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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   25231 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 30, 2023

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Using AI controlled infrared lasers to blind people. The AI looks for people's eyes and when it detects them, it aims the laser and gives the eyes enough of a blast to roast them. Being infrared makes it difficult to know where it's coming from, it turns a combatant into a permanent liability, and the threat of one of these sitting around would be psychologically damaging. It's fairly cheap, non-lethal, and could be deployed in all kinds of ways (mount it on a drone, a small stationary platform collaborators could put in their windows, whatever).

Directed energy weapons are going to be the next big thing. You can make an area really uncomfortable to occupy without permanently harming anyone.

Agreed, it's a shame this didn't come immediately to mind when I first replied to this post, since in my own novel this is a valid technique, the only reason it's not used more is precisely because countermeasures have been adopted, such as enclosed helmets that filter everything through redundant cameras. Oh, and they can replace the burnt out eyes with ease, it's 20 years in the future.

Right now it would be absolutely devastating and cheaply, at least for Infantry as we know it.

That's already banned.

Just set it to not intentionally roast the eyes worse than 20/200. Some accidents may happen, but that's war. If they've got binoculars or sunglasses, they're probably fair game for a full on blast by my reading of the 'rules.'

Is it possible to modulate the resulting vision of the target by modulating the laser in some way? I would think that the exact level of vision is primarily determined by the shape of the lens, whereas whether or not you have vision is primarily determined by the status of your retina, and a blinding laser weapon would be good at damaging the retina and perhaps the lens, but not so good at precisely choosing what shape the lens will take on. They're not strapping these folks into chairs like a LASIK procedure, after all.

Is it possible to modulate the resulting vision of the target by modulating the laser in some way?

Well, LASIK exists.. But I think it's a much harder problem in the middle of a battle if you're not just content to burn eyes out for good.

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