If You Are Harassed by Lasers
Posted3 months agoActive3 months ago
laserpointersafety.comOtherstoryHigh profile
skepticalmixed
Debate
80/100
Laser HarassmentConspiracy TheoriesMental Health
Key topics
Laser Harassment
Conspiracy Theories
Mental Health
The linked article discusses how to deal with laser harassment, but the discussion reveals skepticism about the legitimacy of such claims and touches on related issues like conspiracy theories and mental health.
Snapshot generated from the HN discussion
Discussion Activity
Very active discussionFirst comment
26m
Peak period
122
0-12h
Avg / period
20
Comment distribution160 data points
Loading chart...
Based on 160 loaded comments
Key moments
- 01Story posted
Sep 26, 2025 at 3:12 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 01 - 02First comment
Sep 26, 2025 at 3:38 PM EDT
26m after posting
Step 02 - 03Peak activity
122 comments in 0-12h
Hottest window of the conversation
Step 03 - 04Latest activity
Oct 4, 2025 at 4:31 PM EDT
3 months ago
Step 04
Generating AI Summary...
Analyzing up to 500 comments to identify key contributors and discussion patterns
ID: 45389965Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 8:32:40 PM
Want the full context?
Jump to the original sources
Read the primary article or dive into the live Hacker News thread when you're ready.
People who have delusions or people deep into their conspiracy theories have an insane level of insistence. They will refuse to accept "That's just not how that works" as an answer. It's scary.
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders...
I think the big surprise of the internet and subsequently the SCP wiki's focus on cognitohazards and "killer memes" is that the phenomenon in it's own way is an extreme version of a real danger - as a species we are really not well equipped for the information environment we've built, and it's prudent to tread very cautiously.
As Philip K. Dick said, of his own "laser pointer" incident: "If you were me, and had this happen to you, I'm sure you wouldn't be able to leave it alone."
Remember, that even for us healthy people, there's ultimately no objective answer to what's important or not. There may be more or less objective conditional answers (e.g. if it's important that I don't starve to death tomorrow, it's important that I eat), but those already assumes something is important. It has to bottom out in something that's important for its own sake, something whose importance can't be justified from something else's importance.
I think the "gangstalking" people have had experiences that their mind does not allow them to dismiss. They may be capable of accepting different explanations for why the experience mattered - but they can't accept that it isn't important, because it's somehow a root important thing for them.
In that very same Philip K. Dick essay, he more or less apologized for this, and listed up various different explanations that he'd tried. But he was lucky enough that his "ultimate importance" experience was basically pleasant. The genuinely paranoid people are not so lucky.
I had a friend experience a psychotic episode and suffer from delusions. It was more than just, "this is really happening to me". Any suggestions that we offered that they weren't able to refute became part of the delusion. "You're right, it's not the police breaking into my house, it must be the FBI!"
If you can't explain why it doesn't work that way, there's no reason anybody should believe you.
Who's convinced by "lol no ur stupid"?
For many people with mental illness, it's not a "refusal". That implies agency and deliberate choice from a properly functioning mind. When it's the mind itself that is malfunctioning, those kinds of verbs don't really work. The very definition of "delusion" is a thing you are compelled to believe even in the absence of evidence. If you are able to stop believing it, if you are able to not refuse to change your belief, then it's not a delusion in the first place.
Further, some people suffering in this way have anosognosia, which means not only are they delusion, but their mind is also incapable of perceiving its own malfunction.
Both the lasers and the meteors have in common the fact that there are far more false negatives than true positives.
https://old.reddit.com/r/Gangstalking/
Here's a fascinating Aeon piece on the phenomenon
https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-psychiatric-narrative-hinders...
"If you see light or feel heat from an unknown source"
the whole thing reads a little like a paranoia trigger.
What about LIDAR on self-driving cars?
I have heard that these damage cameras and I am curious as to whether they are equally damaging to eyeballs.
Do I need my tin hat or is there nothing to worry about?
Aside, I hate oncoming Teslas at night, feels like high beams permanently on. Effect seems more with Tesla. Flashing high beams at them does no good maybe it's all AI controlled or the drivers don't care.
"If you see the flash, it's already too late"
The cables snapped at some point. These things were tough, able to last decades. This whole thread made me think aliens cut it.
The solution must never involve lasers.
Each of these observations stands properly on it's own. If we're making them compete, we've lost the thread somewhere.
https://petapixel.com/2025/05/20/lidar-lasers-on-volvo-suv-f...
Its not uncommon to have them hovering for 1-2 hours straight 3-7 times a week, every week, at times with no active calls on the community police dashboard almost entirely between 11pm and 4am, often less than 1000 feet in altitude (high dBs enough to shake windows).
That aside, using a helicopter as a broadcast mechanism over a loudspeaker to a neighborhood is entirely unacceptable during hours people normally sleep.
Everyone is complaining and they've been doing that at least 3 years now.
How many times can you hear, "Missing person, or Felony Suspect", black shirt, denim pants, black suspect, call 911", or "suspicious person, black hoodie, call 911", before they lose all credibility. Around 10?
It seems really racist too, always hispanic or black, where the descriptions provided apply to most if not all people of those demographics.
Makes the average person feel like we live in a police state without due process or a rule of law when the only means to resolve is front-of-line blocked through local government which ignores complaints.
I shouldn't be hearing this at 2am regularly, some people work.
An example of the solution being far worse than the problem.
They fly 1-3 at a time in a several mile loop. The parade begins late afternoon and ends at 10pm. I'm grateful we don't get the giant all-night FU, that the GP gets from their local LEO.
Where?
Like the top-end of that is "after considerable discussion they abort whatever expensive activity they are engaged in and return to base". Literally everything else ranges from "inflicting grevious bodily harm" to "mass casualty event".
It’s just a guess but the death toll from driving too fast is likely much higher than that from laser pointers.
Though people may know the risk and speed anyway.
A larger but somewhat different issue is that pilots have some obligation to report laser sightings. Most reports are beams waving elsewhere and not striking their aircraft.
But even those sightings are an issue because officials commonly (and misleadingly) present the stats as if they were all aircraft strikes. News orgs repeat the claims without vetting.
Generally, I treat handhelds of >1W with weapon-ish caution. I won't point them in a direction where people are likely to be.
I have an LEP light and I'm more flexible with that but I still keep it off of moving objects.
For nightly walks, I carry a 21k lumen LED torch that helps with oncoming highbeams. The highest setting is a reasonable response to lightbars.
"They try to build a prison for you and me, oh baby you and me" ;)
Whew.
https://www.apollooptical.com/material-transmission-data-gra...
Note the sharp drop-off in transmission for wavelengths shorter than 400 nm.
Fortunately that fad is somewhat over and manufacturers mostly learnt not to put in the brightest led they could source.
A little more expensive, but they look a little nicer too.
Has one of the brightest LEDs I've seen lately right on front of the charger whenever a device is on it. Why would they put a bright light on a night-stand accessory, and put it in the front where its shining right into your eyes as you try to sleep?
Or better yet, why have an LED on it at all in the first place? Any device I'm putting on it has its own charging indicator, I don't need the charger itself to have one.
Don’t get me started on kids toys that are too loud!
V-tech have a lot to answer for. As do all well-meaning relatives who buy them as presents. Straight under the stairs they go.
(Just scrape it down a bit)
Not a fan of LEDs, but I at least understand why this as it is.
When you move into a new place, always check they are real and work.
Router has a button which disable all lights until it's pressed again, monitors have the setting in their menus.
The only device thats shining brightly in my home is a storage controller I've got in my home server, with no way of turning it off - or at least dimming it down
If you're on Linux the dot on the cover is /sys/class/leds/tpacpi::lid_logo_dot. See the other files in that directory for other LEDs.
I don't know about Windows off-hand because I don't use it, but the BIOS exposes the functionality so there should be a program to do it. In a quick search: https://github.com/valinet/ThinkPadLEDControl
FreeBSD doesn't support it, but quite easy to write a patch for it if you want it (I actually wrote a patch for this, but didn't really put the finishing touches on it and submit it as my previous one got no feedback at all, so *shrug* – I ended up just installing Linux again). Same for the other BSDs.
[1]: You need to compile your own kernel for the charging/power LED which wasn't needed on older models, because that's registered as "unknown LED" and protected behind a compile option. It's a tad annoying, but it's possible.
Now that I think about it, that was probably actually one motherboard ago and it might be different now... but the tape's working just fine so who needs to check?
Did you try talking to them about it first?
Idk, I’d consider it highly provocative if a neighbour installed anything on or tampered with my property without not only my permission but even the decency of notification. At that point, they not only lose the benefit of doubt but the benefit of civility since I’m not sure what other social conventions and laws they may be comfortable casually violating.
Assuming the worst at first is a bad habit but assuming bad intent after a bad track record is established is healthy and helpful.
Not advocating any course of action, just gaming out the options a little.
If the neighbor had antisocial personality traits (narcissism is most common), trying to talk to them would only trigger a conflict which cannot be resolved.
Maybe a light bar for the rear of the car and some reflective material for the sunvisor?
I once came up behind a semi on a rural stretch of I-80 with my brights on. He hit me with a set of rear-mounted flood lights.
Probably illegal, but who's going to stop him? Plus, I got the message.
Just took a few people flashing brights at me to make me realize and do the (very easy) adjustment to proper specs.
Doesn’t solve people behind you, but it’s not like they’re going to pull over and adjust anyway. Flash brights and consider it a favor to the person in front of the offender.
But yeah, it's kind of shocking how often people are like "I hate this thing that person is doing" and I'm like "Have you asked them to stop?" and they haven't. Just... ask? Worse case scenario they say no and you're in the same spot you were.
Avoiding such negative consequences of rejection may require a confrontation and possibly very expensive dental treatment (or sponsoring one for the victim of your assault, which it may be interpreted as if you win even if you do not hit first) when it is between two men, and other concerns for personal safety if it is a woman against a man.
(Anecdotally, unfamiliar women seem to have less of an issue asking each other to change their behaviour this way, as do men asking women.)
So, it is more preferable to not complain and instead raise your social status such that you do not come in contact with those people (either real status or at least imagined one, through bottled-up contempt towards those rubes or whatever offending term the context calls for).
I’m not saying it is ideal, just describing why it seems pretty to me obvious how person A would often rather not “simply” ask person B to stop doing something or change something to accommodate person A.
Similar to the effect when an oncoming car is cresting a small hill and the headlight angle of incidence changes to impact your eyes
https://www.eagleeyes.com/collections/night-driving
If you are building a product and it has any indicator lights please dim/diffuse/lightpipe them.
It seems to be a trend these days of ultra bright LEDs for indicators, I have so many devices I've either disconnected, dimmed or taped over the LEDs because it is so bloody bright.
For people doing software, press for the love of god just make that shit adjustable. Only fucking noobs hard code variables. Practicing good habits will help everyone, including you. Unless you got a serious reason not to, expose that to the users. Even if you don't think anyone will want it, I promise you, someone does. There's a lot of people and everyone thinks differently. So only lock down what needs to be locked down.
Unless you're trying to create e-waste or piss people off. Which in that case I only have two words for you and they aren't nice
Also don't forget about response time. You may not be able to do it that fast. Depends on the led
Cheapest light pipe on digikey: 16 cents Cheapest photodiode on digikey: 11 cents Cheapest LED (obviously that annoying blue): 625 milli cents!
Part costs matter! Its not just the BOM, its the NRE from the increased complexity. Im not saying saying its OK, just that its inevitable considering the economic conditions.
I do board level designs and drop down LEDs. If you are not specialising in indicators, its hard to visualise how bright 10mA through your diode is going to be. Add to this that sometimes you never even see the thing you designed!
But if you want to get creative you could use the diodes in the circuit or even your led if you'll blink it. But that last one doesn't tell you the led brightness, only ambient.
[0] https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/harvatek-corporat...
[1] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/1-4V-20-30-45-60_6253...
[2] https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/JST3-3MM-receiver-pho...
I think annoying at 10m is sufficient power to require a 'power' LED, so that shouldnt be hard to avoid in a design I would agree. Annoying in your kitchen however is much harder to eyeball a value for (excuse the pun).
Expects vandalism or more serious crime.
...put a small green sticker
Ok, good engineer!
61 more comments available on Hacker News