system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[ Dune ] If the body shields stop fast objects like conventional bullets from firearms, why aren’t kicks and punches also blocked?
gpt
This is explained in-story. They block only objects moving at certain speeds. Bullets, sure, those are too fast. Even punches and kicks going at a certain speed are blocked. It's a plot point during Paul's first non-shielded knife fight that he keeps hesitating, not because he's afraid or toying with his opponent (as it seems to everyone watching), but because he's been drilled so hard in shielded fighting that he instinctively slows his strike down where his opponents' shields would be.

>"Why don't they just make it block everything?"

Well, if it's constantly at that level, then air wouldn't be able to penetrate. You'd suffocate in a high wind.

>"Why not make it able to tell the difference?"

They've got some very, very specific ideas about what computers should be able to do after a massive war about the legality of AI. They can't make it tell the difference without a computer 'in the fashion of a human mind,' which is against those rules.

>"I still feel like there's a better way."

Probably, but in-universe everyone's just waiting for someone to figure out how to make lasers stop nuking everything when they hit a shield, after which shields will be completely useless. Nobody wants to waste time and energy making a better shield when their enemies would just steal the info right after, and it's about to be obsolete anyway.