▲ 37 points
back
81 comments
There are two ways to be in bed with an ache: lying and turning. If you had an undiagnosable chronic illness with flareups, would you content yourself with your life being essentially over, or would you keep trying to alter your environment until other people thought you had a weird lifestyle? I think pretty much all of the ambitious professionals on this forum would be wrapping themselves in tin foil like a baked potato long before they gave up on being alert and active enough to self-actualize.
If you thought non-ionizing radiation only coupled to the human body thermally, it could instead be trying gluten-free, or notroopics, or buying a lot of air filters, and if your illness went into remission after starting you wouldn't want to switch back and forth twenty times to build up a statistical sample.
> If you thought non-ionizing radiation only coupled to the human body thermally, it could instead be trying gluten-free, or notroopics, or buying a lot of air filters, and if your illness went into remission after starting you wouldn't want to switch back and forth twenty times to build up a statistical sample.
I think it's underappreciated that superstition is rational is when the cost of experimentation is high.
> I think it's underappreciated that superstition is rational is when the cost of experimentation is high.
I believe your observation is underappreciated.
You'd need only 3 or 4 times for a very useful sample with basically the same applicability as 20.
If it's a low cost change, sure, you may not even question if it's doing anything. But if it's a major change in lifestyle, I would absolutely try to check if it's working. Even more because if it's only incidentally working, it could stop working at any time and leave you knowing nothing useful right at the point where you are both sick again and paying the cost of that lifestyle change.
Do that again and again and you are sure to destroy your life.
You don't need a bunch of cycling back and forth. A few times is plenty. I have every-varying food sensitivities (mostly exposure causes sensitivity which will eventually fade if I leave the offender alone for long enough) and I've been around the loop of figuring out what is it now many, many times. (At least to the degree I can figure it out--more than once it's clearly been an impurity in an item. And you often don't know--I know "artificial flavors" is very likely to be a problem--but what exactly? I'm no chemophobe--second on my list of likely to be a problem is "natural flavors".)
Rarely does it take me more than one repeat to be confident of what is bothering me.
Since time is part of your data, you can often become extremely confident in a treatment with a very quick trial.
I recently tried an allergy medication. Problem cleared up under an hour after I took a pill, re-appeared next day with no treatment, and then once again cleared up under an hour after taking pill.
It's extremely unlikely my body decided to randomly get healthier after taking medication, and unhealthy when I stopped.
A placebo effect is possible of course, but if it was actually eliminating the symptoms, that's still a good result for the individual.
You're dealing with something that can change in an hour, but a sampling of general health issues (hangovers, susceptibility to viral infection, healing of muscles and soft tissues after normal wear and tear) shows that the time constant ranges from days to months.
It's a crazy field. It's quite obvious that *most* of the effects are purely psychosomatic. The effects are related to appearances rather than reality--for example, there is a small correlation between visible high tension power lines and health. But not to the actual EMF strength. Same thing you see elsewhere--people with health issues moving to undesirable but not bad housing because that's what they can afford.
I've also been in multiple online discussions where various people were sensitive to sounds that most people don't hear--typically devices that messed with magnetic fields at frequencies in the ultrasonic range. (Say, many switching power supplies.) Something a little bit loose wiggles in the field and you get an ultrasonic whine. None have struck me as kooks--but consider what happens when someone doesn't pay enough attention to detail. Is it the Wi-Fi radiation or it's power supply? Plenty of people fall for the obvious item in figuring out food reactions, I would expect to see some in other areas.
And what if there actually is something of a basis? We have plenty of examples of inadvertent AM radios, including from dental fillings. Clearly, it's possible to receive radio energy in freaky ways--the AM radio is the obvious case because it carries a signal whose reception manifests in a detectable way. What if the "electrosensitives" are actually people who have some natural resonance in the brain with some common transmitter? It wouldn't take a lot of energy to generate spurious brain activity. Mistaken generalization certainly seems within the realm of possibility.
Note that I'm *not* suggesting any direct harm here, just interference.
I'm open to both harm and interference, but what keeps me skeptical about these people's claims is that the effect level always seems to be hovering at the phantom p-ghost level... that is, exactly the level you'd expect if you keep running low powered experiments and occasionally, whether deliberately or otherwise, you end up with a p-hacked experiment that seems to maybe suggest something is there, until you look again. It's a common pattern and generally means no, there is nothing there, just p-hacked phantoms.
If you claim Wifi gives you a headache within a few minutes, and I put you in a Faraday cage with a Wifi router, and your headache flares up precisely when the wifi router's lights blinks, but not when it is actually on, because for the purposes of the experiment the two indications have been severed, then that's pretty conclusive in my opinion that there's nothing there for that person. And that experiment has been done, and that's exactly the result that came out.
Now, that doesn't therefore prove that no radio waves ever affect any human in any way, and it also doesn't prove that there isn't "something" going on in the person reporting headaches (they could getting headaches and just dead wrong about why; goodness knows I've spent enough of my life in that exact situation myself, I'm in no position to complain! add a bit of trying to get the result they expect and/or want and it's not hard to understand what's going on), but it does seem to leave us with a dearth of evidence to date that radio waves have immediately detectable impacts.
And that sort of test should be done. Just be careful about isolation! (Remember the EM-drive, physics said it shouldn't work but tests showed a small effect with widely varying results. The electric current of the power supply, flowing through a wire in a magnetic field. There's also the contraptions that will rise if sufficient voltage is applied. It works--in atmosphere.)
And remember what I said about ultrasonic sounds from power supplies? Someone who doesn't understand how to test and was sensitive to one device might believe they're sensitive to all.
"physics said it shouldn't work but tests showed a small effect with widely varying results"
A valid point, and why I phrased it as I did. If you claim that Wifi gives you a headache in, say, 5 minutes, then that's a strong signal that can be tested for. If it fails, then there's a lot of statistical power there. If you claimed that being in a Wifi field for a few days gave you a headache, then my answer is... actually that you're very unlikely to be correct because carefully testing such a problem requires individual trials that take weeks apiece, which you have almost certainly not done. I know from experience; I've done some of my own personal health optimization that takes similar time frames. Some of my results have required years to determine because of the insensitivity of the testing and how long a single trial takes to get significance, and I still wouldn't be my life I've got all the details correct.
>If... your headache flares up precisely when the wifi router's lights blinks, but not when it is actually on... then that's pretty conclusive...
A recovering alcoholic can feel sick at the mere smell of alcohol (simultaneous stimuli), but that's not "pretty conclusive" evidence that drinking alcohol has no deleterious effects.
That "experiment" is only evidence of one thing: that you can trick people using Psych 101 combined with bad experimental design. If you wanted to actually prove or disprove the effect, a properly designed experiment would omit the trickery (or at least run a matrix experiment with a trickery/no-trickery variable).
"...of nothing, because that's also how the body will react to known stressors."
You say that like it's some sort of brilliant revelation, but that they are reacting to some other stressor and not actually to Wifi is the point.
Since the question under study is not "do people react to perceptions" but "does this person actually react to Wifi signals, specifically Wifi signals and not anything else", it is quite to the point. If Wifi gives you a headache immediately, which is to say, a strong, relatively quick signal, but you can't detect it reliably in a contained environment, then you're wrong about the cause of your headaches, which, as I said, is not even remotely a shocking result. Headaches do not come with labels attached telling you what caused them, unfortunately.
It would be conclusive if the smell of alcohol consistently made people sick but actually drinking (magically deodorized) alcohol had no apparent effect on the same people.
There is nothing crazy about that. Some birds are very sensitive to radio, it disturbs their build in compass [1]. So there is some substance to similar claims.
And right now there is no conclusive evidence, radio does not cause headaches in some edge cases.
Plus moving to such place brings many practical benefits. No mobile phones severely limits type of people one will interact with.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsif.2014.110...
RCTs show that patients experience symptoms when told the radio is on, but not when it's actually on. See e.g. the TV programme with Richard Hammond a while back ("should I be worried about..." I think it was called).
>typically devices that messed with magnetic fields at frequencies in the ultrasonic range. (Say, many switching power supplies.) Something a little bit loose wiggles in the field and you get an ultrasonic whine.
High-frequency sounds can end up driving nonlinear oscillators that emit lower-frequency sounds, and all magnetics wiggle - solid elasticity is enough looseness. If I had a whining switching power supply that would be my guess. Of course, some switching power supplies are simply designed to switch at 20khz...
I'm pretty proud of the fact that I've never been through an airport scanner. People treat me crazy for it and I probably am. "It is perfectly safe, you get more radiation from the plane ride."
My issue is that I do not trust the operators of the machine. I do not trust the safety protocols in place. We constantly tool on the TSA and its security theater filled with incompetent people. So, why do we trust them to operate these machines? What if it malfunctions or isn't properly serviced?
I was just at an airport, watched someone move a bit, and have to get immediately rescanned again. 2x the radiation, 2x the chances something goes wrong. The odds are against you.
Why are we so complacent in their usage? The only way around this is to suffer humiliation. An invasive pat down where they make you wait an inordinate amount of time for someone to come along, slowly put on gloves, explain to you the same set of rules you've heard a million times, and then literally touch your entire body, including brushing up against your genitals. I have actually noticed some guards enjoying it more than others.
In the end, I feel it is worth the 10 minutes of inconvenience and the humiliation (which I'm pretty immune to at this point in my life). I get to the airport early anyway.
Somehow the people in the article have gotten it into their heads that the only solution to their issues are to move into the middle of nowhere. That said, I can understand their situation too and feel empathy for them.
Of course you get rescanned if you move--fundamentally the machine is doing a panoramic image. I'm sure you've seen photos on the internet of panoramas gone wildly wrong because something moved.
The original version did use low power x-ray and people quite rightly raised a stink about that. Now it's backscatter in the radio frequencies--should be harmless. (Not that it's going to stop a well-concealed bomb. The machines see metal as "black"--but they also see the background where you aren't as "black". Thus they do not see metal that does not overlay your body. Say, something small attached to your clothes such that it's away from your body when you assume the position.) The machines are a lot better at catching smugglers than terrorists.
> The original version did use low power x-ray and people quite rightly raised a stink about that. Now it's backscatter in the radio frequencies--should be harmless.
"trust me bro" science at its finest.
Do we get to see the service interval on these machines to ensure that they are operating fine and have never had an issue?
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3936792/
"Based on what is known about the scanners, passengers should not fear going through the scans for health reasons, as the risks are truly trivial. ... it is premature to put a whole population through this with out more due diligence and independent testing"
Even the papers on this stuff can't come to any sort of agreement.
Easy enough to opt-out and just avoid the question entirely. I'm not bothered at all by the pat down.
> So, why do we trust them to operate these machines
Because their operation is just pushing a button. They are not responsible for the safety protocols, etc. That is somebody elses job.
Like if you dont like the machines fine, but their safety (or lack thereof) has nothing to do with the TSA agent.
> That is somebody elses job.
Exactly my point. Your safety and exposure risk is held to the highest standard of "not my job."
> "I was just at an airport, watched someone move a bit, and have to get immediately rescanned again."
Do you blame the individual for moving or the agent for not being clear enough in the instructions?
You’re worried about the radiation dose from the scanners and not from the flight itself?
That isn't what I was saying, at all. It is the non-zero potential for a high radiation dose from a defective machine (or being forced through it multiple times), that I don't want to take the risk on.
You are probably more at risk due to spending extra time with TSA people than from the machine.
Risk of what?
Again, the point here is that I'm being thoughtful about the measure of risk I'm taking in a particular situation as an example.
In the same way that people choose to move to the middle of nowhere to avoid "signals."
Walking through the airport around so many people, some of which are violent, than any problems with the scanners. That said I skip the high Rez face scans because those are just fkn creepy that they want that much information about my pores.
Why not just get TSA Precheck at this point?
I have that, along with global entry, and even had clear for a while. I didn't renew cause it wasn't in every airport and because it really wasn't any faster than precheck. Oh and on Spirit biz class, you even get to skip the line.
None of that is a guarantee that they don't require you to go through the scanner.
I just flew roundtrip last week, in both airports they were making everyone go through the scanner.
I've been reading about folks moving to the Radio Quiet Zone for a long time. I had some fear that the number of e-refugees (for lack of a better term) would grow to a counterproductive level. Thankfully, the article numbers them in the dozens.
If they have more relief in their life + aren't a burden to others, what better outcome could I hope for?
disclosure: married to a chemical hypersensitive for 25y, who fortunately found some peace elsewhere
It reminds me of Todd Haynes _Safe_ [1] where it's never clear what's wrong exactly with the main character, but there's no doubt she has a plenty of toxic social relationships.
Gift link: https://wapo.st/4eLUEmn
https://archive.ph/hXwpw (gift link didn't open article for me [2 devices]. thnx for trying tho).
If someone identifies as electrosensitive, and moving to a low-EM zone helps relieve their symptoms, it seems more likely we have something to learn about the nature of psychosomatic illnesses than something to learn about radiation physics.
Ah man, don't go in there with a shortwave receiver and scan through the dozens/hundreds of stations you'll pick up anywhere in North America (or really anywhere in the world)... :\
I've seen countless articles like this one, and what irks me most about them is the almost exclusive focus by their authors on these people and their ailments. It's like the long-time residents of these tiny communities--and the effects the influx of these people are having on them--are an afterthought not worth considering.
I don’t know what to make of people in this situation. Some claim it’s obviously psychosomatic. Possibly, but humans are actively evolving genetically and is it possible that some small group is sensitive via an undiscovered genetic quirk? I’m super curious about this.
If they're actually sensitive, which I don't think has been proven one way or the other, then I don't think it's some newly evolved trait. Rather, I think it's the artifacts of traits we've evolved away from resurfacing. Birds have EM-sensitive receptors in their retinas, which is how their internal compasses work. Some aboriginal people have been known to always know which way is north, even in the dark, which I wouldn't be surprised to learn if it's something similar. Humans also used to have senses of smell that rival dogs, as evidenced by our oversized nasal cavities and that one woman in the UK who can smell cancer. We've lost a great deal of useful physical abilities since the advent of intelligence, and getting a handful of people that randomly got some of it back isn't too surprising to me. It would be interesting if we could isolate such things and maybe bring them back for everyone.
Previous discussion (11 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41881527
If enough of these crazies move to Greenbank it will at least help keep the area a radio quiet zone, so good for the observatory!
There are many things that can not be explained. I am glad that they have found relief.
I'll just leave this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCK26X-U678
NRQZ used for testing 5G above legal limits and I guess none of the electosensitive noticed.
I have not read article, because it's paywalled, but I was very sad reading the previous comments. Over the last few hundreds of years, the humanity has changed so much in the environment. Implications of things were not fully understood at the time they were introduced. I'm not saying whether these people are right or wrong, but calling them crazy is not really serving anything. Just imagine how people would look at you of you claimed you have serious health problems because of this wonderful new material called asbestos.
I think the idea that the human body and brain is somehow inherently immune to any effect from radio waves, with no such mechanism even proposed as to why this might even be the case, is just as much a belief in faith. This one of those questions where an experimental design to get to the ground truth is just impossible. Everyone on earth is exposed to radiowaves, so to establish a demographically matched control population to a radio wave laden case population is simply impossible, short of raising up a large sample size of humans in a lead lined vault deep under ground. And even then, you can’t control for every latent factor.
"Radio wave" is an engineering term - it just describes photons that we can detect and emit using a certain type of technology. It's a totally arbitrary category in a physical sense. What we're really talking about is photons with an energy up to about 10^-3 electron volts.
My body is constantly radiating about 120 watts worth of photons, with energies up to about 10^-1 eV. I'm constantly glowing with non-ionizing radiation that I emit as a natural side-effect of living, producing vastly more energy than any wireless device you're likely to encounter.
There's just no plausible mechanism by which a small quantity of low-energy photons could be more harmful than the far greater number of higher-energy photons you're exposed to in literally any environment compatible with human life. If you fear WiFi, you should be terrified of heat and light. Radio waves aren't a mysterious force summoned up by man, they're a tiny portion of the cacophony of electromagnetic radiation that we're exposed to by literally every speck of matter in the universe.
What would the effect be? How would it show up? What mechanism can explain radio waves affecting brain structures? What tissue can receive radio waves? What frequency are we even talking about?
Anyway, the way to start with your hypothesis is really simple. Relate the amount of relevant electromagnetic energy in the environment to whatever symptom you think it causes and measure the population for that symptom. Get people who exhibit the symptoms to places where that energy is absent (removed from society, in a Faraday cage, whatever). Check if the symptoms disappear. It doesn't have to disappear completely, just gradually. If you believe that even the slightest amount of EM radiation will still have an effect, so a test free of it is practically impossible, I have a surprise for you.
check out Bypass Paywalls Clean for firefox. I did not even know there was apaywall.