5G Isn't Interesting Enough To Warrant These Stupid Conspiracy Theories
from the post-truth-pandemic-party dept
Fifth generation wireless (5G) is not magic. It's not witchcraft. It's not a "race." It's not going to kill you. And frankly, it's not even all that interesting.
We've noted for years now how 5G has been over-hyped by wireless carriers looking to spike lagging smartphone sales, or the gear makers hoping to cash in on global network builds. They've been busily trying to suggest that 5G is almost magic, capable of everything short of curing cancer. In reality 5G is barely available, expensive to adopt, and requires pricey new handsets that aren't worth it because we haven't figured out battery life issues. In time 5G will be a good thing in the way faster, more resilient networks are good, but it's not actually all that transformative.
On the flip side of the industry's relentless empty hype is the conspiracy theorists who, despite the overwhelming consensus of scientists, insist that 5G is bad for your health. While it would be hubris to claim we know everything about the way wireless technology impacts human biology, the science we have at the moment makes it clear 5G is not killing you. Theories to the contrary have always bubbled around the internet, but during the pandemic they've somehow gone next level, resulting in folks actually burning down 5G towers in the UK last week:
"There have been fires at masts in Birmingham, Liverpool and Melling in Merseyside. A video, allegedly of the blaze in Aigburth, was shared on YouTube and Facebook, claiming a link between the mobile technology and Covid-19.
Some foreign influence operations designed to try and wreak havoc have long circulated 5G-related bullshit among the internet gullible. But there's also a laundry list of assorted internet famous folks who've also been happily linking 5G to coronavirus on social media to either push an embedded ideology or just make a buck, like these two gentlemen--both verified and with 300K+ follower counts:
For those unfamiliar with Icke, he's a sort of proto-Alex Jones if Jones believed the world was secretly run by lizard people. He's a well known crackpot, but he has followers and a blue checkmark on Twitter.
Hell, even Hollywood celebrities like Woody Harrelson have been spreading around the bullshit, thanks in part to our new Goop mindset, which took the "healing powers of crystals" mentality and industrialized it at scale:
"Former “Cheers” TV star Woody Harrelson recently posted a report “about the negative effects of 5G” and its supposed role in the coronavirus pandemic to his more than 2 million Instagram followers. "I haven’t fully vetted it I find it very interesting,” he wrote of the report claiming that “5G radiation” is “exacerbating” the contagion’s spread and making it more lethal."
There's an endless list of problems that brought us to this point. Shoddy, sensationalist media. Poor education standards. Companies like Twitter find it impossible to police obvious, hugely-popular verified accounts that spread clear disinformation. Celebrity worship. Foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns we've yet to create solutions for. General human stupidity and gullibility. A prioritization of "engagement" over substance. A steady degradation of political norms. America's general, several-hundred-year old adoration of profitable bullshit.
There's no quick fix, there's only a simple individual answer: don't be part of the fucking problem. Fact check. Verify your sources. At least try to rely on actual scientists and widely-credible experts instead of the fun-loving dudebros at brainwaves5Gdeath.com.
Again, the ultimate irony being is that 5G isn't just safe and decidedly not a mind control experiment, but it's not even all that interesting. It's a spottily available, over-hyped, and expensive upgrade to the 4G networks you're already using. And while it will provide impressive speeds and more resilient networks in time, right now (at least in the U.S.), it's an over-marketed, under-delivered mess not worthy of this level of attention.
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Filed Under: 5g, conspiracy theories, coronavirus, covid-19, david icke, woody harrelson
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So, as I understand it, COVID-19 and 5G have drawn out the (vocal) portion of the population that is or wants to go back to being feral. (Not to say either had anything to to with their existence, just that they make the perfect excuse)
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The idiots in Birmingham didn't even burn down a 5G cell tower, it only had 2, 3 and 4G. https://twitter.com/tomwarren/status/1246829900880850950
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But that's the point
It's all about the churn. More hype, more churn. The winners are anyone selling hardware, software, or service. The losers are all users, as the winners will hype their position into making new stuff inevitable. All that new stuff will be at higher prices, which means greater margins, and an excuse for businesses that ran out of reasons for existing to 'reinvent' themselves.
Thinking of change, think about the rate of change, which appears to be increasing. Expect the next G's (6th, 7th, 8th, Generation, etc.) to be just as or more inane, and gathering greater speed of implementation.
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Reliable sources
That's the same David Icke who once claimed to be Jesus, right? Yeah, OK, must be true then coming from such an unimpeachable source...
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also Russia
Russia has been pushing this nonsense...
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/12/science/5g-phone-safety-health-russia.html
And this is a another roundup of the nonsense...
https://www.wonkette.com/5g-bullshit
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Re: But that's the point
5G is already so high frequency it barely works; it's hard to see where else they're going to go.
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Re: Re: But that's the point
Don't underestimate the imaginations of the marketing machine. They can see 'improvement' in color changes, or applying Pi to corners. Hype doesn't need actually better.
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Re: Re: Re: But that's the point
Definitely true, and I would argue 5G isn't better than 4G so we're already there. But until now there have been technical changes leading to higher and higher bandwidth in mobile data. Continuing to increase the frequency, which is the obvious way to do that, will make it so you have to be in the same room as the transmitter to make it work. So the question is, do they make some meaningless change and hype it up as 6G, or figure out some other area to work on charging more, or focus entirely on regulatory capture, or what?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: But that's the point
I would think all three, with an emphasis on the 'what' portion.
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Re: also Russia
That #InvisibleCat sank a claw into my shoulder while saying don't click. Too late - wonkette vector. I made it all the way to the end of one page of comments. The article two thumbs up.
(this is where a frame from the movie, "They Live" with caption;
I told you they are here. Don't wear the special sunglasses to long because the mind control frequency will make your brain hurt.) #2dolist
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great rant there
Icke is far from Alex Jones, because the former is a cultist, and the other merely the right wing of our binary intelligence agency fed media, aka "The Cult of National Security Trolls".
Alex Jones: The government is spying on citizens, 24/7!
Cue: Liar! Hoaxer! Lizard people!
Edward Snowden: I have documents.
Cue: Finally, some brave soul steps forwards!
And really, fake news and conspiracy theory and libel is older than the US by several thousand years-the Roman bathrooms were wild with insight:
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/32276/11-colorful-phrases-ancient-roman-graffiti
This is just a great rant, tho:
Celebrity worship. Foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns we've yet to create solutions for. General human stupidity and gullibility. A prioritization of "engagement" over substance. A steady degradation of political norms. America's general, several-hundred-year old adoration of profitable bullshit
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Facts are silly.
Imagination is more fun.
Fantasy is much more pretty.
Science is pretty dumb.
Proving facts, is just S##Ty
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Re: Re: But that's the point
That's why it's very unlikely to be affecting brains (except inasmuch as learning about anything affects the learner's brain). It can barely make it through a hundred feet of open air in a stadium; the skin on one's face has probably killed most of the signal before it even gets to the skull.
More beams! Lasers! (Or for fans of boring practicality, how about they fix the crazy battery usage?)
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I just knew Idiocracy was a documentary
I have a friend that has gotten into a bunch of conspiracy theory crap, including the 5G freakout, although she hasn't said anything about the COVID-19 tie-in, but that may only be because I've pushed back a little on other things she's sent my way, so she's backed off on sending me that kind of stuff.
And she always seemed so level headed about pretty much everything before.
I've asked things like, have you noticed all the scammy ads and popups on those types of websites? Or the terrible spelling and grammar of the person and all the followers? She just says that stuff doesn't bother her.
None of that stuff is red flags to her, nor is the fact that the yokel is sitting in a folding chair behind a folding table in front of the biggest fake wood paneled wall in his trailer spouting completely non-scientific "facts" backed only by the yokel in the next state over.
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Re:
Having only recently upgraded from a 12 year old flip phone, I can testify that at least some providers (I'm looking at you, T-Mobile) still offer 2g service, but only grudgingly and without hope of improvement.
On the other hand, my flip-phone lasted me 12 g.d. years before finally crapping out. I've yet to hear of such longevity in a smart phone.
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For some people...
I think for a big chunk of people modern technology is equivalent to magic. I also think that the overhype contributes here because people see something they don't understand being heavily promoted but which doesn't have any apparent effect.
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If 5g doesn't kill anyone that would be a great step forward.
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Re: Re: But that's the point
"5G is already so high frequency it barely works; it's hard to see where else they're going to go."
True enough. 5G is basically just a portable wifi router. 7G would be a very low-powered microwave unable to transmit a coherent signal further than 3 feet.
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Re: Reliable sources
Funny how people claiming other people are spreading false data can't get their facts right. I'm no fan, but do know he never claimed to be Jesus.
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Re:
Those idiots wouldn't know a 5G piece of equipment if they tripped over it in the street.
And from what I've read about this new system it has to be on many lampposts in the actual street to be able to handle the data from all the potential users.
Best that is not mentioned otherwise they may burn them down too, with, or without the 5G bits on them.
Oh, and in the UK I guess with that Chinese company getting headlines about putting in the 5G network bits & the Corona virus coming from China, along with verbal & physical abuse of Asians & their businesses it doesn't take much for some locals to link it all together as a conspiracy against the Ruler of the Waves "Great Britian".
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Re: Re: Reliable sources
Seems you never seen the Terry Wogan show which kind of limits your knowledge about Icke and what he have said...
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Re: Re:
As opposed to POTUS "Waiver of the Rules"?
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Re: Re: Reliable sources
I suppose that depends just much of a semantic difference you consider it to claim to be the son of god in the same way that Jesus was and be "part of Jesus' soul" because he definitely did that.
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Harrelson
We have to wonder is Harrelson channeling his character in Wag the Dog?
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Re: For some people...
Personally, I favor the contrapositive formulation of Clarke's Third Law:
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
We're getting close with 5G, but not quite there yet.
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Re: Re: Re: But that's the point
Plus, the greatly increased thickness of their skulls means that those most worried about 5G brain control are the least vulnerable to it.
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Wanna bet?
Who wants to bet that the Edward Bernays styled spin doctor Simon Rockman, writing for Forbes magazine, wouldn't have his wife carry his child to term underneath a 5G mast?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/simonrockman1/2019/06/25/is-5g-dangerous/#6072a0aa53f4
Although its nice to see that he acknowledges that the evidence is not conclusive as to whether or not males exposed to 5G radiation are more likely to have daughters rather than sons; or that children might be affected by said radiation:
"when men, who work in developing radar systems, have children, they tend to have daughters rather than sons"
How many commenters here would willingly choose a home, or business with a 5G mast on your roof? That's the real question, science punditry and spin be damned.
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Re: Did you mention Liberty Torches and smking?
A genuine conspiracy theory is this
Chinese search results nearly obliterate searches for Edward Bernays and mind control, or his link to encouraging smoking in women. So, cn.Bing.com reports zero results for "Edward Bernays smoking."
Maybe that's because Big Tobacco is afraid of THAT elephant in the room lawsuit, or its appropriate linkage to the Sigmund Freud-Edward Bernays family link.
Nawww...
Edward Bernays, Torches of Freedom, the Worlds First Mind Manipulation Campaign, encouraging women to smoke:
https://yourstory.com/2014/08/torches-of-freedom/
Edward Bernays, and mind manipulation:
https://phys.org/news/2015-07-american-mindedward-bernays-birth.html
Those evil Nazi's!!!!!!
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Fun Fact:
David Icke actually used to be a respected BBC sports journalist and broadcaster before he lost his bloody mind and decided the Queen is a lizard.
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Re: Wanna bet?
I would, as long as I don’t have to pay extra for the fact the home/business has a 5G mast on the roof. I have no reason to believe that it’s dangerous and every reason to believe it’s safe.
I’ve read the research and understand the mechanics behind 5G and damage from radiation enough to understand that it wouldn’t really make sense for children to be susceptible to damage or that males exposed to 5G are more likely to have daughters than sons. (I also wouldn’t really care about the latter since I don’t consider “having more daughters than sons” to be an injury, but I doubt 5G would have any effect on daughter-to-son ratios anyways.) That the evidence is not conclusive on those issues is irrelevant; it still leans more towards the null hypothesis than not, and there is no strong reason to believe the results will differ from that. There is no plausible mechanism for 5G to cause those harms that has yet to be disproven.
Look, radio waves aren’t capable of causing radiation poisoning (they aren’t ionizing), the higher frequency radiation (closer to microwaves) doesn’t travel as far and is easily blocked by solid objects, and even damage that could be caused by high-frequency radio waves like 5G or microwaves would not penetrate further than skin-deep. (Lower frequencies than, say, 5G don’t interact with any part of the human body at all, really, so there’s no reason to expect damage there, either.)
Basically, if neither the existing radiation from 2G, 3G, and/or 4G towers, any other radio waves we already get exposed to all the time, nor microwaves or low-frequency infrared can or do cause some particular alleged harm, 5G almost certainly won’t do so, either.
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Re: Re: Wanna bet?
Null....wut?
Keyword "error".
I like your dance around ionizing v. non-ionizing radiation, but really, that is not the actual argument you are sperging.
If you wish to err on the side of probably most likely, ok, wut the heck, that's your business.
But I interviewed a guy in Australia who routinely gets harassed by the local bobbies because he didn't want a radio tower behind his house, and tried to stop it from being built.
His claim was that it was an eyesore, and against local zoning, and ruined his view of the hilsides.
Then, the telecoms/police/local mobs in government, who all got kickback money for putting the towers in got sicced on him, and then, all of the usual corporate disinformation spread around about him, i.e. that the guy thinks that "they are zapping me right now with microwaves!!! Satellites are beaming thoughts into my head!!!"
And he never communicated that 5G would cause cancer, or shrink his nutsack, or any other of the disinformation out there.
His claims focused on:
*zoning,
*privacy concerns (Stingrays and other forms of listening devices utilized by the telecoms) and
SO, you have a fundamentally flawed opinion of what the actual argument is, and again, are a typical corporate/NGO/bad guy troll.
As for daughters, I can only say that girls rule, dude. Again, you are jousting your phony phallus at strawmen that you in-house trolls build yourselves.
None of you have an actual Don Quixote bone in your body, because you are all i/o zombies.
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Re: Re: Did you mention Liberty Torches and smking?
Try finding the term "manufactured crisis" in any Chinese search engine. It doesn't exist.
And that is at the detriment of China.
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Re: Re: Re: Wanna bet?
People are actually arguing about dangers from the radiation (some of whom have been referenced by name in articles and comments on this site), and that’s what I and others here are addressing.
In fact, you yourself made that argument:
So, yeah. That’s a claim actually being made, not some strawman argument. Issues like being an eyesore, against local zoning laws, privacy concerns, concerns about citizens’ rights vs. corporate power, or ruining hillside views are completely separate issues that we are not addressing or disputing here. In fact, I think we all agree that most or all of those are valid, reasonable concerns to have on the issue of 5G deployment.
Also, none of us are saying that telecom doesn’t do any or all of of what you just said. However, none of that has to do with whether the radiation from the towers is safe or not, and that’s the only issue being argued about here. It is one of the very, very few issues where we don’t side against the telecom industry.
That guy in Australia you mention may have perfectly valid concerns, but we aren’t addressing his concerns. That is a completely different discussion from the one that we are actually having here. This is a discussion about actual disinformation being spread both by trolls and actual living, breathing human beings, some of whom are people that a lot of other actual humans respect and listen to, about health effects and safety of 5G, specifically the radiation.
When I mentioned “non-ionizing radiation”, it was part of a broader discussion about what potential dangers electromagnetic radiation could actually have. Low-frequency ultraviolet radiation and any EM radiation with a longer wavelength than ultraviolet is “non-ionizing”, so we don’t have to worry about the dangers unique to ionizing radiation. (Ionizing radiation is also the exception to the rule that shorter wavelengths = less penetration. It’s actually kinda the opposite, as shorter wavelengths on the ionizing part of the EM spectrum tend to be better at penetration; though they still don’t travel quite as far and lose energy quickly, they have so much energy that they still have enough to potentially cause damage even after losing some from penetrating a human body or something.) I was heading off potential counterarguments, that’s all.
For non-ionizing radiation (which 5G signals absolutely are), the rule of thumb is that longer wavelengths travel further and are better at penetrating through solid matter. In particular, around the microwave portion of the EM spectrum, there is a metaphorical line that divides non-ionizing radiation that can penetrate through human skin and that which gets blocked by human skin. 5G is around the microwave area, so it doesn’t travel very far and gets blocked by walls, floors, roofs, and human skin. As such, there is no reason to be concerned with the possibility of internal damage or health effects from 5G radiation. (Everything with longer wavelengths than 5G, which can travel pretty far and may be able to penetrate human skin, has been studied extensively to rule out any potential health risks, and none have been found. Really, any wavelengths long enough to penetrate human skin don’t really appear to have any significant effect on the human body at all.)
Huh? I never said “error” there.
As for the null hypothesis, it’s basically the default assumption, which is something like “X doesn’t cause Y,” “X doesn’t correlate significantly with Y,” and/or “X has no significant connection with Y”. Scientists, researchers, engineers, and statistians often base a significant part of their conclusions on whether the data is sufficient to rule out the null hypothesis as a reasonable explanation for their observations. It’s basically the thing that can theoretically be disproven beyond a doubt but not 100% definitively proven beyond a doubt, at least from a logical standpoint. You can’t really prove a negative, after all.
I was just being careful with language. Most researchers and scientists almost never say things like “absolutely,” “100%,” “impossible,” “certain,” “always,” or “never” without an extremely overwhelming amount of evidence to support it, if then. They tend to be very careful with their words, which suggests more uncertainty on their part than what other people think they have. I’m the same way. Don’t read too much into it.
Again, from your comment:
I was responding to a specific argument that you made. I wasn’t putting words into anyone’s mouth. I said that to make clear that I have no concerns about a hypothetical 5G tower being on the roof of my house. I don’t consider that allegation about 5G’s potential effects on humans to be a valid concern in any sense, so that it may not have been explicitly and overwhelmingly disproven doesn’t weigh against my decision at all. Whether or not you, personally, actually believe that allegation to be true, the fact is that you brought it up first, so it was fair game for me to address it.
Considering the fact that Don Quixote was the inspiration for the phrase “tilting at windmills” (an encounter that did not end well for him, to be blunt) and was legitimately delusional, I’m okay with not “hav[ing] an actual Don Quixote bone in [my] body.” Sure, he was brave and had pure, good intentions, and he was an idealist, but he was also delusional and foolish. I have no intention of tilting at windmills.
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Re: Re: Re: But that's the point
Now we need a graduate student to do a study by taking some of the conspiracy theorists that claim 5G is bad, install a sensor under their skin and on top of their skin to measure the signal strength of the 5G signal. That would get them off the streets and upon completion of the study it would prove one way or another if the signal even could get to the brain to affect it.
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online mobbing, Techdirt, Aspergers
There is indeed a link between forum trolls like bhull, and OCD
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/untangling-the-ties-between-autism-and-obsessive-comp ulsive-disorder1/
The guy/bot/whatever it is can't help itself.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Wanna bet?
Ok, you got me here below, hullbot, I admit, I simply do not have time to argue with your Sperg-based logicianistifications and fake-rationality.
Considering the fact that Don Quixote was the inspiration for the phrase “tilting at windmills” (an encounter that did not end well for him, to be blunt) and was legitimately delusional, I’m okay with not “hav[ing] an actual Don Quixote bone in [my] body.”
You still have not convinced me that you are human [citation needed]
Let me guess, next we get some garbage from your program about the Tu Quoque fallacy, and more circular reasoning, right?
You are a HUUUUUGE time waster bot. But effective in some circumstances that I can easily imagine.
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Strange world... What in one belief system is the way to freedom and highest understanding, in another one is the way to the opposite!
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