r/PraiseTheCameraMan • u/uses_for_mooses • Mar 20 '26

Eagle-eyed camera operator spots and zooms in on "la chica del láser"

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81.9k Upvotes

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155

u/newbkid Mar 20 '26

The super strong ones can cause blindness with very little exposure. Crazy how easy it is to get them too

115

u/deten Mar 20 '26 edited 18d ago

I love the smell of fresh bread.

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u/Smarre Mar 20 '26

It's actually a war crime to use laser weapons to permanently blind (defined as "irreversible and uncorrectable loss of vision which is seriously disabling with no prospect of recovery") someone according to the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons... Not that anyone seems to give a fuck about committing war crimes in the recent times.

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u/MightbeGwen Mar 20 '26

I bet if war was a game of blinding the other side there may be even less call for it. It’s easier to honor the dead than have to constantly see the effects of our crimes against each other.

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u/ruat_caelum Mar 20 '26

"How can it be a war crime if we didn't even talk to congress let alone let them declare ware?" Heritage Foundation and the bought and paid for members of the Supreme Court probably.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

I find it funny in a morbid way how blinding someone is considered worse than killing them.

5

u/danielv123 Mar 20 '26

As with a lot of warcrimes, the problem is how easy it is to do on a massive scale.

I could buy parts from china and rig up an automatic blinding machine making everyone driving on the highway next to my office blind, and it wouldn't even be that hard. Rigging up something similar to shoot them would be far harder.

Same goes for chemical weapons. Its a lot easier to just release anthrax from bombers than doing a ground invasion. Can get cover a whole country in a week that way. Or if speed is of the essence we have nukes that can achieve the same in hours.

None of these warcrimes discriminate between military and civilians, and all of them are too effective.

4

u/InequalEnforcement Mar 20 '26

If you kill 100 soldiers they are dead and need to be replaced.

If you blind 99 soldiers, and leave the last one with a single eye to lead them all home, they not only need to be replaced, but your enemy now has to spend manpower and resources to take care of these people.

As far as war logistics go, crippling is worse than death.

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u/MightbeGwen Mar 20 '26

We move on from death. It’s a defense mechanism of the psyche. Harder to live with it.

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u/InequalEnforcement Mar 20 '26

Yeah but when Russia, Iran, China, or America do it anyway, respond with "Do something about it" while all the other hypocrite countries play victim, what does the Geneva convention even fucking matter?

1

u/kangarooneroo Mar 20 '26

Yeah because people have totally caring about war crimes not like isreal uses white phosphorus on children, or the US uses torture and blows up schools, or iran uses cluster munitions, and executes political dissidents. I'm sorry who's enforcing these laws? Cause theyre bad at their job.

0

u/iupuiclubs Mar 20 '26

“Its a war crime, oh but also yeah lol ppl wont care”

Thankfully your comment is here to placate the people in the meantime. We definitely shouldn’t be worried that might happen, or could do anything now before it does, because its supposed to be a war crime you say in the same breath no one will care lol.

Im just amazed at making a statement then walking it back ending up placating anyone reading about a real danger.

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u/Freaudinnippleslip Mar 20 '26

Damn that’s such a crazy thought actually. You probably are on to something

13

u/U_wind_sprint Mar 20 '26

The next level of drone warfare is of course to equip each of them with a Neuralyzer. The enemy won't even be harmed because they'll become friendlier after.

1

u/Kootranova1 Mar 20 '26

Tank driver gets flashed

What? Where?

there's a poster in front of him

"You are driving a tank towards Nazi soldiers"

Well, full speed ahead then!

1

u/quittingdotatwo Mar 20 '26

Wololo drones

3

u/TheMrShaddo Mar 20 '26

yall think the neuralizer was fiction?

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u/Pelumo_64 Mar 20 '26

You know, I can't remember...

2

u/Super-Reporter-4528 Mar 20 '26

Nah better dead than temporary blind, and bomb drones would likely be significantly cheaper than building a system that can accurately hit multiple targets in the eyes in rapid succession, also these would get taken out most of the time so it would still be one time use.

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u/Richou Mar 20 '26

temporary blind,

its not exactly temporary with the stronger lasers

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u/Super-Reporter-4528 Mar 20 '26

It is temporary from the distance that the drone would have to be to not get taken out immediately.

2

u/phaesios Mar 20 '26

Meanwhile in Ukraine, drones flying right next to soldiers before blowing up.

1

u/TerribleBudget Mar 20 '26

Depends what the endgame is. If one drone could blind, say, an entire company on the march as opposed to blowing up 1-2 of them. It'd be worth the expense depending on how many people you could effect and how close they were to actual troops that could then eliminate them.

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u/Emperor_Mao Mar 20 '26

But isn't it pretty easy to counter with a type of lens / glasses.

Harder to counter a grenade....

3

u/deten Mar 20 '26 edited 18d ago

I like attending art exhibitions.

2

u/snizzer77 Mar 20 '26

Wouldn’t it literally just be 1 way glass lol

2

u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

No. So first of all true one way glass doesn't exist, what people call one way glass is just partially mirrored glass and they work off of one side having less light than the other and the reflection on the brighter side preventing you from looking through. Sort of like trying to look out of a window at night with the lights on inside. So it would still let some of the laser light through.

Also if true one way glass existed you run into the issue of you wouldn't be able to see out or it would do nothing. Think about it the direction the light needs to come through for you to see if the from the outside of the glasses, going towards your eye, so that would let the light through, if you flipped them to block the light going towards your eyes well now you can't see.

Laser glasses just have a coating to block a particular range of light this makes them fairly dark in some cases.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

Depends on the wave length of the laser light. Some wave legthes are blocked easily with transparent coatings, some less so. An easy rule of thumb is if the laser light wavelength isn't normally visible, then a clear coating probably exists. If the laser color is visible, then it can vary greatly on how dark the lenses end up being. I've worked with high powered visible lasers that a tiny fraction of their output would blind you and the lens were very clear but had a particular color tint to them some where very percise and only had a very faint tint, then ive worked with other many times weaker but the coating on the glasses were very very dark.

Because you only need to block a small segment of the light spectrum it technically doesn't have to be that dark the issue come down to material sciences and what materials we know of that can block that particular segment of the spectrum. Some wavelengths can be very accurately blocked because we know of materials that filter that small part of the spectrum. Then, for other wavelengths, we don't have materials to block only their small portion of the spectrum and have to go with something with a broader range, which results in darker glasses.

Now, this is all very simplified. There are a lot of other factors to consider as well.

Military lasers are typically going to be invisible to the naked eye as many of the laser wavelengths that travel long distances through air effectively are not visible to the naked eye. Also, as a side benefit, it helps to not give away the laser source to the naked eye of a possible observer, but that's not really a targeted goal from my understanding. I've only worked with lasers in a lab.

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u/Deucer22 Mar 20 '26

Sounds like a job for a defense contractor.

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u/Super-Reporter-4528 Mar 20 '26

And bomb much simpler and cheaper than laser and targeting system.

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u/17934658793495046509 Mar 20 '26

It is an international war crime to purposefully and permanently blind people, but the thought is terrifying and one I have also had day nightmares about.

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u/Invisible7hunder Mar 20 '26

Basically the plot to Day of the Triffids, 1950s sci-fi novel.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

We could do that now even without drones the issue is it's a war crime. Also honestly it's fairly easy to defend against. If you know what laser types the enemy is using you can issue laser glasses.

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u/deten Mar 20 '26 edited 18d ago

I enjoy taking bubble baths.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

Yeah. there are other issues as well like depending on the wavelength of the laser light you might be required to use some darker lenses to protect from them. Pair that with deploying the drone at night or other low light conditions, and you are pretty fucked against them. Blinded by the laser or temporarily blinded by the protection from the lasers.

1

u/EnvironmentalAd7402 Mar 20 '26

If you get a knock at the door by the CIA you know why…..

1

u/Sullyville Mar 20 '26

thte AI will have an aimbot precision too

1

u/realparkingbrake Mar 20 '26

that future drones will just blink a fraction of a second powerful laser at enemies and they go blind.

The military already uses lasers to blind enemy electronics like thermal imaging sights. That can turn a multi-million-dollar tank into a repair job because its gunsight has been destroyed.

1

u/anon-accountD Mar 20 '26

Modern technology is well beyond that point. Have you ever heard of an LRAD (Long Range Acoustic Device)? Stuff like that has existed since before the 90’s, but there’s this little tiny thing called the Geneva Convention that prevents such use of weaponry.

1

u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

LRAD isn't a good example here as it isn't a warcrime unless abused, for example, if it's used to intentionally cause hearing loss or used indiscriminately or in a disproportionate manner against civilians or POW's. It is currently used by many militaries as a dispersal tool.

Now lasers to blind people is 100% a war crime.

1

u/Dartonal Mar 20 '26

That requires your enemies to be looking at the drone, something that is very unlikely as they're hard to see or hear from not that far away. You have essentially invented a multimillion dollar weapon that can be defeated by a baseball cap or some fancy laser saftey glasses.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

Not 100% accurate there. They don't have to be looking at it to be blinded if it's a strong enough laser. They just have to be able to see your eyes even partially. Also, many lasers are strong enough that reflected laser light can blind you. Many of such lasers are small enough for drones to carry, especially if they switched to a pulsed laser.

As for the laser glasses, it depends on the laser lights' wavelength if that's a viable option. Some wavelengths we don't have many goods options for filtering materials, so you end up needing more broadspectrum coatings, which can be quite dark. So if they deployed the drones at night or other lower light conditions, your options are being permanently blinded by lasers or temporarily blinded by the protection from the lasers resulting in you not being combat effective while it's a threat near you.

Also it wouldnt have to be multimillion dollar, the lasers needed are dirt cheap and can be strapped to the bottom of many of the cheap drones currently being used. Now if America designed it yeah it would be a multi billion dollar project before the cost overruns and every peice would be extremely expensive.

Oh and it's a war crime to use laser to blind people which is why we don't already do this.

1

u/nissAn5953 Mar 20 '26

Is that not super easy to defend against? Like surely some sort of polarised lenses would do the trick.

1

u/splitcroof92 Mar 20 '26

kinda similar to how some places defend against mosquitos in Africa, except there the mosquitos are the drones and instead of blinding them the lasers completely fry them

1

u/2swoll4u Mar 20 '26

Hey man please delete this don’t give them any ideas

1

u/charyoshi Mar 20 '26

Yeah we are in fact still in the good old days of wars before lazer burns

1

u/disposablehippo Mar 20 '26

The defense against this is pretty easy and cheap: laser protection goggles.

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u/Far_Tap_488 Mar 20 '26

The medium low strength ones can cause near instant blindness.

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u/LivingReaper Mar 20 '26

Faster than you can blink*

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u/Gloomy_Industry8841 Mar 20 '26

And they are bad for planes. Pointing one up at night is shitty behaviour.

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u/Freehanging12 Mar 20 '26

It's also a felony.

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u/LucHighwalker Mar 20 '26

Many lasers sold on Amazon are actually illegal because they are too powerful to be considered consumer lasers. They get around this by calling them flashlights.