The problem is that the claims of electrosensitives are a barrier to progress. It’s rather useful to have a WiFi network in a public building such as a library, particularly if it’s tied to a database license. Need to access a research journal? Go to the library an have it download onto your tablet. now, previously this was done by supplying ethernet ports at every desk, but some devices (such as tablets,) don’t have jacks.
And of course, there’s an established market for cell phone coverage. A lot of people would be dissapointed to see that go.
In the West Virginia exclusion zone, even fuel injectors are prohibited-- it’s quite a bit more obsolete than most people are used to. The restrictions do serve a demonstrable purpose in regards to radio astronomy-- without the telescopes, there would be no rationale for keeping the restrictions in place, regardless of anecdotal evidence from EM semsitives persons,
If you cannot prove harm, your wishes will carry little weight among the people or institutions who want to continue using the electromagnetic spectrum.
http://www.lessemf.com/ - another vendor that caters to this demographics.
Good to have them around, I ordered from them some time ago when I need conductive fabrics for an EMI-related project. Expensive as a brand-name hell but good to have.
Such people will be also useful when the terahertz-imagers hit the streets “for our security”. The more people wear shielding garments “for health”, the less the ones wearing the same for privacy will stand out on the screens. And with a little scaremongering campaign there could even be a quite decent additional market for the stuff.
The capacitors in the resonant circuits are rather small, quite non-lethal. For lethal-grade ones, I’d suggest to build a Marx generator. (ZAP!!!)
Some primaries are built around those trashcan-style pole-mounted transformers. Those are pretty lethal.
Given that “electrosensitive” people claim symptoms when they think the transmitter is on instead of when the transmitter is really on, which was tested a number of times, I think there is a plenty of evidence.
They usually use the adjective “sham”, to much the same meaning.
I consider it rude to not tell the truth. If it looks and behaves like psychosomatic, it should be called suspected psychosomatic. Otherwise you are saying feel-good things that are harmful by sending the person in a wrong direction towards a solution. (I have direct experiences how body can respond to mental stimuli. But at the end of the day even intense responses of such kind are psychosomatic, and the last thing I’d appreciate is a compassionate-sounding false “solution”. We are complex enough for having bugs in both hardware and software and the cultural bias against the software ones is not a reason to not name them when they are there. Because fuck the culture.)
Yes, but not for the cost of my wireless stuff; double (triple, quadruple) so because it is not the real cause.
My product is superior because my paint is infused with Ancient Magic Crystal Skull Power™. This breakthrough technology aligns your Chakras while balancing your Feng-Shui by using the wisdom of sacred geometry to harness the planetary energetic grid to perfect your home’s Akashic field.
I had to go look up “Marx Generator”. Yeah, a spark similar in size to the one from the TC but instead of 100+ KHz AC, it is DC. Artificial lightning. With some current. That looks like it would hurt.
And I saw the video from the guy who built his TC around a pole transformer. It seemed like overkill, but should work for the low-voltage section. (‘low’ in TC parlance: < 100 KV)
A contradiction to the people who study such things.
At one time in our history, there was plenty of evidence that drowning someone to death proved they were not in league with the devil. Do you still believe that to be true?
Let us know when you have first hand knowledge rather than bigoted personal opinions. In the meantime I will do what I usual do. Remain skeptical but open minded.
If I’m not much mistaken, the operative rules for the ADA are “reasonable accommodation”. The rules for employment include this directive.
A modification or adjustment is “reasonable” if it “seems reasonable on its face, i.e., ordinarily or in the run of cases;”(8) this means it is “reasonable” if it appears to be “feasible” or “plausible.”(9)An accommodation also must be effective in meeting the needs of the individual.(10) In the context of job performance, this means that a reasonable accommodation enables the individual to perform the essential functions of the position. Similarly, a reasonable accommodation enables an applicant with a disability to have an equal opportunity to participate in the application process and to be considered for a job. Finally, a reasonable accommodation allows an employee with a disability an equal opportunity to enjoy the benefits and privileges of employment that employees without disabilities enjoy.
… The only statutory limitation on an employer’s obligation to provide “reasonable accommodation” is that no such change or modification is required if it would cause “undue hardship” to the employer.(16) “Undue hardship” means significant difficulty or expense and focuses on the resources and circumstances of the particular employer in relationship to the cost or difficulty of providing a specific accommodation. Undue hardship refers not only to financial difficulty, but to reasonable accommodations that are unduly extensive, substantial, or disruptive, or those that would fundamentally alter the nature or operation of the business.(17) An employer must assess on a case-by-case basis whether a particular reasonable accommodation would cause undue hardship. The ADA’s “undue hardship” standard is different from that applied by courts under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for religious accommodation.(18)
An accommodation would pose an undue hardship if it –would cause more than de minimis cost on the operation of the employer’s business. Factors relevant to undue hardship may include the type of workplace, the nature of the employee’s duties, the identifiable cost of the accommodation in relation to the size and operating costs of the employer, and the number of employees who will in fact need a particular accommodation.
Costs to be considered include not only direct monetary costs but also the burden on the conduct of the employer’s business. For example, courts have found undue hardship where the accommodation diminishes efficiency in other jobs, infringes on other employees’ job rights or benefits, impairs workplace safety, or causes co-workers to carry the accommodated employee’s share of potentially hazardous or burdensome work. Whether the proposed accommodation conflicts with another law will also be considered.
To prove undue hardship, the employer will need to demonstrate how much cost or disruption a proposed accommodation would involve. An employer cannot rely on potential or hypothetical hardship when faced with a religious obligation that conflicts with scheduled work, but rather should rely on objective information. A mere assumption that many more people with the same religious practices as the individual being accommodated may also seek accommodation is not evidence of undue hardship.
If an employee’s proposed accommodation would pose an undue hardship, the employer should explore alternative accommodations.
Basically, “reasonable accommodation” goes as far as the “[local public transportation] is accessible” notices on the buses and subway cars, but not as far as actual accessibility on the buses and subway cars.
my argument would be that a lot time we take progress for the sake of progress and throw ourselves under the bus in the process.
from cigarette smoking, to trans fats, to antibotics in food, to climate change.
i have not looked at the studies on this. my sense is, as a said, it probably doesn’t cause harm - but, my level of scepticism is tempered by the huge profit motive involved.
It’s simply placebo, or in this case nocebo. Of course the placebo/nocebo effect is real, that’s long since proven.
Why don’t we take them at their word? Because they are wrong, and we have proven they are wrong, in terms of cause and effect. The effect on their bodies can and may be very real, but the cause is not what they think it is. It isn’t caused by EM radiation, it’s caused by them thinking that it’s caused by EM radiation. That’s what the placebo/nocebo effect is.
Keep an open mind -
but not so open that your brain falls out.
For instance if you call someone a bigot for reasonably dismissing an unsubstantiated claim which has been thoroughly investigated and shown to be false, your brain may have fallen out.
I really don’t see why you are latching onto the word “fake” in the wikipedia article, as if it’s some kind of proof of lack of scientific rigor or chicanery on the part of the scientific studies. In the very next sentence the author of the article uses the term “sham exposure” which means the exact same thing: telling the tested individual that you are turning on the EM field and flipping a switch, while in actuality the switch does nothing.
Besides, this paragraph alone links to 5 separate peer-reviewed studies on the subject:
Radiofrequency electromagnetic field exposure and non-specific symptoms of ill health: a systematic review. This is actually a systematic review of all the peer-reviewed papers on the same subject that could be found in the literature up to that point (2008). When all the data was combined together it gave a total of 182 people claiming electromagnetic hypersensitivity (EHS) and 332 non-EHS indiviuals. The take-away from this study?
There was no evidence that EHS individuals could detect presence or absence of RF-EMF better than other persons. There was little evidence that short-term exposure to a mobile phone or base station causes symptoms based on the results of eight randomized trials investigating 194 EHS and 346 non-EHS individuals in a laboratory. Some of the trials provided evidence for the occurrence of nocebo effects.
No evidence was found to indicate that people with self reported sensitivity to mobile phone signals are able to detect such signals or that they react to them with increased symptom severity. As sham exposure was sufficient to trigger severe symptoms in some participants, psychological factors may have an important role in causing this condition.
Thirty-one experiments testing 725 “electromagnetically hypersensitive” participants were identified. Twenty-four of these found no evidence to support the existence of a biophysical hypersensitivity, whereas 7 reported some supporting evidence. For 2 of these 7, the same research groups subsequently tried and failed to replicate their findings. In 3 more, the positive results appear to be statistical artifacts. The final 2 studies gave mutually incompatible results. Our meta analyses found no evidence of an improved ability to detect EMF in “hypersensitive” participants.
There you have it. From a comprehensive study of 31 other studies, only 2 had any results indicating any kind of EHS that were able to be replicated and were statistically significant. Even then the results of these 2 were mutually incompatible, meaning that results of both of these are suspect.
That’s not quite as much of an overwhelming scientific consensus as humans causing climate change or vaccines not causing autism, but it’s definitely headed that way.
The take-away? There is no proof that electromagnetic hypersensitivity is anything but a psychosomatic effect.
