an issue with greed (or sloth and gluttony, for that matter). No, the real issue people tend to have with the military-industrial complex tends to be the whole killing people for money (again, very few people in the US seem to per se have an issue with the military killing people). The fact that "killing people" has changed to "defrosting oranges" doesn't really change the amorality of it, any more than the various unethical WW2 German and Japanese medical experiments being collected and used by Allied doctors after the war (fruit of the poison tree and all). In short, that's why there's a question of morality in this instance.
Yea, um, you don't bring freedom and democracy with a gun any more than you bring religion with a sword. That is, while it might eventually have that effect, you do so only through amoral means and potentially leaving a multi-generational grudge against its foundation which is likely to eventually unshackle people from that imposed following/belief once they become enlightened to just what was done to make so many people follow along. If there does exist any real long-standing system of belief that can and should be followed, subjugating people to follow it isn't the way for that system to exist. Of course, I like how you use the word "freedom" instead of liberty. Considering one of the main tenets of liberty is a lack of outside coercion, it'd be clear why we couldn't spread that through force even if we wanted to.
That'd be a point, if that's what we were developing the technology for. But, clearly this sort of technology is more a "what if" of technology in that regard; if it came down to defending the border, I'm pretty sure the military would prefer killing the armed invaders, not merely causing them pain. So, instead, the technology seems only well suited for other military and non-military applications, directed at unarmed civilians (this agricultural benefit seems in the same scope of university researchers who claim just about anything they do, no matter how mundane, has military application). In short, yes conceptually a need for a military is prudent. But, unless a person has joined the military or defense contracting in some fashion with the mind to change the military towards that just end, then simply riding along with the colossus with some lofty ideals rings quite hollow. Those who are working for change, though, I can see being, if not with a clear conscience, at least with one that's a lot less murky than those who would first excuse the military or defense contractors' actions and only perhaps later acknowledging that in a very limited circumstance, those actions might have been not entirely warranted.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Yea, um, you don't bring freedom and democracy with a gun any more than you bring religion with a sword.
Bringing religion with the sword has been wildly successful. Islam, for example, is the largest religion in the world today precisely because of its military efforts in the first few centuries of its existence. Bringing freedom and democracy doesn't work as well because those things require voluntary participation of the group you're "freeing". If they don't want it collectively, then it won't stick.
That's just plain ignorant. Islam is the largest religion in the world today, but not for that reason. Islam was primarily spread via traders. They'd go in to a principality and tell the local ruler that they'd cut them a discount if they converted. They'd also promise to share their technology with them. At that point in time the various Islamic centers of learning were advanced, I mean really advanced, compared with just about everybody else.
That's the reason why there's so much diversity and it's such a large religion. It's not really that different from the local royalty in Europe deciding what religion the people of their township would practice.
1. I've read The Zap Gun (Dick's novel-length version of Project Plowshare ). The "plowsharing" metaphor is heavily ironic: "plowshared" consumer goods are useless, or purposeless, or trivial, or outright annoying -- e.g. there's a talking ashtray named "Ol' Orville", if memory serves.
2. "Operation Plowshare, better known as Project Plowshare, not to be confused with the anti-nuclear Plowshares Movement, was the overall United States term for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes."
-kgj
In my experience, there are a lot more of us defense contractors on slashdot than the angry anti-raytheon guy would like to admit. Anytime I post anything related to intelligence or military operations, I'm pleasantly surprised at the amount of quality discussion that ensues (rebutting the tin-foil hat, dirty hippie, libertard majority that linger around here).
Let's set the basis for discussion.
First, can you agree that "war" - with all its ugliness, misery, and violence - is sometimes a moral and justifiable course of action? You don't have to agree that it always is, or even that it "frequently" is - but if we can't agree that some use of military force is morally justified, then we have no basis for discussion, and I'll call you a smelly treehugging hippie, you can call me a dirty miltaristic ape, and we can stop the conversation right there.
If we can agree that sometimes war is justifiable, then let's back up and consider a couple wars that we can probably consider to be justified - the NATO involvement in the Kosovo war, and the UN involvement in Operation Desert Storm back in the early 90's. Both of these involved HEAVY multilateral diplomacy from NATO & the UN, and in both cases, diplomacy failed. I don't want to bring the current conflicts in Afghanistan & Iraq into this because both are fraught with politics far beyond the scope of whether or not the conflict there is justifiable, and I've no wish to sit here engaging in "Bush Lied People Died" / "Freedom Fries for Patriots" bumper-sticker-level bullshit soundbites - it's counterproductive, and neither side is capable of being objective about it.
So, diplomacy failed in Kosovo & Kuwait, and regrettably, the only course left was to deploy military forces in order to end the fighting in Kosovo & to restore Kuwaiti sovereignty. In other words - American, Canadian, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, British, Irish, French, German, Belgian, Spanish etc (name a country if yours was involved and isn't on this list - it's not an exhaustive list by any means) boys and girls were going to be fed into a meat grinder in order to accomplish the goals that diplomacy had failed to achieve. This is a horrible decision, and should never be made lightly and without long, sober thought.
Now, is where we're going to diverge I suspect. In a case like that, where young men and women are being deployed into a warzone on behalf of me and/or the rightfully elected government of my country, I consider it my absolute moral imperative to provide those young men and women with the best weapons and defensive tools my mind can create for them, in the hopes that every single one of them will come home to their families and other loved ones safely. If that means they're facing down people with machetes and rocks with an M-60 and a Blackhawk helicopter, I don't give a shit about the force imbalance there - if the citizens of the country that we're facing were too poor or too immoral to provide their own young men and women with better weapons, that's not my problem - they're not acting on the behalf of my government, they're not acting on behalf of me, and if it were up to me, they'd lay down those rocks and machetes, make nice, and let all of the young men and women from MY country come home.
Asking an 18 year old from New Orleans (or Galway, or Beijing, or Moscow, or... name our city) to charge a hardened bunker full of Serbs with nothing to lose, using nothing but a pistol and a folding knife because we've "abandoned defense research" is immoral. Suggesting that telling a group of 18 year olds pinned down in a deadly ambush that "sorry, we don't have any A-10's available to provide close air support because we've abandoned defense research and engaged in arms limitation treaties, looks like your toast kids" is fucking monstrous, and should be considered a war crime on the part of the military those young men and women belong to.
What it boils down to is this: if war is occasionally, unfortunately, justifiable & necessary, then you prepare to prosecute that war as hard, deadly, and effectively as you can. That means it is moral to develop new weapons in the service of that aim, and that it is immoral to not protect and arm your troops as well as you can afford & design. If you are willing to ask someone to fight and die for your country in the military, you owe it to
Well your question is provocative, implying that it is morally wrong to work in defense. I merely posit that your view point is more out of the mainstream than the slashdot community thinks, based on how many of us willingly work in defense with none of the moral anguish you are implying.
Apparently you don't know Jack.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Very true. It worked wonders for the Europeans when they conquered South America.
While a lot of military expansion certainly did happen under Islamic leadership, it really isn't the largest religion in the world. Not even close.
Islam has somewhere between 1.1 and 1.3 billion followers. Christianity somewhere between 2.1 and 2.3 billion. But nice try though.
North and South America is close to exclusively Christian. Most of sub-Saharan African is as well.
India is 80% Hindu and a "paltry" 140 million Muslims. China has somewhere between 20 and 100 million. Even the "massive population" in the middle east only amounts to about 346 million people, and not all of them are Muslim. Hell, the largest population of Muslims in any one country is in Indonesia, where some 88% of its 230 million inhabitants are Muslim (202 million).
By comparison the US of A counts between 58 and 82% Christians (179 to 253 million). In the EU it's about 75% (some 375 million).
So yeah ... we, the people in the West, are certainly under siege by a religious army that far outnumbers our own numbers. I mean - we barely have a two to one advantage. That's so unfair.
Islam may get a lot of airtime in our media, but then again - so did (not really in a)-balloon-boy, Michael Jacksons death, Janet Jackson's nipple and Miss (OMG, same-sex marriage is like so gay, ya-know) America. And while quite a lot of that attention is negative, because some idiots are blowing themselves up, stoning women and otherwise behaving like idiots, why should we judge all of them by the behaviour of a few loud idiots?
How would people in the US feel, if the rest of the world judged them, by the behaviour of a small minority of their idiots? Wait ... you already know what that's like, and they keep telling us that it's unfair to judge them in that way.
Anyone who claims that isn't too familiar with tyranny.
You are asking that somebody justify taking a job in the defense industry based on morality. I can only guess you suggest that means it is inherently immoral, otherwise you wouldn't be seeking justification.
I can justify it on two grounds. The world needs a defense industry and it is a lucrative and rewarding career. I could just as easily design training for banking, government, insurance, but defense pays better than all of those, and there is nothing immoral about the industry.
I'm not disagreeing that war is sometimes necessary if your aim is to prevent even greater human suffering.
I would question the nature of involvement in Kosovo and Kuwait. 20th century Kuwait, like Israel, is an artificial construction of British retreat designed to maintain regional resource and military control. Historically governed from Basra with a degree of autonomy, it was defended by Britain from the Ottoman Empire having gained total control of Iraq. Yet when that Empire fell and Britain took the baton, it held on to both but kept them governed separately. Blah independence, Blah naval control of Persian gulf, blah oil, you know the rest. We used our might to separate the two because it was in our interest, then we used our might to keep them separate - perhaps this is moral, but it's not a question without contention.
To briefly reinforce some of your points:
I consider it my absolute moral imperative to provide those young men and women with the best weapons and defensive tools my mind can create for them
For them.
That means it is moral to develop new weapons in the service of that aim
In the service of that aim.
Yes, we can go on into arguments that governments will sometimes misuse their military, and that governments will sometimes involve us in conflicts that are NOT justifiable and moral.
But what if our Western governments are currently almost exclusively involving themselves in offensive wars for the protection of special interests? What if it's not the pathological exception, but the norm? Do you then argue, "Well, it's still moral, because while all these weapons of effective destruction are mostly being used to kill immorally, they could also be used to kill morally"?
using nothing but a pistol and a folding knife because we've "abandoned defense research" is immoral.
False dichotomy. Are you quite sure that Raytheon is producing weaponry which is appropriate for quick, effective and minimally cruel destruction of an offensive force, rather than weaponry optimised for effective long-term oppression? You don't just research how best to kill, you research how best to kill in a particular context.
"sorry, we don't have any A-10's available to provide close air support because we've abandoned defense research and engaged in arms limitation treaties, looks like your toast kids"
Why not just double funding to the military? Why not require criminals to act as human shields? Why not pre-emptively nuke every country which looks at you wrongly, just to ensure that all American and British soldiers' lives are kept intact?
Military volunteers should be aware of the risks, and should be aware that military management is a resource allocation and diplomacy problem as much as it is a problem of technological development. Military volunteers should be aware that one option is to simply nuke Iraq and Afghanistan and start again from scratch, and that this might reduce the chance that they're gunned down by the enemy. But this would not be appropriate from a diplomatic or humanitarian point of view.
Finally, I do find it difficult to understand why people have such a respect for the lives of their own military vs the lives of civilians in an enemy country. Is the aim of war to defend our country against invaders (so why Kosovo?)? To defend peaceful traders against tyrants? To reduce human suffering? To protect our interests home and abroad?
Sure, you could argue that Kuwait was a construct of the western powers after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but if you want to argue that, then you must also concede that modern Iraq is primarily a result of that same process. In which case, Iraq had no more "right" to Kuwait than anybody else. We can argue the merits of carving up the Ottoman Empire after world war 1 ad nauseam, and point out how it laid the groundwork for much of the conflict in the present middle east, but you can't say "Kuwait was historically governed by Basra" without also conceding that modern day Iraq, which encompassed modern day Basra, had very little resemblance to the Basra that used to govern Kuwait.
Then it is up to us to elect wiser politicians and stop this trend, and demand more emphasis on diplomacy. As I noted in my final sentence, "it is also your moral responsibility to ensure that your government does not misuse those tools for immoral ends." I am not saying diplomacy is irrelevant or useless by any means, it should always be the first, and most heavily used "weapon" in international relations. That governments will use weapons of war immorally is not an issue with the weapons of war themselves - it is an issue with the governments being elected. I'm not saying the way things are is perfect, and that no changes or further regulation are needed.
Because there are practical limits to the size and amount of money you can spend on your military without running the rest of your country into the ground.
Because it would be immoral to force someone to give their life in defense of something they have not volunteered to serve.
Because a war that wants to have a claim at being "justifiable" should make serious (reasonable) attempts to limit the deaths of non-combatants and limit collateral damage.
Because they are *my* military. I - through my lawfully elected government - am asking them to put their lives in grave danger on my behalf, and am asking them to walk a tremendously fine line - do violence to those who oppose them and their mission, and do little-or-no harm to those who are peaceful non-combatants. Yes, civilians are killed during a war. It is unfortunate, and I am sorry for all of those civilians who are killed. But if you look at the development of weaponry you're decrying the development of, huge amounts of development - smart bombs, camera-equipped drones, night vision advancements, laser-guided and satellite-guided cruise missiles - all of this is aimed at *precision* - being able to strike *exactly* at the target you wish to, while minimizing damage to surrounding people & infrastructure.
I would say that a legitimate, justifiable, moral war could be fought on any of these grounds. Defending your country against invaders is certainly reasonable; protecting traders against tyrants is simply a subset of "protecting our interests at home and abroad," and I believe that these are also legitimate aims of war where diplomacy and regulation have failed. And reducing human suffering is also a le
It's funny because that's a common Christian theme - that they're persecuted, that they're the underdogs, the minority, even when they have an overwhelming majority. It's a lot easier to feel self-righteous (another Christian theme) when you think you're downtrodden. Just look at the "War on Christmas"! Oh noes, WalMart greeters are saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas"! Help, help, we're being oppressed because a large company is acknowledging the fact that not everyone is Christian!
Which one of the 270,000 results? How about the first, you idiot.
And if you don't, we'll keep bringing it to you until you do.