This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

Note: I couldn't decide whether to post this to society or to health, in the end I think it's more important that people interested in the protests see it, but feel free to move this.

I have not seen an LRAD from up close, I'm going from what is available online and my knowledge of acoustics. There's a lot of misinformation floating around that could be dangerous for protestors, so I'm trying to clear up the worst of it.

What are LRADs/sound cannons?

LRADs are incredibly loud highly directional loudspeakers capable of reproducing medium to high frequencies. They can be used for communication, but they can also be used for playing tones or alarms at volumes so high that it completely paralyzes a person even with ears covered or earplugs inserted. This mode can easily cause immediate permanent hearing damage.

This is what they look like (sorry for daily mail link, but it's a decent current article)

The police in Minneapolis did not use it as a weapon yet afaik, they only used it to amplify voice and threaten to actually use it, so hopefully there was no harm done unless someone was standing close to it. However I think that in current political climate we have to assume that this can change at any time.

Benn Jordan's video on LRADs is wrong

I have seen links to a video by Benn Jordan on LRADs posted again in various places. Ignore this video and warn anybody who posts it as it's completely wrong and you are going to get hearing damage if you listen to it. Benn Jordan did not do his research and is shockingly lacking some fundaments of acoustics, I could write a whole post on that, but let's focus on the most imporant thing:

The video is about ultrasonic modulation speakers, whereas afaik all of the common LRADs are "just" incredibly loud normal loudspeakers. Here's a teardown that makes it obvious, some evidence can be found on the manufacturer's website as well.

Which means that most of what he says in the video simply does not apply. Most importantly, a piece of stiff glossy paper or plastic foamboard, which people on reddit or youtube keep posting about, will not help at all, it will do nothing, and if you ever try to rely on it, you're going to get hearing damage!

What does help?

The only thing that truly does help is always keeping your distance from an LRAD and/or at least standing far enough from the angle in which it produces maximum volume, which is about 15°. I believe a relatively safe distance without any hearing protection would be about 200 meters (about 650 feet) for the loudest models, but even then it just gives you time to GTFO.

If you need to be closer, wear earplugs. Soft foam earplugs cost almost nothing and may prevent hearing damage (but not if you're close and the LRAD is used at maximum volume). Something like this will provide more isolation. If you expect to be close to an LRAD, wearing large over the ear protection, as strong as you can get, with earplugs underneath is a good idea. Even that won't shield you from 150+ dB, so do not ever get too close.

A stiff, large and heavy shield will help. There's a link at the bottom with more information. However this only shields direct sound, and sound reflects off things, so if you're near a wall, or in a narrow street, you may still get dangerous volume levels just from reflected sound. I think it's usually safer to stay mobile than to carry around a heavy shield.

This interesting article provoked a lot of thought...

We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower .... archive.is link

You want to destroy the Western rules-based order that has preserved peace and security for 80 years, which allowed the US to triumph as an economic superpower and beacon of hope and innovation for the world. What exactly would you do differently with your marionette other than enact the ever more reckless agenda that Donald Trump has pursued since he became president last year?

Nothing.

For the 80 years since the end of World War II, the US model of innovation, trade, and economic hegemony has been built on a foundation of six seemingly inviolable traditions and policies held steady across both Republican and Democratic administrations:

(1) easy access of immigrants to the US, particularly its unparalleled world-class schools and universities;

(2) rich and steady government support of higher education, medical research, and laboratories;

(3) broad and ever-more-frictionless trade access to US markets and, reciprocally, a flow of US products to the rest of the world;

(4) a firm, unyielding, and unquestionable adherence to the rule of law at home that made the US a predictable and safe place to create, build, and do business at home; and

(5) a similarly firm, unyielding, and unquestionable network of geopolitical alliances abroad that knitted together a security blanket that stretched around the entire globe, backed up by the most powerful and widest-ranging military ever seen in human history.

All five of those pillars helped firm up and underpin another equally critical pillar:

(6) a politically independent and fiscally prudent monetary policy that established the US dollar as the world’s safest reserve currency.

This made US Treasury bonds the savings bank for the entire world—for democracies and authoritarian regimes alike!—and made US banking networks and capital markets the place to be for any company looking for access to investors.

This last point is particularly interesting. Janet Yellen warns the $38 trillion national debt is testing a red line economists have feared for decades

I can't imagine a better way to create a sovereign debt crisis than Trumps policy of politicizing the Fed Reserve, sudden tariff flip flops, coercing partners, making then breaking agreements, pushing deficits to new highs, committing to unfunded tax cuts, weakening anti-inflation institutions, reducing transparency by pushing crypto, weaponizing sanctions and creating policy chaos.

Sovereign debt crises aren't a problem until they suddenly are, then all of a sudden you are in a world of hurt.

Yet most of Donald Trump supporters don't seem to care about any of this, the tea party protestors now only seem to care about hating anyone who doesn't look, act or think like them.

Once trust in institutions, alliances, and monetary independence is lost, rebuilding them takes decades and often requires crisis to force alignment. If history is any guide, that crisis wont be pretty, and might cause America to dive deeper into Authoritarianism.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

Democrats have a huge advantage in coming elections given how much of an unmitigated shitshow Trump 2.0 has been, but the party itself still doesn't know what time it is and has very little of substance to say on anything (except the younger DSA wing). The field of Democratic candidates is also pretty abysmal. AOC is seen as radical and unlikable outside the left (unlike Bernie who was seen as radical but likable) and doesn't have the same excitement around her that she used to even among progressives. Bernie and Warren are too old. Kamala Harris would be a disaster for obvious reasons. Gavin Newsom is overtly corrupt and insincere.

It seems to me very plausible that Democrats could still fumble the bag in 2028, especially if Kamala takes the nomination or if some other black swan event happens (Trump dies in office, JD takes over and runs a relatively competent administration; or Trump and JD become horribly disgraced even among MAGA, leading to Tucker Carlson running—in which case I think he'd win handedly against a generic establishment Democrat).

There's also the problem of the main Democratic contenders simply being not very good. A Democrat in office would be miles better than a Republican, but I'm not at all convinced that a generic Democrat would be prepared to face the enormous challenges we as a country face (soaring debt, money in politics, AI, eugenics/transhumanism, Israel/Russia/coping with multipolarity, a highly fractious cultural and political environment, a public that finds classical fascism/white nationalism increasingly enticing).

The only person I can think of that is both electable and suited for the current moment is Jon Stewart. He's a political moderate who's comfortable calling out the establishment. He's well read. He's broadly liked and respected, even among people who disagree with him. He has a highly dialectical style to politics (ie. bringing people together to hash things out), which I think is sorely needed right now.

This thread is posted weekly - please try to post all relevant US political content in here, such as news, updates, opinion articles, etc. Extremely significant events may warrant a separate topic, but almost all should be posted in here.

This is an inherently political thread; please try to avoid antagonistic arguments and bickering matches. Comment threads that devolve into unproductive arguments may be removed so that the overall topic is able to continue.

I am always curious about these kinds of situations.

for example, I live in Canada and (iirc) in 2021, there was a discovery of unmarked graves (I think) near a church that used to be a residential school for the indigenous children at the time.

given its closeness in time to the George Floyd protests, it sparked a discussion up here regarding our own failures of how to do proper truth and reconciliation with the remaining indigenous community.

my university graduation was also around that time, and the university wanted to jump on the bandwagon of appearing to be woke. their attempt at this was to have a former student of a residential school come and speak at the event about her experiences at the school. forseeably real sad stuff. you can't help but feel sadness hearing it.

Then, we had to sing the national anthem of Canada.

I have never stopped finding it funny that whichever genius was tasked with planning the schedule for that day, decided the most appropriate thing to do after hearing about the lengths that the church and government of Canada tried to go to to "stomp the indian out of the child" is to proceed to sing a song celebrating that government. You can kinda make an argument that we were singing a song to celebrate the ideal of Canada, which is a country that is about always trying to do better but from my perspective, what it felt like was they had a template of what a graduation ceremony was like and just decided to shoe-horn in that lady at some point in a pre-existing template.

One other funny story I've heard (I think from an indigenous comic who was a guest on an NPR podcast) was he relayed a story about how during covid, when their work went remote and had meetings on zoom and the DEI was gaining more and more popularity at the time in corporate environments, their bosses best idea was to do land acknowledgements on zoom..while everyone was at home. He had a whole bit about it that was quite humorous and I can't really remember but it was hilarious.