Hippies Say WiFi Network Is Harming Their Chakras 432
Anti-Globalism writes "A group of hippies is complaining that a recently installed WiFi mesh network in the UK village of Glastonbury is causing health problems. To combat the signals from the Wi-Fi hotspots, the hippies have placed orgone generators around the antennae." Although there have been many studies that show no correlation between WiFi and health issues the hippies say, "Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man."
Re:That's odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're a moron, you're not really a hippie. You're just a moron who acts like a hippie.
You should know that! I'm starting to wonder if you should turn in your Hippie card and "tea set." ;^)
Re:"Orgone Generators" (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFA:
One man has even begun making orgone generators, which use crystals, semi-precious stones and gold to purportedly put out positive energy to combat the negative vibes flooding the town from the Wi-Fi base stations.
I am just sitting here wondering how long it is going to take someone to just pinch them all... surely there would have to be at least a few bucks in gold there. If not, it'd still be fun to pinch them and place them all around the town in people's gardens, on shop roofs, etc.
Re:Very sensitive people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming for a moment it's true; are you aware of the inverse-square law?
Get this, working on an antenna broadcasting at several hundred thousand watts is worse than sitting 2ft from a 1 watt (at most) transmitter...
Re:Very sensitive people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes I am aware of the inverse square law. My point was that if the hippies really suffer from what they claim, they must be very sensitive to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave range because WiFi usually transmits using even less power than a mobile phone. So if they use mobile phones but say they suffer from the WiFi radiation they're likely to be affected by somethning else. I should have written it down more clearly though.
Re:That's odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
These hippies apparantly would much rather not live with the pollutants they are absorbing, but they have no reasonable recourse.
Considering how long radio, TV, cell phones, and other RF sources have been pumping out just as much juice through their bodies/karma/astral-selves, I'm finding it hard to be sympathetic for them. Shades of Don Quixote....
Re:As reasonable as the morons who wont eat ham (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
True. I have known a lot of hippies who love TV, radio, and even cell phones. So what is so oppressive about WiFi versus the rest of this?
Re:As reasonable as the morons who wont eat ham (Score:3, Insightful)
Second, it doesn't require refrigeration to cure pork into ham. Traditionally preservation is the reason for curing meat in the first place. The fact that it can also be used to change or enhance flavor is a secondary usage, at least before refrigeration.
Third, in places where people don't have access to refrigeration, extra dietary fat is probably not a bad thing. It's not like dietary fat is fundamentally bad -- you need a good deal of it to be healthy -- like most things it's only bad in excess. And I can virtually guarantee that people who live without ready access to refrigeration don't eat enough meat to be worried about too much dietary fat intake.
Re:That's odd... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's called a Faraday cage [wikipedia.org], you could probably get one made in the shape of a pyramid and kill too birds with one stone.
"If I have to listen to people complain about second hand smoke so much that I feel like a goddamned leppar then why can't I complain even the least little bit about electromagnetic radiation?"
You can complain all you like, just don't expect anyone to listen until you have robust scientific evidence like the second hand smoker's do. I'm also a smoker and I'm willing to act reasonably by smoking outside. However when a second-hand smoker waves their face while walking past a leppar colony on a smog filled street I feel justified in telling them to wear a gas mask if they don't like it.
Same deal for EM radition, either put up the evidence or STFU and let me use my mobile.
Disclaimer: I saw Woodstock on the news when I was 8-9yo, had hair down to my arse in the 70's. The Hippie ideal of maximum freedom and minimum harm is still very appealing to me. I'm simply unwilling to ignore human nature and throw out the philosophy of scientific skepticisim. Unlike any "other way of thinking" it is demonstratably usefull to me beyond a healthy body and control of my emotional state (not that I have either:). One of scientific skepticisim's prime uses is to judge claims from others against what you "know" (eg: does EM radiation harm anyone?).
Like Yoga in wich the rituals can be useful for a healthy mind/body, scientific skepticisim is also a usefull skill that can be taught, of course you then have to work at it for a while before you see the benifits. The hardest part of that "work" for a good skeptic is accepting that you cannot "know" anything but you can have scientific evidence [google.com.au] that goes beyond reasonable doubt.
Re:Residents, not hippies (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it amusing that you cite an anecdote about a satellite station that supposedly caused headaches... during a time that it wasn't even actually operational. Perfect example of how this shit is all in people's stupid heads and not medically real beyond the placebo effect.
Re:Residents, not hippies (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it's a bit worse than people simply attributing existing ills to some piece of technology. It would seem that people, if they think something will make them ill, can indeed make themselves ill to some degree, or at least be convinced that they are ill (which from their perspective, is much the same thing - or even worse, as real cures won't work on the latter). It's the reason that a lot of the superstitious stuff can actually seem to work at times, and why it's quite important not only to combat such nonsense, but act in an understanding way to those who've fallen for it. The peddlers of superstitions require a sterner approach though.
It's certainly not all a bit of a laugh. At the very least such superstitions do give rise to troubles of the mind (which lets face it, usually result in a poorer physical condition too).
Re:That's odd... (Score:3, Insightful)
> (oh and there is obviously a difference between Christians and hippies, for starters the fact that Christians actually have a purpose and generally act very sensibly)
Really ?? You must know better quality Christians and lower quality hippies than I do. Or, maybe you don't actually know any hippies, you just assume that the stereotypes from South Park etc are reasonably accurate.
What about the sun? (Score:4, Insightful)
Those hippies are going to be royally fucked when they realise the huge ball of incandescent gas at the middle of our solar system is the largest electromagnetic transmitter within several billion miles. How are they going to fix THAT one?
No known "Health issues" (Score:4, Insightful)
something not being known yet doesnt mean it doesnt exist.
Re:my body is my property: don't rape me (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:As reasonable as the morons who wont eat ham (Score:3, Insightful)
But chicken is about as 'unsafe' as pork, yet the whole friggin' world eats chicken.
Re:Very sensitive people? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the cool thing about science - nobody cares whether you believe it.
Try googling for 'rf double-blind' or if you'd like an actual journal article, here [nih.gov]
In short, there was no correlation.
Re:That's odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yet the vast majority of Western legal systems are based on Christian principles.
This is really not true. Stealing is considered wrong in both non-christian and christian societies, so having laws against stealing is not evidence of a specifically christian legal system. Similarly murder, adultery, etc.
This is the broken argument that religious apologists always trot out. The fact is that religious people are no more likely to be moral than others (and probably quite likely to be less moral - see next paragraph). People share common moral values whether they are christian or not.
On the down side however, christians are responsible for numerous and well documented heinous atrocities specifically due to their religion (crusades, inquisition, witch burning, annihilation of heretics, etc.).
On balance, christianity has been a net cause of significant evil in the world. For more detail see Dawkins The God Delusion
Re:That's odd... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:That's odd... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Ironic (Score:4, Insightful)
I go to college, I'm used to pseudo science and trickery. It seems every professor I've had the last two semesters was bent on convincing the class that far left ideology is correct, and the best way to prove this was by assigning reading completely devoid of fact and unrelated to class.
With that in mind, this story and that doctor don't surprise me at all, and go to the root of the problem. It ask questions I am still trying to answer: How do people hold a philosophical belief yet purposefully fake evidence to support their claim and yet not question the claim itself? If the only evidence supporting their claim is false information created by them yet is used by them to support it how do they not question their belief structure?
I was assigned a book to read in my sociology class that was little more then subjective rhetoric and purposely set up situations to justify policy decisions. The authors concern was the good of society. What good could come from acting on false information? Information that more objective studies in my economics class had proven to be completely false through rigorous documentation. If goal is helping society and beliefs are shown to not coincide with that goal, why do people chose their beliefs over their goal?
The goal of the doctor was probably to help people and he probably believed vaccines caused autism so he faked information that will more likely hurt people. His goal of helping people has failed miserably.
Same with these "hippies." Is it just human nature to value opinion over fact? How can we address this problem?
Re:Ironic (Score:2, Insightful)
This wasn't a problem in the past because the level of vaccination was so high that there was herd immunity. The virus couldn't spread because the odds of someone with measles passing it on to someone else, then on to someone else and so on were incredibly low.
Personally, I'd tell parents that they can't attend state school without a vaccine certificate. You either have a measles jab, or you homeschool them.
Re:That's odd... (Score:3, Insightful)
Western government and law is based on the principals of the enlightenment. The enlightment was a backlash against religion. Only murder and theft are commandments and also laws. Half of the other commandments have to deal with believing in God and only the Judeo-Christian God. If the ten most important laws in the Judeo-Christain belief system are barely represented in any Western country's laws how do you presume that they are based on Judeo-Christian principles?
It also contains horrific things. A lot of children's books offer moral value but that doesn't make me believe in talking elephants just as I don't beleive in the resurrection or other fairy tales in the bible.
No one is disparaging those values, just religion. You don't have to disparge those values to disparage religion. There are so many other things that are ridiculous.
This is exactly like your previous statement and I see similar statements like it a lot from religious people. Somehow you people think that throwing out religion means throwing out liberty, responsibility, and prosperity. You are the one who is being insulting. It's insulting to people like me and others who don't believe in fairy tales to be told that because we don't believe we're against everything you consider moral. I don't need God to tell me not to kill somone or steal from someone and quite frankly I think it's sad that you do.
Oh the irony!