A group of teenage boys gets a hold of one of these or figures out how to build one. Gee, wouldn't it be funny to turn this on someplace crowded for a laugh? Like a mall, or a parking lot or a county fair? Wouldn't it just be hilarious to watch as people trample their own children to get away from the invisible pain maker?

You're not saying anything they can't already do with guns or even firecrackers (say, M-80s).

I also bet the transmitter and power supply are big enough that you aren't going to be able to do home grown versions of it anytime soon. Same reason you don't see teenagers running around with home grown microwave blasters -- a technology that's just as invisible, far more dangerous and has been around for decades. Your view of humanity seems to be considerably worse than mine, and that's saying a lot.

It's an interesting extension of the "humane warfare" that some countries, U.S. included, have been trying to engage in.

60 years ago, if someone shot rockets at your military base, you bombed the bejesus out of their entire country. You hit them so hard, they didn't want to hear the word "war" again for another century. You killed a million people and firebombed their cities.

These days, Israel gets bombarded daily with random rockets, and when they get tired of it, they go invade the area where the rockets are coming from, only to be sitting there with tanks versus stone throwing teenagers. 60 years ago, maybe they would have just shot everyone and no one would be the wiser. These days, it's considered rather rude to shoot someone just for throwing rocks at you, so you basically sit there for a while, then go home and wait for the rockets to start firing again. Non-lethal methods of dispersing people are what's left for them to look for because we've moved past simple brutality.

It is quite a large step in the right direction we've made. We use tasers where Iran uses bullets and we use pain beams where China uses tanks. Is that not worth a little something?

The significance of a pain device as a torture technique is rather interesting, too. During the battles around Iraq, American and allied troops discovered a number of torture chambers where they don't worry about leaving marks and indeed, the Saddam era Iraqis weren't that worried about simply killing the victim, much less leaving marks. Here we are worried about leaving a scratch on a terrorist we're interrogating while political prisoners under Saddam were lucky to come out with all of their parts.

I understand the wish that we could be all ponies and unicorns, but we really have come quite a long way from what a lot of other places in the world are still doing.

The real problem is that when it comes to violence, only one side has to want it. If the police want ponies and unicorns and the crowd wants to smash stuff, well, stuff is getting smashed. Ponies and unicorns only work if everyone wants them.

Ah, I was just going to say the same thing L'Elk did! For all we know, this is the guy who bought it from the thief, or even bought it from the guy who bought it from the thief. That still means he's worth finding, since he can finger the bad guy, but we shouldn't assume he's the thief.

Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

Dammit, now I've got "Stayin' Alive" stuck in my head...

(I particularly like the hat.)

Wow. That's going to really make it difficult to discuss proper gun handling to your children, should they ever handle one. ("But mommy has one and she just points it at her head like this and pulls the trigger like this...")

Perhaps addressing the causes of the riots rather than addressing their means of control would be efficacious.

That's an interesting question and I think it speaks to the heart of a great divide between the conclusions people like us would arrive at.

You seem to suggest that all issues can be resolved if people just sit down and talk it through. There's no need for riots and tasers if we just have a sit down meeting and reach a compromise that everyone can live with.

It's a nice thought. I wish it were true.

The reality is that now and then you encounter groups of people who want something that has no compromise, and they want it really badly and while the majority don't want it, this group won't take no for an answer. Eventually they're going to engage in physical protests that quite possibly includes the smashing of anything near to hand.

How you can best handle this is the question.

There is a case to say that you should be as barbaric as possible. Certainly the Iranian and Chinese governments support that route. They would have no interest in a pain-generator. They would much rather wade into the protesters with tanks, guns, batons and tear gas. They want to make sure that nobody ever wants to protest again. The more barbaric you are, the more teeth you leave on the street when it's over, the better, from their perspective.

You believe the choice is "violence or non-violence". I believe that there will always be some groups that force violence and your method of answering them is either going to be "lethal force" or "non-lethal force". I favor non-lethal when possible and I support devices that make that a better option.

Making sure they aren't misused is a given. That's true for everything from plastic toys to nuclear missiles.

However, the incendiary tone will only serve to polarize factions of belief instead of encouraging benevolence and productivity.

Well, this may be a bit off-topic, but that is the way the media is going these days. I always see headlines on Fox, CNN, NBC, etc, that make me shake my head, because the headline is such an incendiary exaggeration. It's meant to grab your attention. "Read this!" They don't want to say that a suspect in a shooting worked at Walmart, was taking anti-depressants, like pizza and played video games. They want to say, "VIDEO GAME CAUSES RAMPAGE". It may not be accurate but hey, you'll wanna click that link!

A recent example was right here a few days ago. An article was quoted that made it sound like Germany was enacting a terrible new law against copying any type of media, and it turns out that the quoted article was almost entirely wrong. Media lives or dies based on readership and sometimes I think the need to be dramatic ends up trumping the need to be accurate. That website surely benefited from the BoingBoing linkage, but they got all that extra web-advertising money through dishonesty (or poor reporting, which is just dishonesty with an excuse).

I understand the BB editors don't have time to deeply research everything they post -- they're relying on the trustworthiness of their media sources. It's something we all have to help guard against: that incendiary tones and creative interpretations aren't allowed to trump basic truthfulness.

Always read these stories with a grain of salt and an eye towards manipulative wording.

That right there is precisely the kind of thing you need if you're going to shout, "THIS! IS! SPARTA!" and kick someone down a hole.

The people (commenters) who are against this kind of technology need to be aware of what they're really asking for.

Riots will occur and riot control devices will be needed. Whether it's a "pain ray" that makes you want to go away or high powered water hose that sweeps you off your feet and cracks your head on the sidewalk is the real issue. You're not going to be allowed to run around and smash the city to bits.

TASERs can be used to zap people much as guns can be used to kill people. Tools like these are unfortunately necessary and the big issue isn't whether we should have them or not, it's how closely regulated their usage should be.

The biggest mistake with the TASER was in not implementing a nationwide policy for their use. Different police forces have different rules, some stricter than others. TASERs and pain-rays need specific rules of engagement just like batons and pistols do.

Oh, now that's what I like to see!

A lot of the "steampunk" devices posted here haven't really done it for me, because while they look cool, most or all of the cool looking bits were just added on for looks and don't do anything.

This one actually looks functional -- big water tubes that actually carry water for a purpose. And a few extra valves never hurt anyone. I love the oversized bolts holding on the side window, too: functional, and cool looking!

I wonder if the gauges on the back actually measure anything? I couldn't read the language that linked the post was made in. :-p

User bans are typically done to stop vandalism. I've never heard of a vandal who sneaks back in and posts good debate material, only to have that deleted too, especially after people have replied to it and started a discussion with it!

The first essay from the link has some real gems:

In the present cultural climate, altering one's beliefs in response to anything (facts included) is considered a sign of weakness.

Indeed it is. I think it was Clinton that was always derided for "waffling" on issues. Isn't that what you're supposed to do, though, as an open minded individual? As new facts come in, people need to be able to change their opinion. I'm far more suspicious of a person who never changes their opinion than one who changes it frequently. Politicians shouldn't get shafted simply for changing their mind! As long as it's for a good reason (and not, e.g., massive bribes).

...students must comprehend that it is not only possible but absolutely vital that we criticize each other's ideas firmly yet civilly.

True indeed. From what I've been reading in the comments section recently, this may be a lesson that BoingBoing itself needs to learn.

It is absolutely vital that ideas be criticized, provided it is done in a civil manner. I've seen a lot of good, civil debate here, but I've also seen a number of good, civil, but dissenting posts that weren't there next time I looked, or had all of their vowels stripped, making them very difficult to read.

Maybe reading that essay will help settle things down. Adding comments back to BoingBoing is either the best thing ever or the worst thing ever, depending on how opposing opinions are handled.

Those are staged tears, just as his famous malapropisms are also staged. Bush is in fact a fairly intelligent man who has read over 60 books recently and also reads newspapers. His public personae is carefully managed by Machiavelli student Carl Rove.

Wow, are you serious, or just pulling our leg?

It sounds like we've come full swing. Instead of Bush being an idiot and a puppet of the oil corporations, he's now an evil genius, master of all he surveys! I guess he is whatever works best in each individual person's conspiracy theory.

If you're having to adapt facts to fit your theory, then your theory is probably wrong.

Somehow this reminds me of the scene with the Sicilian in Princess Bride.

This site was always good enough for me:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html

Basically debunks the biggest 9/11 theories.

Sure, you could suppose that the debunkers are lying, but then, why use the internet at all if you're only going to believe the bits that agree with you? In that case, you clearly already know all the answers and can safely sign off.