Seems tech may have received some upgrades:
https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/06/27/238884/the-penta...
There was also a hot-air balloon program that would persist at stationary at high altitude and track all moving targets over a metropolitan area for up to a month without maintenance.
The news article which said the project was called "Basilisk Stare", seems to have vanished now though from all search results. Edit: Maybe I'm misremembering and its actually Gorgon Stare.
They could do this with a single (bajillion dollar) military radar slung from the bottom of a plane over Iraq 15yr ago.
The current tech is probably cheaper and better.
Urban sprawl is an effective defense against protests. You tax buildings and convince everyone that single-family living is the best, and do some rent controls that won't actually help rent, so that people think dense housing and rentals are inherently bad. Then they'll spread out thin across acres of land in single-story detached houses.
Even though this costs more in infrastructure and requires everyone to maintain a car, and car insurance, people seem to be okay with it.
But then, with everyone spread out, public spaces hostile to any kind of sitting, and no public toilets (America doesn't pay to piss! Because we have no public toilets at all!), it's difficult to find parking for a big protest, it's difficult to carpool with the strangers you live miles away from.
In any city that's too small to be walkable, it's hard to consistently show up to protests even when you want to, because the car dependency adds a lot of friction.
csb6•4mo ago
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
therobots927•4mo ago
I’m not disagreeing but I am saying that unfortunately I think many voters are completely fine with the boomerang effect.
buyucu•4mo ago
lovich•4mo ago
They are operating under a parasocial delusion that the president knows about their problem, cares about their problem, and will fix their problem so any issues are transitory and don’t require them to update their beliefs
powerhouse007•4mo ago
trod1234•4mo ago
I'm with the greeks on this, which is what they try to communicate in and through their stories.
TL;DR
The gods exist, they walk among us, they are powerful, they look just like humans, they are intelligent cruel deceptive and capricious. They are not there for your benefit.
You survive your encounters with them by being observant and measured, and follow a framework based in objective reality which could be intelligence and a fair bit of luck; or you don't.
Not all religions have all powerful protective father figures that will shield you from everything stunting and coddling you. Most in fact don't if you pay attention.
This gem is littered throughout greek mythology especially heavily in the Odyssey.
fnicfnac•4mo ago
powerhouse007•4mo ago
keernan•4mo ago
They know liberal governments won't engage in similar activities.
xg15•4mo ago
bediger4000•4mo ago
asdff•4mo ago
tw04•4mo ago
potato3732842•4mo ago
More or less identical thought pattern as when someone on HN is gushing about punitive fines for petty civil nuisance behavior or noncompliance with bureaucratic stuff, something everyone here should be familiar with.
Different issues, same evil.
churchill•4mo ago
More like WILL. It's the nature of all empires, first to grow, and then to shrink. But, the empire's mechanism of repression won't suddenly become humane and forget all its tools and tactics for torture, rape, extralegal imprisonment, etc. As the shrinking empire causes friction at home, those same techniques will be unleashed to suppress dissenters.
Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction doesn't save you from this either, because you can still group your red-blooded countrymen into those brackets arbitrarily once you have plenary powers.
PostOnce•4mo ago
Predator drones can monitor protests, but so can the phone company, only in greater detail, with knowledge of exactly who everyone in the crowd is, how long they've been there, where they came from, where they went when they left, who their friends are
asdff•4mo ago
trod1234•4mo ago
We don't actually know how these entities do certain things because they don't have credibility, and it is well known that they lie to protect tradecraft.
xboxnolifes•4mo ago