A New Navy Weapon Stops You from Talking

I remember an exhibit at the old OMSI location (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) that was a telephone handset you would speak into. You would attempt to read something that was printed on the exhibit (The Gettysburg Address?) and your voice would be played back to you with a slight delay. No matter how hard I tried, I was reduced to a babbling wreck with a matter of seconds. It was totally maddening!

Interestingly, I have SCDS [0] in one ear which causes a similar effect by adding an echo of speech and awareness of inter-cranial sounds. And stuttering (silent block related to diaphragmatic incoordination, exacerbated by anxiety). You can train yourself to just talk over it, so it's not really a "STFU ray gun."

0. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseas...

I think of a room in the library of Congress which looks like it was from Versailles. It is full of corner reflectors that do exactly what that device does and makes it hard to have a conversation.

Point 1: God save us from those that get off from the sound of their own voices.

Point 2: Noise cancelling earphones, hoooooo!

Point 3: Find another of the devices that fell off the back of a truck. Point at other user, once you know it's on, turn yours on, wait for the magic smoke to start from feedback.

Seems less like a weapon, and more like a tool for covert character assassination. E.g. to make the opposing candidate fumble a speech or debate.

There is a game from Hasbro that uses this exact premise. It's called Speech Breaker.

Crowd control weapons are a good thing, actually. The worst part about a democracy is when those pesky little people start gathering outside, it really gets in the way of making money.

I welcome this more humane oppression! Things are looking brighter by the day.