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this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2026
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Just going to put this out there. An EM pulse is surprisingly easy to do.
Or just hacking. These things are going to be some vibe-coded, cheaply made junk if the billionaires and their corner-cutting corporations have anything to say about it. Sure they'll be intimidating as hell at first, but exploits and weaknesses will be found and the arms race isn't going to be as completely one-sided as we fear. Not that the other sides are going to be any better. I'm more worried about the criminals who're going to be building a literal botnet of them before turning them into their own army of chaos and insanity at the flip of a switch. "Attention! I am a hacker who has your apartment building surrounded by my remote controlled battlemechs, please have all residents send a total of 15 BTC to wallet address cdsjfkejiwoejfsiadjfkalsdf if you want to live. Do not bother contacting the police, these used to be their robots anyway and I've got them surrounded too... they can't help you now."
The issue with that is that computing resources, while cheap, have incredibly expensive supply chains dominated by these billionaires; we might not have the resources for hacking if we don’t strike hard and fast and take them out before they get too entrenched.
Be that as it may, I think the killer bot dystopian future is more likely to resemble Half-Life 2 than Robocop. That is, they’ll take you out with a cheap FPV drone from a thousand feet above rather than some big expensive killer mech robot. Your EMP isn’t going to be of much use when a grenade explodes on your head while you’re walking to grab a slice at the local pizza joint.
Nets are even easier to make.
You’re going to cover the entire sidewalk path between your house/apartment and the local pizza joint… with nets?
Yes
https://www.ecosia.org/images?q=pictures+of+netsprotecting+areas+in+ukraine&_sp=D9F3CE79-9007-4679-93D4-EF74F04FE914&sr=1
They had large amounts of nets available and were able to produce more because they were already a fishing culture.
Local fishing culture in the US is nearly extinct, and while commercial fishing nets might still exist, those supply chains are controlled by the same billionaire oligarch caste that will be unleashing these drone swarms on us plebeians.
Also, you'll have a bunch of nimbys taking down nets as fast as you can put them up...
I live in Southern Oregon and between here and NorCal we have robust fishing industries but even more importantly our farming communities are thriving, feeding and providing food, wine, beer and cannabis for the nation. Trellises are abundant and serve the same function, there's no shortage of trellis and netting.
Sounds like a paradise compared to most of the country...
It certainly is, we are fortunate to have an amazing environment, diverse ecosystems, supportive communities and state and local governments that actually care and nurture the health, economies and well being of our people.
Cascadia could be our own nation and is an example of how it could/should be done.
Dang... That makes me wanna move there in the future!
We'll have drag performers form a bucket brigade of fishnet stockings to keep everyone safe.
Sucks for US folks then
First rule of warfare is to secure all critical locations after all
Right but we’re not talking about a war here, we’re talking about a dystopian society. Most people are just going about their business, trying to keep their heads down. Maybe you and your friends are engaged in guerrilla warfare, but then you’re living out in your trenches in the forest or the hills, not walking into town to grab a pizza slice.
Businesses already invest a lot to protect their property. Locks, bars, fences, cameras, guards...
If a simple net can actually add real security from a real threat, then we are gonna see anti-drone nets everywhere.
Nets catch shrapnel?
Many drone bombs are designed to detonate on impact. The nets catch the drones and prevent them from exploding. It's been utilized to good effect in Ukraine.
Drones can also drop mortar shells and there are already plenty of mortar shells with timed fuses. Then the drone can just drop the shell and have it land on the net and detonate above your head, blasting you with shrapnel.
Nets aren’t going to be a viable long term defence.
Okay well when that starts becoming the standard then you'll have to figure something else out, but until then nets still have the potential to save lives...
The drones will be cheap enough that they can send 2 or 3, to cut the net, and then keep going.
You know what's even cheaper than an FPV drone? The homeless drug addict that's desperate for a bit of cash. Give him a knife, your address, and promise of a $100 bill after the job is done.
Homeless people aren't cocaine bears. They're people. They have morals, they get scared, they do not like people who try to use them up, and they aren't dumb enough to throw themselves into a situation where they probably die.
And, speaking from experience here, the ones who are high enough to maybe do what you want are even less reliable at getting shit done.
You have watched too much propaganda.
You're honestly better off using actual drones. They kill people all the time.
Ah, thank you. I was wondering what I might have accidentally insinuated to anger so many people.
Indeed, homeless people are people just like us. And like all of us, they're not immune to the effects of their circumstances. The point about going to a homeless person isn't that they're uniquely bad people. It's that they were already purposely made homeless for this very purpose. To make people fear the homeless and punch down for their safety instead of up. If you send a homeless person, then regardless of whether they succeed at the job or not, they've taken attention away from those in power. If you send a drone, then everyone starts looking up.
Bill Williamson?
I definitely found a yt video on how to make one. It's not hard.
Problem is besides probably being illegal in your area its an easy way to accidentally fry yours or your neighbours electronics.
That being said, there are physical countermeasures they could design into these robots that would probably be able to withstand anything DIY scale.
We're talking about a hypothetical scenario of disabling the killer robots that are deployed to put down civilians. If they're deploying the robots in the first place, they've already decided you're doing something illegal; at that point, operating within strictly legal parameters offers no benefit.
is it something that can be attached to an RC car or drone? it's just the classic army vs insurgent play then
So like the handheld one on the video could be. I'm assuming the radius and intensity of the EMP will be linked to the size of the battery used.
As such I would expect design elements such as a Faraday Cage or EMP resistant paint/exterior could protect from anything that size.
Military grade weapons are immune to EM pulses. They are shielded and have EM sensors to shut down the exposed sensors during the EM pulse so nothing is effected. That is like a surge surpressor, they can watch for the leading edge of a spike and shut down before damage, then switch back on a millisecond later after the EM pulse is gone.
Source: While in university I had a part time job working for a defense contractor. Weapons had an "operate through" checkbox on the CDRL that needed to be validated. "Operate through" meant Operate through a nuclear em pulse. If the military was building missiles 20 years ago that could fly through an EM pulse from a megaton nuclear airburst, your home-made EM cannon will do nothing to military grade robots.
20 years ago we were also making cars with doors that could open but the billionaires seem to be having trouble with that one
That's because those cars are for you to drive, not them. No expense will be spared for their murderbots.
If that's the case you loop right back around to more of us than them. If each robot is heavily overbuilt then it become far too expensive to make enough to subdue the population
They have infinite money to pay for them because the money to build them comes from the workers. But really a surge suppressor added to a device is pennies in mass production. If EM pulse was actually effective, Russia would be using it to stop Ukraine's robots.
https://www.politico.eu/article/volodymyr-zelenskyy-robotic-systems-russia-army-positions-ukraine
Infinite money can only do so much with finite workers and finite resources.
Unless they begin amassing for a long long time before doing anything cost will be an issue.
Think of it like Iranian drones vs. the iron dome. The dome does stop most of them, but eventually the cost of iron dome missiles will cause the system to fail
If you are that worried about money the absurd part is millions of $50k robots, not a $1 surge suppressor added to prevent an EMP from hurting electronics.
But that would damage my phone and then how would I order stuff on Amazon?