quote:

"Where do I put my finger? There ... OK? Nothing's happening ... is it on?"

"Yes, it's on. Move your finger a bit closer."

"Er ... ow! OW!" Not good. I try again. "OWWW!" I pull my hand away sharpish. My finger is throbbing, but seems undamaged.

I was told people can take it for a second, maximum. No way, not for a wimp like me.

I try it again. It is a bit like touching a red-hot wire, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. There is no burn mark or blister.

Its makers claim this infernal machine is the modern face of warfare. It has a nice, friendly sounding name, Silent Guardian.

I am told not to call it a ray-gun, though that is precisely what it is (the term "pain gun" is maybe better, but I suppose they would like that even less).

And, to be fair, the machine is not designed to vaporise, shred, atomise, dismember or otherwise cause permanent harm.

But it is a horrible device nonetheless, and you are forced to wonder what the world has come to when human ingenuity is pressed into service to make a thing like this.

Silent Guardian is making waves in defence circles. Built by the U.S. firm Raytheon, it is part of its "Directed Energy Solutions" programme.

What it amounts to is a way of making people run away, very fast, without killing or even permanently harming them.

That is what the company says, anyway. The reality may turn out to be more horrific.

I tested a table-top demonstration model, but here's how it works in the field.

A square transmitter as big as a plasma TV screen is mounted on the back of a Jeep.

When turned on, it emits an invisible, focused beam of radiation - similar to the microwaves in a domestic cooker - that are tuned to a precise frequency to stimulate human nerve endings.

It can throw a wave of agony nearly half a mile.

Because the beam penetrates skin only to a depth of 1/64th of an inch, it cannot, says Raytheon, cause visible, permanent injury.

But anyone in the beam's path will feel, over their entire body, the agonising sensation I've just felt on my fingertip. The prospect doesn't bear thinking about.

"I have been in front of the full-sized system and, believe me, you just run. You don't have time to think about it - you just run," says George Svitak, a Raytheon executive.

Silent Guardian is supposed to be the 21st century equivalent of tear gas or water cannon - a way of getting crowds to disperse quickly and with minimum harm. Its potential is obvious.

"In Iraq, there was a situation when combatants had taken media as human shields. The battalion commander told me there was no way of separating combatants from non-combatants without lethal force," Mr Svitak tells me.

He says this weapon would have made it possible because everyone, friend or foe, would have run from it.

In tests, even the most hardened Marines flee after a few seconds of exposure. It just isn't possible to tough it out.

This machine has the ability to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.

What makes it OK, says Raytheon, is that the pain stops as soon as you are out of the beam or the machine is turned off.

But my right finger was tingling hours later - was that psychosomatic?

So what is the problem? All right, it hurts, but then so do tear gas and water cannon and they have been used by the world's police and military for decades.

Am I being squeamish?

One thing is certain: not just the Silent Guardian, but weapons such as the Taser, the electric stun-gun, are being rolled out by Britain's police forces as the new way of controlling people by using pain.

And, as the Raytheon chaps all insist, you always have the option to get out of the way (just as you have the option to comply with the police officer's demands and not get Tasered).

But there is a problem: mission creep. This is the Americanism which describes what happens when, over time, powers or techniques are used to ends not stated or even imagined when they were devised.

With the Taser, the rules in place in Britain say it must be used only as an alternative to the gun. But what happens in ten or 20 years if a new government chooses to amend these rules?

It is so easy to see the Taser being used routinely to control dissent and pacify - as, indeed, already happens in the U.S.

And the Silent Guardian? Raytheon's Mac Jeffery says it is being looked at only by the "North American military and its allies" and is not being sold to countries with questionable human rights records.

An MoD spokesman said Britain is not planning to buy this weapon.

In fact, it is easy to see the raygun being used not as an alternative to lethal force (when I can see that it is quite justified), but as an extra weapon in the battle against dissent.

Because it is, in essence, a simple machine, it is easy to see similar devices being pressed into service in places with extremely dubious reputations.

There are more questions: in tests, volunteers have been asked to remove spectacles and contact lenses before being microwaved. Does this imply these rays are not as harmless as Raytheon insists?

What happens when someone with a weak heart is zapped?

And, perhaps most worryingly, what if deployment of Silent Guardian causes mass panic, leaving some people unable to flee in the melee? Will they just be stuck there roasting?

Raytheon insists the system is set up to limit exposure, but presumably these safeguards can be over-ridden.

Silent Guardian and the Taser are just the first in a new wave of "non-lethal" weaponry being developed, mostly in the U.S.

These include not only microwave ray-guns, but the terrifying Pulsed Energy Projectile weapon. This uses a powerful laser which, when it hits someone up to 1 1/2 miles away, produces a "plasma" - a bubble of superhot gas - on the skin.

A report in New Scientist claimed the focus of research was to heighten the pain caused by this semi-classified weapon.

And a document released under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act talks of "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - i.e. cause the maximum agony possible, leaving no permanent damage.

Perhaps the most alarming prospect is that such machines would make efficient torture instruments.

They are quick, clean, cheap, easy to use and, most importantly, leave no marks. What would happen if they fell into the hands of unscrupulous nations where torture is not unknown?

The agony the Raytheon gun inflicts is probably equal to anything in a torture chamber - these waves are tuned to a frequency exactly designed to stimulate the pain nerves.

I couldn't hold my finger next to the device for more than a fraction of a second. I could make the pain stop, but what if my finger had been strapped to the machine?

Dr John Wood, a biologist at UCL and an expert in the way the brain perceives pain, is horrified by the new pain weapons.

"They are so obviously useful as torture instruments," he says.

"It is ethically dubious to say they are useful for crowd control when they will obviously be used by unscrupulous people for torture."

We use the word "medieval" as shorthand for brutality. The truth is that new technology makes racks look benign.

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Originally posted by Bardock42
The torture idea you brought up was the first thing I thought about too. If it is really like they describe it (though I assume it can't be quite like that), it would make it amazingly easy to make someone's life a living hell. Not even to gain information, but just for sadistic purposes. Imo, such a weapon has incredible potential to be harmful, though, there is probably not really anything that can stop it.


Now, how is that for an end of time scenario though, two superpowers (of course lead by incredibly crazy people) create such a weapon to each encompass one half of the globe. Now those two things switched on make for a ****ing great end of humanity, don't they?

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Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
On the plus side, the crazies wearing tinfoil might be immune.

Although, that's an excellent strategy...keep the enemy from getting resources by keeping them inside.

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Zeal Ex Nihilo
On the plus side, the crazies wearing tinfoil might be immune.

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Robtard
So I take it people prefer we go about war the old way and just bomb and shoot people instead?

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Bardock42
Nah, nah, just...you know...not be fried for 50 years of your live non stop...that's what most people prefer I think.

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Originally posted by Robtard
Sure, this can be used as an effective torture device, then again, you don't need this to torture people. Also, no one could take that much pain indefinitely, they'd go into shock, just like using conventional torture techniques. So all we really have, is just another way to possibly torture someone. On the plus side, a rioting crowd could be pacified without having to gas them and crack their heads with batons.

quote: (post)

Originally posted by Bardock42
It has no doubt advantages.

But that doesn't mean we can't discuss the bad ways such a technology will certainly be used.

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Originally posted by Robtard
Of course, then again, I could misuse a $40.00 dollar microwave and torture someone with it, same goes for a #2 pencil or a tin of beans.

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Originally posted by Devil King
I think the truely sad matter of fact in this discussion is that a non-leathal device has been created, and in the year 2007, we have to worry about how our government will abuse us, and others, with it.

Besides, discussing how our government will abuse us with it is a bit of a moot point. If we've heard about this technology, the government already has it, and will likely develop it as long as they think it's useful to them, somehow.

If the microwaves didn't interfere with his mechanical heart, I have no doubt people like Cheney would masturbate all over it.

quote: (post)

Originally posted by dadudemon
1. Is that you for Halloween in your avatar?

2. Everyone can be pacifists all they want...that will not stop the rest of the world from being idiots and jerks who cause pain and suffering.

When will humans evolve beyond the need for war and weapons?

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Originally posted by dadudemon

When will humans evolve beyond the need for war and weapons?

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Originally posted by inimalist
are you proposing that humans will biologically grow the equivelent of an ak 47 based on selection pressure?