Weapons of Mass Compliance
Now at a tech lab near you, agony-inducing tools that will control your disorderly tendencies and blast those riotous urges
There is more, much more. There are remote-controlled “marsupial robots,” built in San Diego for the Navy, which can fire 10 to 12 non-lethal rounds per second. There are “sticky foams” that can be sprayed on crowds to disgust and confuse them and make it very hard for them to move around. Like fun foam without the fun, colored dyes, skin irritants and foul-smelling chemicals can be added to make the experience still more unpleasant. “When sticky, black, odorous foam is discharged onto a target,” one manufacturer declares, “the response should be compliance and/or quick exit.” In likely contravention of anti-chemical-and-biological-weapons treaties (the Pentagon has a rather loose interpretation of these things), the military is working to develop microbes that eat asphalt and metal and turn petroleum to useless goo, and to perfect airborne delivery systems of so-called “calmatives” — aerosol versions of Valium, Prozac and powerful opiates like Fentanyl — just in case all the blunt trauma, microwave menace, and acoustic and electrical insult should fail to keep the populace sufficiently tranquil.
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