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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.
A thunderstorm must torture these people terribly.
So, they have to hide from the Sun during the day like a vampire also?
Oliver.
Isn't this an acceptable solution? Give them space where they can have their way. Radiosensitivity is a harmless crazy. It's not like the United States of America lack space. Every year many thousands of tech freaks gather in a desert to live out their dream of a high tech tribal life. Isn't there room for other loonies too?
Just like the recent vaccine scare. It is hard to prove to people that something is indeed safe. One off comment that something is dangerious our a dangerious word is used to explain it is enough to turn off their brains and go into fear mode.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From TFA:
“I encourage scientists to go to where we are and measure the environment,” she replied. “Don’t try to pretend that you’re God and expose us to different frequencies in a lab. That’s like taking someone and breaking their legs and asking how much it hurts.”
“Conventional government-funded science isn’t a reliable indicator of health defects,” she told me. “There’s a vested interest in keeping the truth out of circulation. But the independent science isn’t sceptical about it at all.”
And "Eventually I established that I was reacting to a buried cellphone tower. US Cellular was the brand – I didn’t react to AT&T, Spring or Cellular One towers.” She reeled off the names as if it would be the most normal thing in the world to have a brand-specific allergy."
Many of them are not willing to take part on experiments. And if they do, they can always say science is flawed, the symptoms are frequency- or even brand-specific and if all else fails, you know: "It's a conspiration and I felt bad throughout the whole experiment because chemtrails."
no serious scientific study has been able to establish that electrosensitivity exists
How come nobody had the common courtesy of a "simple" double blind experiment?
Because no matter how much you want to, poking these people's eyes out is against the law.
no serious scientific study has been able to establish that electrosensitivity exists How come nobody had the common courtesy of a "simple" double blind experiment?
It's ridiculous to think for even a second that this hasn't happened. Of course there are such studies.
The two key words here are 'serious'. -A qualifier which isn't applied to any study which doesn't support the party line.
No, it refers to controlled experiments run and managed in accordance with established best practice. On the other hand, you ARE guilty of dismissing studies based on conclusions, rather than methodology.
-And specifying "electrosensitivity". -Which means tests demonstrating, (for one example), that the blood/brain barrier becomes permeable under exposure to certain low-power frequencies, regardless of its repeatability or implications, is not relevant if the study doesn't specifically look at somebody claiming "electrosensitivity".
Some of the studies have focused on self-identified electrosensitives.
Now let me talk about MY electro-sensitivity. There is a high-voltage power line that crosses the motorway on the route between my childhood home and where my grandparents used to live. When we went under it, I used to get a funny feeling in the top of my head -- every time, without fail. So someone if my family (I can't remember who) suggested that I shut my eyes and tell them when I felt it. For a year or two, I kept opening my eyes too early and seeing the powerlines before we went under them. So one year I got determined to do it properly. I closed my eyes as soon as we reached the first bend on the motorway and kept them shut for ten minutes or more. No sensation. Ever since then, I have felt nothing whatsoever when passing under the lines. I couldn't even make myself conjure up or relive the sensation.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Maybe they were all fat?
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
The FCC ban was created in 1958. The town didn't ban this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Just another day in Paradise
The town only had 120 residents. From their perspective, 40 new people is a mass migration. Heck, most towns of this size are slowly decreasing in population. They lack the resources to absorb 40 new people, let alone 40 new nut jobs with bizarre needs.
In an effort to make Green Bank more navigable, Schou made some requests of local businesses. A Dollar Store was opening, but its fluorescent and halogen lights would be intolerable. She asked that they were changed. “They wouldn’t do it. And without the light it gets very dark in there, so they’re not willing to turn off the power.” She took to eating her meals in the senior citizens’ centre, where a gap in the lighting gave her some peace. But walking to collect her food entailed exposure to problem bulbs, so she would ask others to wait on her.
Things came to a head. A town meeting was called. “She became very demanding, asking other people to turn their lights off or replace their bulbs,” said Stewart. “It was too much. And Schou was encouraging other sensitives to move here, and this is not a town with many jobs or houses to begin with.”
Where the locals might have been happy to tolerate one or two of the sensitives, the mass migration was beyond the pale. Another sensitive who moved to Green Bank was reported to have flown into a rage at the library, denouncing the “dumb hillbillies”. “People tell me to stop encouraging others to move here, and to stop bringing them into stores,” Schou confirms. “The hostility continues.” People would walk towards Schou with concealed electronics, in an effort to provoke a reaction. A meeting she and her husband organised to help educate the others about electrosensivity descended into a slanging match. Schou, who has called herself a “technological leper,” said the ill will went further: “I had a visitor staying, a fellow refugee, and the air was let out of our car tyres overnight.”
At best, she is a nuisance demanding everyone accommodate her invisible disability that she has zero evidence for. At worst, it sounds like she might be trying to literally take over the town by creating a solid electro-senstive voting block.
As for the townsfolk harrassing her, well we once again have only her word on that. And after almost a year seeing unverified and outright known to be false accusations of harrassment trumpeted in the media--the Guardian itself being one of the (very) guilty outlets--yeah, I'm gonna need some substantial evidence before I believe a word of that either.
The town already bans most transmitting devices. That's the whole point. The problem is that the wackos want stores to replace and/or disable lighting fixtures because of their "sensitivity", and they want staff in cafeterias to wait on them directly because they'd have to pass through lit areas to reach the food and don't want to. Read the article. I'm fine with self-treating psychosomatics, up until the point where they start imposing unreasonably on others.
$_ = "wftedskaebjgdpjgidbsmnjgcdwatb"; tr/a-z/oh, turtleneck Phrase Jar!/; print
Yes, apparently. They are insisting the residents change their own electrical fixtures to accomodate their own little neuroses, for one thing.
If you don't change your lightbulb for her, that's harassment!
anyone else wonder if the electrosensitivity "movement" has been funded by cable/ISP companies?
The thing is EMF strength falls off due to the inverse square law. The strength needed to actually impact the body is far greater than what is put off by cell phones and wifi.
Standing in front of a Jet plane with its active radar on can render you sterile. A jet plane flying overhead with its radar on doesn't even give you goosebumps.
Vermifax
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A synonym for electrosensitivity is hypochondriac.
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.
Are they interfering with your life?
Did you RTFA? They are interfering. They are going about town demanding that other people turn off electrical stuff that they imagine causes their imaginary disease.
It's because by then, that part of your brain had already burned out.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
See Morgellon's Disease. At least mainstream medicine calls it what it is - Delusional Parasitosis.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
There was one time when an electricity pylon was placed on pasture land that became water-logged at certain times of the year.
Whenever this happened, the cattle in the pasture would end up standing side on to the pylon. Whenever they moved into a position where the were standing perpendicular to the pylon, they would give a small jump and then turn sideways.
Standing sideways, meant that the resitance between the near-pylon side of the cow and the far-from-pylon side of the cow, was less than the resistance when the cows were standing head-on. The difference in resistances in conjunction with the eddy currents that were being caused by the pylon set in boggy pasture caused small electric shocks.
Try repeating your experiment on days when there are different levels of humidity.
The atmospheric charge that builds up before a thunderstorm also feels distinctive. Try storm-chasing. :D
Exactly this. And just like with the anti-vaccine folks, if you debunk one claim "Electrosensitive" people make, they will deny your evidence to the contrary, claim it's part of a conspiracy, and/or give new reasons why EM Sensitivity exists/vaccines are bad. In the latter case, it becomes a game of whack-a-mole where NOT disproving their latest theory PROVES (to them) that they are correct. It doesn't matter if this is Theory #7,453 - you must prove it wrong or else they are right!
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
I think this is an excellent chance to study mental disorders. We should set up a village that is completely devoid of all EM radiation (no radio/cell/wifi/electricity) and encourage these "sensitives" to move there for the "pure" enviornment.
A burried cell phone tower? How will that work?
The molepeople need cell service too.
I browse on +1 so AC's need not respond, I won't see it.
The studies show that people who claim electromagnetic sensitivity don't have it. Until that changes, there is absolutely no reason to assume they actually have a real, non-psychosomatic illness.
You missed the best quote:
“See those?” he asked.
“Aeroplane trails?”
“Not contrails – chemtrails,” he said. “The government sprays the air – it gets in the atmosphere.” He paused and looked me in the eye. “The world needs to know what’s happening here.”
Forty untreated psychotics, you mean. Sorry, I wouldn't want them next door either. Meds or GTFO.
They could have just opted for "science" and the incredibly cheap $50 Whole House Plug Neutralizer and neutralize those bad boy EMFs :)
http://www.amazon.com/Aulterra...
Because mental disorders are taboo and nobody dares messing with those wackos.
Also theres money to be made from delusional wackos, like the transgenders who'll pay for cosmetic surgery to help back up their delusion.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
They feel pressured by society into making a choice, that they have to throw themselves completely into trying to be male XOR female. They can't be allowed to be a bit of both.
Sure. There are people like that, and no-one rational should prevent them from living their lives as they see fit. If someone wants to be a little bit girl and a little bit boy, then more power to them.
But that's not everyone is it? The fact is that there are people who feel trapped in the wrong-gendered body, and wish to change it. It's their body, and they should be free to modify it how they please. I don't believe that this is always the result of black-and-white girl-or-boy false dichotomies (if that's what they are, you get the idea). After all, gender modification is a serious undertaking, and takes years of surgery and medication. You're saying that everyone that undergoes that process is delusional, and should be happy with the bits that god gave them?
But the truth is that they can't change it. There is no way to change their gender. What they are being offered is cosmetic surgery to give the *appearance* of the other gender.
Cosmetic surgery cannot alter gender.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.