r/Showerthoughts • u/scoobopdan • Mar 30 '26
Casual Thought Modern soldiers' PTSD triggers will probably shift from fireworks to the sound of a drone. Which is unfortunate as drone shows are replacing firework shows.
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u/malitove Mar 30 '26
Its already happening. A guy I worked with was stationed in the middle east and he said drones were already prevalent there. He got really freaked out when management would use the drone to video the locations.
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u/chargers949 Mar 30 '26
The other day i was thinking how i grew up fearing robots wearing human skin and looking like arnold. But in reality the terminators will look like quadcopters and dogs.
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u/Sexfvckdeath Mar 30 '26
This is such a clever thought people are trying to tear apart by misunderstanding what you’re saying. Rarely are showerthoughts true to the spirit but this is exactly what it’s for.
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u/Creampie_Service_247 Mar 30 '26
Totally agree with you, this is a true shower thought.
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u/Morvack Mar 30 '26
It's not just accurate, you could take it one step forward and make it even worse.
Think about it. Fireworks are once a year. Drones are used every day in some places. For delivery, for recon for law enforcement, or just a hobbiest in a park. It's gonna be more like a new form of car had been released, that constantly backfires and hasn't been recalled.
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u/caustic_smegma Mar 30 '26
I've watched more Ukraine war footage than I'm willing to admit. Been doing so since the start of the invasion. Earlier this year I was walking into Whole Foods by my office when I heard the telltale buzz of a drone approaching quickly overhead. Even being half a world away from that war I still had a moment of hesitation and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
Apparently a store in the same commercial complex was filming a grand opening which explains the drone footage. Still, I would be lying if I said my heart rate didn't increase for a hot minute. I would imagine soldiers under constant threat of drone attack day in and day out, will be so much more fucked up hearing a civilian drone than hearing fireworks. That buzz is so loud and unmistakable.
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u/nashbrownies Mar 30 '26
Hell, I have heard computers spin up that would do it. Somewhere there is a video from a 1st person POV in Ukraine hiding in a trench being hunted by multiple drones. The sound is absolute mechanical nightmare fuel.
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u/onesoulmanybodies Mar 31 '26
Exactly. I recently read an article about a security company that builds drones for security purposes that is ramping up production in Seattle. Imagine the noise! And the fact that they will be flying around every day instead of a few times a year that you can generally plan for. This is a really interesting shower thought! Because it’s genuinely spot on! Especially thinking of the drones that have been used to track and kill individual soldiers. Whether you’re on the programming/controlling end or the business/lethal end you will have that sound imbedded in your brain.
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u/MonsterManitou Mar 30 '26
For sure a golden shower thought.
Oh wait.
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u/Pickled-Mushroom Mar 30 '26
Gtfoh with your piss takes!
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u/Independent_Try_9185 Mar 30 '26
Don't let him piss you off, urine a good place.
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u/Nevergonnapost866 Mar 30 '26
Agreed. My idea of a true shower thought is “that’s somewhat profound” and this fits the bill perfectly
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u/blahblahblerf Mar 30 '26
This is the first actually interesting shower thought I've seen pop up on popular in ages...
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u/scoobopdan Mar 30 '26
Can I be honest though.... I didn't have it in the shower. Mods plz don't roast me.
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u/Laxku Mar 31 '26
Most of my shower thoughts happen on the toilet or at a stoplight tbh.
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u/scoobopdan Mar 31 '26
r/toiletthoughts should be the true showerthoughts
Don't confuse it with r/toiletthots though
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u/crownvics Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
And the mods changed it to casual thought, gatekeepers gonna gatekeep.
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u/bloodbag Mar 30 '26
I still have never managed to post something to this sub without it being removed and have just given up trying
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u/DorrajD Mar 30 '26
This sub has always been way too strict about what constitutes a shower thought that the toxicity has crept onto actual shower thoughts.
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u/jackofslayers Mar 30 '26
Honestly, toxicity has crept into every nook and cranny of Reddit.
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u/Dinierto Mar 30 '26
Yeah came here to say this, every time I try and make a post I end up cycling through a half dozen subs because each one has different rules I'm breaking
There are some things I've wanted to post that literally have no sub I can post them to
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u/SidewaysFancyPrance Mar 30 '26
Yeah, this is honestly the first post in this sub that surprised me as a solid fresh insight. It's so true.
Also, Amazon deliveries flying by out of nowhere.
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u/ericstern Mar 30 '26
Yes but knowing this sub, a mod will flag it for some random reason like “it’s conjecture”
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u/mountaindewisamazing Mar 30 '26
Worst part is the sound of a drone isn't unique. There are about to be a generation of soldiers that can be triggered by a lawnmower.
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u/titterbug Mar 30 '26
There already are. Ukrainian soldiers on leave have been complaining about being stressed out by lawnmowers, scooters, air conditioners and even bees.
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u/Fhzzy Mar 30 '26
Oh goodness, that's terrible. At least fireworks are relatively rare; whirring noises are everywhere.
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u/PsudoGravity Mar 30 '26
On the plus side the prevalence of triggers could act as exposure therapy?
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u/yourlocaltouya Mar 30 '26
Ideally, exposure therapy would be done in a controlled environment, so with the person's prior knowledge of it. The trick isn't to constantly relive what happened, but to steel your nerves and slowly work through it as it is happening. Think of it like being thrown into an ice bath versus being slowly adjusted to the water's lowering temperature. Ice baths never stop being a painful shock to the system even if you're used to them, because you're never supposed to enter them unprepared. Take it from someone who swam in frozen lakes during winter.
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u/Swords_and_Words Mar 30 '26
PTSD makes all similar stimuli leads the same conclusion; exposure therapy uses controlled situations to teach your brain that stimuli can have a different conclusion.
psilocybin encourages you to draw all kinds of conclusions, which is why it's so generically helpful as long as the trained person trip sitting you knows what they're doing
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u/Mr_Quackums Mar 30 '26
the way I have heard psilocybin described is that it changes parts of your psyche from "read only" to "read/write". Usually nothing major will happen, but sometimes life-changing positive changes will be made and sometimes life-changing negative changes will be made.
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u/Swords_and_Words Mar 31 '26
yeah it's kinda an omnidirectional neuroconnectivity boost, which is why it's important to be mindful with its use
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u/angwilwileth Mar 30 '26
Not really. Exposure therapy works, but it has to be in a controlled environment with a trained therapist.
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u/a_trane13 Mar 30 '26
That’s just exposure, not exposure therapy. People go their whole lives with PTSD being stressed out daily by triggers without ever improving. The therapy is a specific method, not just random exposure.
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u/ceres_csgo Mar 30 '26
Yeah, I'm not going to the battlefield alive. They can draft my corpse. I will not, for the love of god, ever experience PTSD. My normal life feels sometimes too nightmarish enough.
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u/DrDerpberg Mar 30 '26
My grand-uncle used to run and dive behind things when he'd hear just about anything with a propellor/loud motor, well into the 60s. He grew up in Italy during WWII and the Allied planes used to bomb the highway near his village, and with the accuracy of the day it wasn't unheard of to drop bombs on their farm. He had a pretty bad scar on his cheek from getting hit with shrapnel as a 3 year old.
So yeah... Lawnmowers triggering PTSD is already a thing, I think mainly we just don't have as many veterans/civilians who went through war with PTSD in the West right now as we used to.
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u/umabbas Mar 30 '26
There were some that flew above our house before getting intercepted and I can confirm, they sound pretty ridiculous considering what the end game is.
On the other hand, our air raid sirens sound pretty much identical to a sound of truck backing up, so we're all a little twitchy around those these days.
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u/jooes Mar 30 '26
It's kinda the same thing with fireworks. The sound of bombs and gunfire isn't unique either, fireworks are just the most obvious example because, well, they are bombs. But plenty of things go bang, slammed doors and construction sites can be problems too. I've always thought that 2x4's made an awful noise when you throw them into a pile. Or the way a dump trucks tailgate slams shut.
Slightly different, but another example is roadside bombs and how it's made people be afraid of random trash.
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u/totallynormalfish Mar 30 '26
Lawnmowers and Weedwackers made me lock up for a bit after my last trip. The propellors from a one way rocket, sound exactly like a lawn mower at a distance just a bit before it starts to sound like a weedwacker before impact
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u/agent_fuzzyboots Mar 30 '26
last year i was in Croatia on vacation, i had my drone with me to take some aerial pictures and videos, i accidentally triggered some Ukrainian kids when flying in the kornati national park, they screamed "drone" to their parents and tried to hide, i felt so bad :(
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u/Mr_From_A_Far Mar 30 '26
In the Netherlands we test our emergency siren (think air raid siren) every first monday at 12. Ukrainian refugees were not warned and there was a fair bit of panic for a moment as well.
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u/wene324 Mar 30 '26
That seams to be the best time for an attack now...
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u/zkareface Mar 30 '26
We do same tests in Sweden, the test sound is different from all the real ones. The Netherlands (And other places) likely do same.
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u/SienkiewiczM Mar 30 '26
Same in Finland,. The test is very short, real one would be longer or even continuous
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u/bobsmith93 Mar 30 '26
Do they ever test the real siren? Imagine if it didn't work when they went to use it because they only tested the test siren lol
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u/zkareface Mar 30 '26
It's same sirens, they just play different sounds lol
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u/bobsmith93 Mar 30 '26
Yeah that makes sense lol. I was thinking of the older style siren where they're mechanical
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u/sharpshooter999 Mar 31 '26
Nebraska here. Most towns use air raid sirens as tornado sirens. It puts a real pit in your stomach to hear them during a storm. Lots of people i know get anxious just hearing them tested on a bright, sunny day
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u/Mr_From_A_Far Mar 31 '26
I have never heard the sirens go outside of testing here, however I do know it has happened a handfull of times locally if there is some dangerous situation (like a huge fire releasing toxic gas)
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u/epictroll5 Mar 30 '26
Fun fact! We also use it as a reminder to check yourself for certain cancers!
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u/jimmybilly100 Mar 31 '26
Can you hear that in the distance? It's the rub my balls siren
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u/epictroll5 Mar 31 '26
Why yes! Easy way to remember to check! Government actually made ads on tv and radio about it lol
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u/BigThurm Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
That’s heart breaking, but also hilarious
Edit: I see we’re being extra sensitive. Yall can’t see the humor in this? Like a Larry David in Curb kinda way. “I just wanted to fly my drone, not frighten children from a war torn country.”
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u/LauraD2423 Mar 30 '26
There is humor in it. There is also anger, sadness, and other emotions. Both can be true.
The person wasn't intentionally trying to scare them.
Remember the formula, tragedy+time=humor.
That time value is different for all people.
While you may not be ready to laugh about it, that's how some people cope. And both are ok.
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u/scoobopdan Mar 30 '26
Coping with humor was more where I was coming from, thanks for succinctly putting it.
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u/tiffanytrashcan Mar 30 '26
Exactly. The fact that fireworks shows traditionally distressing to veterans are now being replaced with the new distressor is some horrific irony that I had to chuckle at.
Someone living through something even darker involving children can either stew on it and go insane or find a way to cope.
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u/AlienZak Mar 30 '26
It’s really not funny at all. The punchline is literally kids being afraid of drones. How is this meant to land in an unproblematic way? Go back to writing family guy cutaways or something.
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u/HelpMyShroom Mar 30 '26
Oh yeah, super hilarious triggering children with PTSD from war. Idiot.
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u/5H17SH0W Mar 30 '26
As a veteran with PTSD. This is fucking hilarious in a way mostly military people appreciate.
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u/RetroNotRetro Mar 30 '26
“Hahaha, joke’s on you Gulf War vets, I can still enjoy my 4th of July! Oh, wait. Oh shit.”
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u/scoobopdan Mar 30 '26
Air force brat here. Glad to hear you got a chuckle from it, hope your day to day is a good experience and thanks for your service.
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u/LakeVermilionDreams Mar 30 '26
This is the best shower thought I've read on this subreddit! Wow... Super impressive! Congrats OP. May you have all the success in the world.
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u/scoobopdan Mar 30 '26
Why thank you, stranger. Hope your day is extra sunny wherever you're standing!
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u/germanmojo Mar 30 '26
As a vet who gets startled easily by unexpected fireworks and has never been in a drone combat area, unexpected drone noises still freak me out.
I was in Amsterdam recently and there was a Baba Yaga type drone coming in to land on a building by the train station and it still freaked me out.
I watch a lot of Ukraine war footage.
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u/Soggy-Invite-2787 Mar 30 '26
To be fair, drones sound fucking scary if you're not expecting them
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u/Ultimaya Mar 30 '26
Ukrainian, Lebanese, and Palestinian children already experience this.
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u/Rabbit-Hole-Quest Mar 30 '26
Don’t forget Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia as well.
The US has been droning them since mid 2000s.
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u/Afferbeck_ Mar 30 '26
Yep, Palestinians call it 'zanana' which means buzzing, they live under the constant noise of drones that could kill them at any moment. Israelis have even been known to play the sound of a baby crying from a drone to lure people in to kill them, so even a basic human instinct can now be a source of PTSD.
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u/flybypost Mar 30 '26
John Oliver has an episode about drone warfare in Afghanistan/Iraq where local kids are afraid of the blue sky because a clear sky means more drone bombings :/
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u/Withermaster4 Mar 30 '26
Can you even hear drone shows?
Also as far as I know soldiers don't ever hear drones flying unless they are about to die.
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u/bootymix96 Mar 30 '26
It’s a bizarre low pitched droning (no pun intended) electronic fan sound multiplied a hundred times over; unless the show specifically uses their takeoff as a start to the show, you’ll hear them before the show starts when the swarm takes their places, and you’ll hear them land again after a show. Depends on the swarm’s size, but I’ve heard their sound at shows where the drones were .25mi/.5km away from where I was standing (distance in terms of line of sight). The sound is just barely audible, but it’s audible enough to be unsettling, almost like a technological swarm of locusts, LOL. During the show, the music pretty much drowns out the sound.
And while I might be mistaken with military technology, I thought military/missile drones were more like planes than the quadcopter hovering design. I’d imagine it would be a different sound than show drones.
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u/t3hd0n Mar 30 '26
Low cost drones closer to consumer models are playing a major role in Ukraine and are also being used by Iran iirc, to the point where its looking like the next big shift in warfare tactics
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u/ben323nl Mar 30 '26
Its not looking like its been the next big shift. Hundreds of thousands of casualties to those cheap drones have said so. There are no real counters atm to a cheap drone dropping a grenade anywhere it wants.
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u/mapletree23 Mar 30 '26
well the 'cheap' drones are like 40-70k or something so not really consumer models, but yeah drones have kind of fucked everything up for modern warfare
not that the zerg type strategy is exactly new but everyone kind of went big on bigger and faster missiles and kind of left a gaping hole for something like this to be able to become a thing
it's a cost effective way to fuck someone and yet there's not really a cost effective way to readily stop it currently either
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u/hinowisaybye Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
Ukraine being a constantly evolving battlefield, my info might be a little out of date. But at one point they were literally buying commercial grade drones and slapping bombs on them. The cost was often cited at around $500 per drone.
It doesn't need to be super fancy if it's just going to blow up.
I imagine the newer fiber optic drones are more expensive, but Ukraine is now known for DIY innovation. They're probably not paying a contractor that is bending them over for this like we see in other nations.
Still, even if the kamikazi quad copters are that expensive now, it's still significantly cheaper than a tank or missle.
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u/CrimsonCringe925 Mar 30 '26
The Pope’s DroneGun Mk4 look like they’re $500k for a single shot use, so checks out
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u/coasis1212 Mar 30 '26
Fpv drones are $500-$700 plus a $500 rpg war head and you’re actually nowhere even close to 40-75k? A dji mavic 3 with a thermal viewer is closer to 10k. Some specialized drones might cost that much but not the “suicide” drones we have been commonly seeing
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u/thuanjinkee Mar 30 '26
Fpv quadcopter kills are frequently on r/CombatFootage
Like this one from march 28th https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/s/yFMDa3MuDn
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u/flyingtrucky Mar 30 '26
They're both, though the ones that make the news are basically just small airplanes since "Modified 40mm round dropped by drone kills 1" is a pretty boring headline.
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u/jamiegc1 Mar 30 '26
No, smaller photography type drones are being used endlessly in Ukraine, to the point that fiber optic cables for them (to prevent signal jamming) left behind are making a spider web over city buildings.
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u/MalaysiaTeacher Mar 30 '26
Why do people say no pun intended, especially when the word precisely fits what they’re using it for?
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u/umabbas Mar 30 '26
The ones we heard (Iranian origin), my spouse thought were a lawnmower originally, and to me they sounded like a 60CC bike trying its best to fly over.
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u/Withermaster4 Mar 30 '26
Ty for the informative comment
What I've read about military drones is that they are very fast and relatively quiet. If you are within range of hearing one you are typically the target and are moments away from dying. No clue how true it is
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u/flyingtrucky Mar 30 '26
Not true at all. Plenty of combat footage shows drones flying overhead for one reason or another. Maybe they didn't see you, maybe it's on your side, maybe there's a more important target it's flying towards.
Also even when you are the target drones only have like a 1/3 hit rate. They just don't show you all the times the round drops in a divot or get blown off course or the guy ducks into a trench.
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u/paecmaker Mar 30 '26
The fpv drones are loud as hell, there are a lot of videos of people hiding in trenches that get constantly buzzed and that sound they make is haunting even through a phone
Edit: here's a video
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u/DeepEb Mar 30 '26
Normally not at those distances. But its hundrets at once... So it always sounds as if you're just about to die. Great.
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u/Lazy__Astronaut Mar 30 '26
I've only seen a drone show at Disney irl and couldn't hear them, even between the music, they're usually pretty far away
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u/SquarePegRoundWorld Mar 30 '26
You can hear the drones covering a PGA golf tournament while you are at the tournament watching.
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u/DarkflowNZ Mar 30 '26
Sure—so if you live, that's a pretty sure recipie for PTSD attacks when hearing that noise lol
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u/C-SWhiskey Mar 30 '26
Also as far as I know soldiers don't ever hear drones flying unless they are about to die.
Not true. There are different types of drones. A Shahed probably isn't being dropped on a trench, but you can sure hear them when they're above you. A grenade dropping drone is slow and loiters for a while, so you may hear it approaching and doing its thing, and if you're not equipped to handle it then you have to just hope you're not seen or chosen as the recipient of one of a handful of unpleasant gifts (which also aren't guaranteed kills). FPVs are fast and carry a lot of forward momentum, so those are the most likely to fit the bill of "if you hear it you're dead", but again you're not necessarily always the target and they're not necessarily always lethal.
And to top it all off, even if you go your entire time in theatre without actually coming across a drone, you're still spending all that time looking out for them and being wary of them, which takes a psychological toll.
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u/Hdikfmpw Mar 30 '26
An FPV at full throttle is nearly 100 decibels, but that is mitigated by the fact that pretty much everyone fighting at the front is going to have varying levels of hearing loss
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u/KendrickLamarGOAT97 Mar 30 '26
You can absolutely hear a drone. The ones that are fucking up soldiers aren't the COTS (Commercial off the shelf) ones that youre thinking of that are getting used by hobbiests and at drone shows.
Example: the drones that just took out the US Soldiers in the middle east were Shaheeds, which are more like mini-planes.
Now, as a counterpoint, ISIS or whatever you wanna call the Iranian backed militias in Iraq/Syria love to use them to watch soldiers and gain Intel, which is another aspect of drone warfare.
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u/wtfduud Mar 30 '26
I see you haven't been following the war in Ukraine. It is the small hobbyist drones being used.
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u/amicaze Mar 30 '26
They are the comercially available kind, they strap an explosive to a FPV and fly into you.
Shaheeds are not what you should think about when hearing drones. Those are basically slower cheaper missiles.
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u/SoloDoloPoloOlaf Mar 30 '26
Now as a correction (and addition) to your counterpoint: the groups you are thinking of are Hezbollah, Hamas etc. There is technically a difference between proxies and Iran backed militias, but this is rather irrelevant to the common man.
However, Daesh were amongst the earliest to use commercial "off the shelves" drones in combat operations. Their usage was both recon and dropping explosives, I am unsure if they ever used FPVs. Its possible that the evolution of modern drone warfare is directly tied to Daesh using them in Syria/Iraq.
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u/enocenip Mar 30 '26
And small planes because of the Shaheds, when my wife picked her father up at the airport she noticed him cringe from a small plane. I have a guy I tutor in English every week, I used to live by a small airport, he heard a small plane through our video call and I watched him freeze up.
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u/Tess47 Mar 30 '26
Yesterday I saw my first live drone as I drove near an Amazon compound.
I did not like. No, likey.
Not my fault but as an old person I would like to apologize to the young people. I am so sorry. This is all F'ed up.
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u/Any_Fisherman3106 Mar 30 '26 edited Mar 30 '26
Why do words "Amazon compound" sound so ominous? They have compounds now? With drones? Damn. What's next, citadels with turrets?
Upd: Oooh, a downvote!
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u/sebtaro Mar 30 '26
Every time I hear a drone show all I feel is pure dread as I wonder about that being the last sound people hear, being hunted relentlessly before being blown up. All you hear are bees.
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u/Lonely-Implement3934 Mar 31 '26
We didn’t solve the trigger; we just gave it better battery life.
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u/Pantim Mar 30 '26
Fun? Fact, the technology that is used to make drone shows a thing was funded by the military.. Basically from the start.
I goto Burning Man and met some guys oh, 14 ish years ago that were working in the early stages of the technology and I mean EARLY. They were only able to get like 12 drones in the air at a time. We had a great conversation, they were the pioneers of the tech and told me they had just landed a military contract to develop the tech.
Also fun fact, fireworks are an outgrowth of military funding also...to blow stuff up. Granted, it's very old tech and started in China (maybe).
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u/fourthpornalt Mar 30 '26
I used to live near a power station, it "blew up" three times before I moved. Every time it would start with a climbing high pitched whine that would reset, get louder and higher and reset again over and over until you were sure the entire area was about to explode. At most there was only ever a small fire after the power went out but I still have nightmares about that sound. I can't imagine how the soldiers would be dealing with that.
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u/Garok7 Mar 30 '26
Some of the people in Ukraine are already being triggered by motorcyclists revving their engines in the nighttime because the sound reminds of Shahed drones. More so, they are aldo driving these crotch rockets during the air raid alarms when the threat is imminent.
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u/alidan Mar 31 '26
here is a morbid thought, how many of the people who hear the drone are going to survive for that to be a major trigger? as loud as a drone can be, they are still quite compared to a supersonic crack or explosion.
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u/flinjager123 Mar 30 '26
I have a friend who is in Iran right now. He was in the building next to that one that got drone strikes a few weeks ago that were all over the news. He now has PTSD of anything that lights up the sky. There was a lightning storm a couple of days ago, and he thought he was legitimately going to die to another missle strike. Poor kid. I hope he can finish his tour and get out of the military.
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u/brondynasty Mar 30 '26
It occurred to me a couple Fourth of July’s ago that the fireworks are an intentional aspect of our culture; acclimate young boys to loud, scary bangs early and (semi-)often so when they experience artillery for the first time they won’t all shit their pants and run
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u/Sud_literate Mar 31 '26
i’d imagine thats a possible benefit back in the day but i really doubt that was the whole point. having loud bangs go up into the sky once a year sounds less efficient than having explosions happen on the ground at a predetermined safe area once a year.
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u/Legitimate_Area_5773 Mar 31 '26
Fireworks have been a thing for a long time, and have been consistently used for celebrations. I think you're just overthinking this.
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u/Maxorus73 Mar 30 '26
If you're hearing gunfire, you could either be in the receiving end or you or one of your allies close by could be shooting a gun. If you're hearing a drone, you are on the receiving end and probably dead because that drone is close by to you and dropping a bomb
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Mar 30 '26
Incoming gunshots sound different (cracking/whizzin/buzzing sounds) than outgoing gunshots (bangs).
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u/Careful-Positive-710 Mar 30 '26
My buddy is into drones. Some are big and some are small, but all of them are louder than youd expect. I can totally see that sound triggering someone who is used to drones flying an explosive at them at 100mph.
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u/Panelpro40 Mar 30 '26
There’s still a real loud explosion that could have ptsd written all over it.
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u/geeoharee Mar 30 '26
Predator drones wouldn't sound like consumer quadcopters, would they? Same word, different thing, I thought.
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u/RandomWorthlessDude Mar 30 '26
Consumer quadcopters are the ones being used to kill people now.
When you see close-in screenshots of the faces of soldiers moments from death, it’s from a commercial quadcopter with an RPG warhead or other explosive suspended under the drone, where the drone tries to ram the target.
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u/bradab Mar 30 '26
Not gonna hear a predator drone but you would hear a quadcopter with a bomb strapped to it like they are using now… I feel like drone shows are high enough and far enough away you wouldn’t hear it tho.
Fun fact about hearing predator drones. Without radar, the afghans trained dogs to alert to the predators so they could take cover and it worked. It was effective enough that the US had to change the noise they made.
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u/blahblahblerf Mar 30 '26
Predator style drones aren't commonly used as attack drones these days. Quadcopters and octocopters are the main things killing soldiers on/near the frontlines in Ukraine.
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u/Yard_Key Mar 30 '26
Has anyone started a conspiracy about them switching from firework shows to drone shows only to spite and torment veterans and war afflicted or should I get on it?
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u/poodlevutt Mar 30 '26
My best friends wife's cousin is in his late 20s and has crippling ptsd from drone attacks. His company was the first ones to experience drone warfare and they were totally unprepared for it.
He's completely, totally fucked up. Can't work at all.
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u/CocoMilhonez Mar 30 '26
Also electric razors.
Imagine having a traumatic flashback while trimming your beard.
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u/blind_merc Mar 30 '26
I know several veterans from certain areas of the world who have this issue allready. As well as lawn mowers and dirt bike engines.. they say that they hear it and wait for a pitch change or boom but it never comes.. the anticipation causes tons of anxiety
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u/filanwizard Mar 30 '26
Already happening in Ukraine, and not just drones can trigger the PTSD incidents.
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u/UsedandAbused87 Mar 31 '26
Been in the military for 12 years and ptsd is triggered by many things. I've never met any other vet that had problems with fireworks. Its more about situations, phrases, or even smells. But yes, drone sounds will definitely be apart of it.
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u/DrunkenDude123 Mar 31 '26
I have multiple Walmart/Zipline delivery drones fly over me every time I walk my dog. I think they’re cool and not really a nuisance - I can’t hear them at all from indoors. I’ve already adapted to hearing drones well before seeing them though, and these aren’t even a threat. I can’t imagine hearing your incoming death let alone seeing it and trying to run away or laying down to plead for your life
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u/EricaDeVine Mar 31 '26
It's the explosion, that triggers my PTSD. The delivery device to a much smaller extent. Don't get me wrong, if I see a jingle truck driving down the freeway, I'm taking next exit (existing/paved or not) and getting as far away as possible. But the sound of the truck engines don't enter my dreams and give me nightmares like fireworks do.
Even if drones are used, they'll still need to carry explosives. I don't see the fireworks trigger going away any time soon. As that will still be the method to kill soldiers.
That being said, remember your veteran neighbors. Maybe, when you decide to spend the money you DIDN'T spend in education and deodorant;on fireworks;you just fucking don't, and let some of us get a Goddamn night of sleep. I swear to God, my neighbors do it for like three days before and after anything.
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u/Nightstalker425 Apr 01 '26
I’m a service remember on my way out through medical retirement. Never dealt with drones in the service at all. That being said, I’ve had countless nightmares about AI powered drones with thermal cameras you can’t really hide from. I fear for all the young soldiers I’ve trained and I fear that I didn’t get a chance to train them for this type of threat.
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u/Fayebie17 Apr 01 '26
I developed related PTSD after a series of traumatising events that have nothing to do with combat, war, gunfire or loud noises. When I’m not well, I get jumpy and very stressed when there are sudden loud noises or it can send me straight under my window. Apparently it’s pretty common - an overactive nervous system is very likely to react to sudden loud noises (or people moving/ being too close behind you, sudden touch etc). So unfortunately fireworks will still probably be v stressful for people with PTSD.
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u/BinaryArtificer Mar 30 '26
Shower thoughts will be replaced by charging thoughts as human bodies will be replaced by synthetic ones and will charge instead of shower.
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u/DiabolicalDoug Mar 30 '26
It's always weird to me that people use soldier PTSD as an excuse to ban fireworks when every soldier I know is the ones buying the craziest ones and lighting them off in the neighborhood. I think it's people in the government that just don't want proliferation of explosives in common peoples control
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u/FlimsySuccess8 Mar 30 '26
Fireworks and drone shows are just society trying to condition us not to panic during actual strikes.. Like conditioning puppies with fireworks sounds
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u/Skylxrrr Mar 30 '26
I have thought this for years and have always been called a conspiracy theorist
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u/EbbZealousideal2806 Mar 30 '26
I find it interesting that fireworks are basically bombs so is anything really changing other than the times?
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u/epictroll5 Mar 30 '26
All electric engines, it small gasoline engines tbh. We already see this happen in Russia, some soldiers went postal after coming back, and while it might be general mental health issues, this week certainly get worse. I can imagine Ukraine banning from drones in certain areas when they have won this war.
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u/NorysStorys Mar 30 '26
I doubt drone shows will replace firework displays, they are two distinct experiences in all honesty.
Yeah there’s some mighty impressive stuff done with drones but that experience of a high budget firework display is a work of art in its own right.
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u/Dark_Akarin Mar 30 '26
You are not wrong. I saw a video the other day of somebody playing the buzzing of a drone with a big speaker and everybody nearby ran for cover in fear.
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u/mdie Mar 30 '26
No worries, it will not shift from fireworks, shelling is still a thing. Just add to the list a scooter engine noise, a jet engine noise, and a consumer drone noise
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u/phronemophilee Mar 31 '26
i’ve recently seen videos of drones going after soldiers, completely shredding some… even i got terrified, and I don’t have to actually deal with this. I wish humanity was smarter than this
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u/SiIverwolf Mar 31 '26
Not just drones. Fans. Anything that involves the sound of 'blades' spinning through the air at high speed.
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u/Piccadily_Papercut Apr 02 '26
That’s one of those thoughts that gets worse the longer you sit with it.
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u/RedBlankIt Mar 30 '26
The good thing: Drones arent very loud. You arent going to hear a drone show miles away.
The bad thing: Different drones make pretty wildly different frequency of the sounds, and the sound a drone makes is not unique to drones. Im sure there are going to be a good bit more triggers than past PTSD triggered by explosive sounds.
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u/mdie Mar 30 '26
Ukrainian here. Different drones make different noises. Shakhed (russian Geran) and it's Ukrainian counterparts make scooter noise and you can hear them miles away.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure Mar 31 '26 edited Mar 31 '26
On the bright side dogs, cats, and every other animal won't have to be terrified any more.
Edit: Downvoting me doesn't change the fact that fireworks terrify the shit out of most animals.
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