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The Town That Banned Wi-Fi

An anonymous reader sends a story from The Guardian about Green Bank, West Virginia, a small town housing the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. There are other telescopes nearby, too. Because the telescopes are so sensitive, stray electromagnetic signals are strictly regulated in the surrounding area, which is called the National Radio Quiet Zone. But the town is running into a problem: its population was around 120 when this began, and by now about 40 people have moved there because they want to get away from radio waves and Wi-Fi signals and other types of electromagnetic radiation. There have been reports of tensions in the town: tales of threats and abuse unfitting to a sleepy mountain village. And it is all the stranger when you consider that no serious scientific study has been able to establish that electrosensitivity exists. ... Where the locals might have been happy to tolerate one or two of the sensitives, the mass migration was beyond the pale. ... People would walk towards [one woman] with concealed electronics, in an effort to provoke a reaction. A meeting she and her husband organised to help educate the others about electrosensitivity descended into a slanging match.

2 of 529 comments (clear)

  1. Not So Fast by dcw3 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The FCC ban was created in 1958. The town didn't ban this.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    --
    Just another day in Paradise
  2. Re:Subsidized tin foil hats: Only in Sweden. by Megol · · Score: 5, Informative

    The article is wrong.
    EHS isn't generally recognized as something but psychosomatic illness by medical science however the use of the label is allowed (EU directive IIRC).
    Some places gives money to "sanitize" the homes of people claiming sensitivity - but most doesn't. The stated goal for those places that do isn't to reduce electromagnetic radiation per se but to reduce the nocebo effect. The law doesn't count alleged EHS as a disability and doesn't require anyone to reduce EM exposure which it would if the effect were considered real.

    People diagnosed with EHS may apply for disability just as other suffering from some serious psychosomatic illnesses.

    In short it seems that Sweden was listed as an example to "prove" the effect is real as considered by some state. That's simply false. The local law, medical science and research all consider it being purely psychosomatic triggered by the nocebo effect.