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Let's Stop the 5G Hysteria: Understanding Hoaxes and Disinformation Campaigns

67 points by weinzierl 7y ago

hubadu 7y ago
It is a fact that a 5G network will consume three and half times as much electricity as 4G.
- lcam84 7y ago
  I recently bought a Nokia 800 Tough to have internet at home. It is advertised as having up to 43 days on stand by but if you connect 4G with internet sharing, the battery lasts about 5 hours. I wonder what will happen with 5G.
  - rand49an 7y ago
    I think the increased energy usage mostly comes from the increased number of base stations required to service a population.
  - hieloz 7y ago
    No matter 4G or 5G,your hotspot waste battery to a large degree, It advertised 43 days only to standby mode.
    - lcam84 7y ago
      Yes in fact the 43 days is in stanby but I don't use the phone for anything else, so I thought it would take more than a few hours between charges. I thought that the difference in battery time between old and new mobile phones was due to the touch screen, but now I don't know to what extent 4G contributes to that difference.
      - kalleboo 7y ago
        Does "internet sharing" not imply turning on WiFi as well, which usually goes to sleep during standby
- consp 7y ago
  It will also serve significantly more people per cell, so a trade off has been made?
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Forever? Or is it because it's a new technology? The PS4 slim consumes less power than an original PS4
lcam84 7y ago
The undeniable reasons for not going ahead with 5G: - It will contribute to the planned obsolescence. There we're going to get insatiable with what we have and pay a ton of money for a new mobile phone model, this on account of the exploitation of children in the cobalt mines of Congo. - It will make us even more addicted to screens. If we think we can no longer pay attention to anything, get ready for 5G.
- FartyMcFarter 7y ago
  > It will contribute to the planned obsolescence. In what way? 2G and 3G phones still work. The only way that I see this as a valid point is that software will become more wasteful with higher bandwidth. But if we thought like that, things would never progress.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    I'm still using a 3G phone and I've noticed that over time coverage has become worse due to the old base stations being phased out.
  - mkl 7y ago
    2G is already shut down in many places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Past_2G_networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Past_2G_networks
  - onli 7y ago
    Some countries like Germany plan to dismantle their 3G network next year.
- WanderPanda 7y ago
  I hate this Congo argument. Sure, the conditions are probably bad there, but that has nothing to do with the material / physics / tech. The stuff could be mined meeting high safety and environmental standards if it were not for their social / political situation. That should be a completely different discussion
  - 7y ago
wyldfire 7y ago
Since Troy commands a lot of attention, he would do well to reference the legitimate controversy over adjacent-channel interference among some 5G bands and weather radar. The weather radar is sampling a physical phenomenon and cannot be 'moved' to another band. I haven't seen the 5G hoax promotions, only the legitimate journalism articles describing the fallout. I presume that none of the hoaxers actually reference the weather radar issue? Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff.
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  > I presume that none of the hoaxers actually reference the weather radar issue? I have never seen them do this, and I think it's unlikely they will do enough research on 5G (despite telling everyone else to "do the research") to learn about this. > Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff. I'd say they already do this, but I'm not sure they do, and I'm not sure they need to. Conspiracy theorists don't rely on facts to bolster their narrative; they rely on things that sound like facts.
- Nursie 7y ago
  I've not seen anything hoax-y that even mentions weather radar. It all seems to be centred around misunderstandings of field strengths, inverse square laws etc and the usual overreaction to anything poorly understood and new. If they mix up weather radar in there I can only imagine the theories about government mind control that will come next.
- avip 7y ago
  Author repeatedly emphasizes this post is not about 5G, it's about fake news campaigns. Possibly could have used a less controversial example.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- cogman10 7y ago
  Honestly, I think it is an overblown problem. (IIRC, the band in question was something like 22GHz) Those high frequency bands are going to be reserved for high population areas. Their entire purpose is to avoid crosstalk by using signals with low penetration. So, the expectation is that those higher frequencies be used for things like low power micro cell towers in buildings, or downtown city streets. That means the actual disruption, if it occurs, will only be over the high population areas of cities. Not generally wherever coverage occurs.
bjoyx 7y ago
If we can’t trust epidemiologists to protect us from an epidemic why should we trust radio wave scientists to protect us from radio waves?
- raverbashing 7y ago
  Keep yourself at home, use gloves and adequate masks. There's your protection Or if you prefer to believe politicians, just hey, go outside and take all the chloroquine you want.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  You're wrong. We could and can trust epidemiologists. It's the administrative/political layer that fucked up.
  - crispinb 7y ago
    Not here (Aus). We're doing pretty well so far.
  - PudgePacket 7y ago
    I really want to. Just so much junk epidemiology that has come out of nutritional epidemiology. A small sample.. https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/11/academic-studies-questioning-current-dietary-advice/ https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/11/academic-studies-questio...
  - pbhjpbhj 7y ago
    Hmm, I think the government scientists who've been front and centre on UK news have been peddling a politically perverted message. So perhaps we can trust their peer-reviewed output, but the "masks are useless" and "closing schools won't reduce infection transmission" messages came from scientists. Scientists are still human, and still will push their ideals and beliefs ahead of scientific non-falsehood. Also, epidemiology is an interesting one. As in all public health there are balances, but moreso here. Often anti-antivax people will claim "vaccines are entirely safe" which is unscientific. Their goals are noble, but they discredit themselves because data on negative outcomes is pretty easy to come by. The temptation is the same, public health is served by convincing people to take certain actions (eg not buy masks, because they're needed by healthcare workers). Sometimes these actions are contrary to individual needs. Governments will need to tell people to do things that are against those people's best interests ("don't seek medical care") because those actions preserve the population. Epidemiology is about preserving populations, not about keeping individuals healthy. That means there's always a tension, and I don't think _one_ can trust epidemiologists, but _we_ can trust them in general. Would you like to save lives? Would you lie, knowing 100,000s would die ... because there was a high probability that it could save millions, but also a possibility that the deaths wouldn't help, or wouldn't be necessary?
yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
Try as we might to combat this insanity, no amount of facts will ever make these idiots stop being idiots. Aside from the 5G hysteria, I've also noticed a large uptick in people believing that COVID-19 is engineered and patented by Bill Gates, as part of his project to reduce the global population. Why exactly would he want to do that? Well the why is not important, apparently. The Gates stuff is quite well explained in the associated Snopes[0] page. Sharing that article with an acquaintance brought her to respond with: > this Article is a Total BS > All i can say. I dont trust anything that i read anymore. Only What i hear from people that are completely Free and independent. And no, im not wrong. If you still cant see it then go to YouTube do your research , when you still can. Cuz it might be censored one day I explained that I am "completely free and independent", but apparently that's not the way it works. Like Troy Hunt, I too have been trying to figure out why conspiracy theorists believe in some utterly insane ideas, but not others. And what if I start some of my own conspiracy theories? Would they be plausible? Would they catch on? Why? Why not? The first thing I came up with was: > The African giraffe is actually a genetically-modified animal, engineered by the CIA. It was a covert government project to see if the necks of animals could be elongated — the ambition being to then apply this research to humans, making their brains develop less (because the biological development would now go to supporting their longer neck muscles) as a means to more easily mind-control the global population So, if that one ever makes the rounds among the semi-literate on Facebook, you heard it here first. [0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-de...
sagitariusrex 7y ago
As a side note: My biggest disappointment regarding the 5G discussion with respect to potential health implications is the widespread lack of acknowledgement about the fact that we have not yet conducted any meaningful scientific experiments (let alone ones whose methodology is robust) to even hold a meaningful debate. It's derailed into a political debate between those who "know for a fact" there are zero health implications and those who "know for a fact" that you'll certainly die within a week from a 5g antenna being placed next to your apartment.
- vardump 7y ago
  If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? (Extreme) heating effects can cause cancer, but the source of heat is irrelevant. The power levels 5G uses make even this point completely moot. If you really have to search for something that could cause you cancer, perhaps those rather carcinogenic compounds your phone is made out of could be studied instead? Although I prefer just not to pulverize my phone and breath in the resulting dust. :-)
  - willis936 7y ago
    There has been a fabled danger of low levels of non-ionizing radiation without an explained mechanism for decades. There is no data to support it, but there will never be enough “studies” to disprove it.
    - cogman10 7y ago
      What gets me is that these people still walk out in the sun. We are talking about orders of magnitude weaker radiation than what you get dosed with every time you go outside. But further, sunlight does contain ionizing radiation (hello UV).
      - willis936 7y ago
        I can’t believe people are still flying on commercial airliners; over the poles no less!
lnsru 7y ago
My colleagues call me Luddite and laugh at me when I don’t show enthusiasm about 5G. Apparently, there are somewhere some very smart people, that see great benefit of 5G. Maybe it’s just another important reason to force people buy more phones. Maybe a am not right buyer persona using same phone for as long as it works (5+ years). Germany cannot get good 4G coverage, why think about 5G!? It was a nightmare to drive and to talk to clients on the phone while driving in a field role. 30 miles outside of any city I had connection problems.
- Nursie 7y ago
  Lower latency, lower protocol overheads, makes it much more likely to be able to start replacing wired infrastructure for home use. I'm not that massively excited about it either, it's not like the jump from 2G->3G where phone handset use is concerned, but I think it will have a bigger impact on non- (or not-just-) phone use.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Because 5G is more efficient. Here's a graph of predictions of data usage over the next few years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-dat... People use their phones for data and the data consumption is increasing. You might not but people live stream sports, games, TV to their mobiles. Frequency bands are like radio stations. Better algorithms/etc to transfer more data at an instant means that more people can have a better experience using the airwaves. Like in busy train stations people will often have full signal but unusable internet connectivity. Faster speeds means that people are not using the airwaves for as long. Also mmWave is a way to get an extra density of data pushed as higher frequency means more throughput look at 2.4Ghz WiFi Vs 5Ghz WiFi. Of course the issue is that it gets blocked very easily. It's a progression. 3G masts have been switched to 4G and it'll start in a few years for 5G. But honestly it's a long multi year process. And it's not like 4G is going anywhere. Other things that 5G does is latency is lower so it could open up use cases such as data for autonomous cars, AR and VR (I'm a bit dubious on that tbh). Reason being that the break out to the internet can be at multiple points rather than a single point as it often is with LTE. But yeah, honestly from a user perspective there's not really going to be much of a difference. I don't think many operators are going to try selling 5G plans like they did for 4G
s9w 7y ago
The only 5G campaign I can see are the flood of articles over alleged 5G-Corona conspiracies. Those however are not popular even in "dirty" corners on the internet and if so mostly for fun. It's like flat earth.. it's fun to see people embarrass themselves on Twitter when they tout their superior intelligence because they don't fall for that. There are however concerns about 5G itself, without corona. I haven't really dived into the matter but it passes at least a cursory smell test, see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317998
- vincnetas 7y ago
  Well, im probably living in really "dirty" corners of internet, as i see constant stream of "Burn all 5G towers because they cause corona" in all "Eco" "spiritual" "nature" facebook groups. Im not saying anything about 5G safety here, just saying that this "5G + corona" conspiracy is really getting traction.
  - s9w 7y ago
    Fair enough, I don't know what's on FB etc. I meant more like conspiracy subreddits, 4chan and so on.
    - Jonnax 7y ago
      4 Chan and Reddit aren't the real world. Internet users put way too much stock in their societal impact. Facebook and group messaging apps are how a lot of people communicate.
      - s9w 7y ago
        Right! But I specifically wrote dirty corners, which fits well for those sites and less for FB.
      - pjc50 7y ago
        But there's no hard boundary. 4Chan is the viral breeding ground, occasionally some particularly well-developed memetic pathogen is weaponised onto Facebook or Whatsapp where it spreads among a non-immune population.
foreigner 7y ago
My strategy is even simpler: if I see a long Facebook post, especially "shared" from a source other than my Facebook friend, I quickly scroll to the bottom and check if it says something like "copy and paste this post". If so I simply ignore it.
guerby 7y ago
The main issue I see with 5G is the frequency grab by private operators, this happens without any data about actual bottlenecks being shown and discussed. Private operators already have a huge share of public spectrum and I suspect it's nowhere near saturated except may be in very small and dense areas.
dekken_ 7y ago
No mention of the surveillance potentials of 5G? Or it's ignored as it's true?
- BenjiWiebe 7y ago
  No more and no less than 4g, and 3g before it. Probably even much the same as 2g.
  - dekken_ 7y ago
    I think the necessity for more masts is a big difference no?
lucideer 7y ago
The biggest worry about the raft of covid-5g conspiracy theories is not that people will believe them (some may, momentarily, and quickly move on to the next viral thing) but rather that there'll be a backlash of blind, uncritical 5g support. Troy's article, while not explicitly defending 5g, is much more likely to encourage such a backlash than anything. Please be critical.
andarleen 7y ago
Any psychologist here able to explain a bit why some people are prone believing conspiracy theories? I can’t for the life of me figure out why some people, even highly educated, have a tendency to lean towards a mystical or conspiratory explanation for anything just slightly difficult to understand. Is there a part of the brain responsible for this? Edit: I live in a country where people will find such an explanation for anything ranging from bad weather, to a bad economy, to even covid. And such theories are so prevalent that “normal” people are basically outliers.
mothsonasloth 7y ago
The same hysteria happened with the first steam powered trains travelling at 12mph in the UK. Farmers thought their cows milk would turn sour from the train noises and people thought their heads would explode or body damage would happen travelling that fast. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-thought-make-womens-uteruses-fly-out https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-... https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-children-first-technology-and-moral-panic/?re https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-child...
kartoshechka 7y ago
These urgent copypastas are funny as hell and they are not going anywhere simply because it's much faster and convenient to fall for this pseudo-counter-popular opinion that expose these nasty technologies than make your own. In the end of the day none of these boomers give a damn about 5G unless it is criticized on national TV or in WhatsApp groups.
PudgePacket 7y ago
Did this get artificially pushed down the HN list? Lots of other items with lower scores and earlier posting times are on the first page while this is on the third....
jacquesm 7y ago
So, last night in NL a number of telephone base stations was destroyed because of this. This seriously impacts the availability of the local emergency number so this hoax is now costing actual lives at a time when the chance of a particular base station being required to call emergency services is quite high. Sick and tired of these idiots. The people in this thread who are arguing for research into the 'potential health implications' of 5G: you are part of the problem, you are giving cover to the idiots by allowing them to argue that there very well may be such implications so better safe than sorry before we're all going to be mind controlled.
hncensorsnonpc 7y ago
It is not a hoax to be concerned! To say it causes C19 is something else but even on this highly biased HN I have seen people with brains link to the studies that show how it clearly can be harmful! This urge to focus on people who spin it further and use them to dismiss valid concern pisses me off!
newcrobuzon 7y ago
I try to examine everything with an open mind. For instance couple of years ago after a surgery I had plenty of time and I watched some conspiracy documentaries (like 9/11 or chemtrails), and I was almost disappointed how quickly they crumbled (within minutes) as they were completely lacking any data or proofs - and I really was curious and open-minded and was looking forward to learn something :) This issue however becomes much more complicated when discussing environmental and health issues - there usually the technology at hand actually should and needs to prove its safety. However deranged some of the 5G theories are, it should not hide the fact that - afaik - there is no proper safety study for continues exposure to >24GHz. Even thought theoretically we might think it is safe, it is still paramount to fully safety test it. So lets stop with all the straw man stuff and do some real studies (or find them if they are already out there).

67 points by weinzierl 7y ago

hubadu 7y ago

It is a fact that a 5G network will consume three and half times as much electricity as 4G.

lcam84 7y ago
I recently bought a Nokia 800 Tough to have internet at home. It is advertised as having up to 43 days on stand by but if you connect 4G with internet sharing, the battery lasts about 5 hours. I wonder what will happen with 5G.
- rand49an 7y ago
  I think the increased energy usage mostly comes from the increased number of base stations required to service a population.
- hieloz 7y ago
  No matter 4G or 5G,your hotspot waste battery to a large degree, It advertised 43 days only to standby mode.
  - lcam84 7y ago
    Yes in fact the 43 days is in stanby but I don't use the phone for anything else, so I thought it would take more than a few hours between charges. I thought that the difference in battery time between old and new mobile phones was due to the touch screen, but now I don't know to what extent 4G contributes to that difference.
    - kalleboo 7y ago
      Does "internet sharing" not imply turning on WiFi as well, which usually goes to sleep during standby
consp 7y ago
It will also serve significantly more people per cell, so a trade off has been made?
Jonnax 7y ago
Forever? Or is it because it's a new technology? The PS4 slim consumes less power than an original PS4

lcam84 7y ago

The undeniable reasons for not going ahead with 5G: - It will contribute to the planned obsolescence. There we're going to get insatiable with what we have and pay a ton of money for a new mobile phone model, this on account of the exploitation of children in the cobalt mines of Congo. - It will make us even more addicted to screens. If we think we can no longer pay attention to anything, get ready for 5G.

FartyMcFarter 7y ago
> It will contribute to the planned obsolescence. In what way? 2G and 3G phones still work. The only way that I see this as a valid point is that software will become more wasteful with higher bandwidth. But if we thought like that, things would never progress.
- jacquesm 7y ago
  I'm still using a 3G phone and I've noticed that over time coverage has become worse due to the old base stations being phased out.
- mkl 7y ago
  2G is already shut down in many places: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Past_2G_networks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2G#Past_2G_networks
- onli 7y ago
  Some countries like Germany plan to dismantle their 3G network next year.
WanderPanda 7y ago
I hate this Congo argument. Sure, the conditions are probably bad there, but that has nothing to do with the material / physics / tech. The stuff could be mined meeting high safety and environmental standards if it were not for their social / political situation. That should be a completely different discussion
- 7y ago

wyldfire 7y ago

Since Troy commands a lot of attention, he would do well to reference the legitimate controversy over adjacent-channel interference among some 5G bands and weather radar. The weather radar is sampling a physical phenomenon and cannot be 'moved' to another band. I haven't seen the 5G hoax promotions, only the legitimate journalism articles describing the fallout. I presume that none of the hoaxers actually reference the weather radar issue? Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff.

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
> I presume that none of the hoaxers actually reference the weather radar issue? I have never seen them do this, and I think it's unlikely they will do enough research on 5G (despite telling everyone else to "do the research") to learn about this. > Let's hope it stays that way because it's much harder to dismiss it all as a hoax if they mix in real truth with all the other bogus stuff. I'd say they already do this, but I'm not sure they do, and I'm not sure they need to. Conspiracy theorists don't rely on facts to bolster their narrative; they rely on things that sound like facts.
Nursie 7y ago
I've not seen anything hoax-y that even mentions weather radar. It all seems to be centred around misunderstandings of field strengths, inverse square laws etc and the usual overreaction to anything poorly understood and new. If they mix up weather radar in there I can only imagine the theories about government mind control that will come next.
avip 7y ago
Author repeatedly emphasizes this post is not about 5G, it's about fake news campaigns. Possibly could have used a less controversial example.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cogman10 7y ago
Honestly, I think it is an overblown problem. (IIRC, the band in question was something like 22GHz) Those high frequency bands are going to be reserved for high population areas. Their entire purpose is to avoid crosstalk by using signals with low penetration. So, the expectation is that those higher frequencies be used for things like low power micro cell towers in buildings, or downtown city streets. That means the actual disruption, if it occurs, will only be over the high population areas of cities. Not generally wherever coverage occurs.

bjoyx 7y ago

If we can’t trust epidemiologists to protect us from an epidemic why should we trust radio wave scientists to protect us from radio waves?

raverbashing 7y ago
Keep yourself at home, use gloves and adequate masks. There's your protection Or if you prefer to believe politicians, just hey, go outside and take all the chloroquine you want.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
You're wrong. We could and can trust epidemiologists. It's the administrative/political layer that fucked up.
- crispinb 7y ago
  Not here (Aus). We're doing pretty well so far.
- PudgePacket 7y ago
  I really want to. Just so much junk epidemiology that has come out of nutritional epidemiology. A small sample.. https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/11/academic-studies-questioning-current-dietary-advice/ https://www.zoeharcombe.com/2014/11/academic-studies-questio...
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Hmm, I think the government scientists who've been front and centre on UK news have been peddling a politically perverted message. So perhaps we can trust their peer-reviewed output, but the "masks are useless" and "closing schools won't reduce infection transmission" messages came from scientists. Scientists are still human, and still will push their ideals and beliefs ahead of scientific non-falsehood. Also, epidemiology is an interesting one. As in all public health there are balances, but moreso here. Often anti-antivax people will claim "vaccines are entirely safe" which is unscientific. Their goals are noble, but they discredit themselves because data on negative outcomes is pretty easy to come by. The temptation is the same, public health is served by convincing people to take certain actions (eg not buy masks, because they're needed by healthcare workers). Sometimes these actions are contrary to individual needs. Governments will need to tell people to do things that are against those people's best interests ("don't seek medical care") because those actions preserve the population. Epidemiology is about preserving populations, not about keeping individuals healthy. That means there's always a tension, and I don't think _one_ can trust epidemiologists, but _we_ can trust them in general. Would you like to save lives? Would you lie, knowing 100,000s would die ... because there was a high probability that it could save millions, but also a possibility that the deaths wouldn't help, or wouldn't be necessary?

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago

Try as we might to combat this insanity, no amount of facts will ever make these idiots stop being idiots. Aside from the 5G hysteria, I've also noticed a large uptick in people believing that COVID-19 is engineered and patented by Bill Gates, as part of his project to reduce the global population. Why exactly would he want to do that? Well the why is not important, apparently. The Gates stuff is quite well explained in the associated Snopes[0] page. Sharing that article with an acquaintance brought her to respond with: > this Article is a Total BS > All i can say. I dont trust anything that i read anymore. Only What i hear from people that are completely Free and independent. And no, im not wrong. If you still cant see it then go to YouTube do your research , when you still can. Cuz it might be censored one day I explained that I am "completely free and independent", but apparently that's not the way it works. Like Troy Hunt, I too have been trying to figure out why conspiracy theorists believe in some utterly insane ideas, but not others. And what if I start some of my own conspiracy theories? Would they be plausible? Would they catch on? Why? Why not? The first thing I came up with was: > The African giraffe is actually a genetically-modified animal, engineered by the CIA. It was a covert government project to see if the necks of animals could be elongated — the ambition being to then apply this research to humans, making their brains develop less (because the biological development would now go to supporting their longer neck muscles) as a means to more easily mind-control the global population So, if that one ever makes the rounds among the semi-literate on Facebook, you heard it here first. [0]: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-depopulation/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-gates-vaccinations-de...

sagitariusrex 7y ago

As a side note: My biggest disappointment regarding the 5G discussion with respect to potential health implications is the widespread lack of acknowledgement about the fact that we have not yet conducted any meaningful scientific experiments (let alone ones whose methodology is robust) to even hold a meaningful debate. It's derailed into a political debate between those who "know for a fact" there are zero health implications and those who "know for a fact" that you'll certainly die within a week from a 5g antenna being placed next to your apartment.

vardump 7y ago
If the energy isn't enough to ionize, then what is there to study? (Extreme) heating effects can cause cancer, but the source of heat is irrelevant. The power levels 5G uses make even this point completely moot. If you really have to search for something that could cause you cancer, perhaps those rather carcinogenic compounds your phone is made out of could be studied instead? Although I prefer just not to pulverize my phone and breath in the resulting dust. :-)
- willis936 7y ago
  There has been a fabled danger of low levels of non-ionizing radiation without an explained mechanism for decades. There is no data to support it, but there will never be enough “studies” to disprove it.
  - cogman10 7y ago
    What gets me is that these people still walk out in the sun. We are talking about orders of magnitude weaker radiation than what you get dosed with every time you go outside. But further, sunlight does contain ionizing radiation (hello UV).
    - willis936 7y ago
      I can’t believe people are still flying on commercial airliners; over the poles no less!

lnsru 7y ago

My colleagues call me Luddite and laugh at me when I don’t show enthusiasm about 5G. Apparently, there are somewhere some very smart people, that see great benefit of 5G. Maybe it’s just another important reason to force people buy more phones. Maybe a am not right buyer persona using same phone for as long as it works (5+ years). Germany cannot get good 4G coverage, why think about 5G!? It was a nightmare to drive and to talk to clients on the phone while driving in a field role. 30 miles outside of any city I had connection problems.

Nursie 7y ago
Lower latency, lower protocol overheads, makes it much more likely to be able to start replacing wired infrastructure for home use. I'm not that massively excited about it either, it's not like the jump from 2G->3G where phone handset use is concerned, but I think it will have a bigger impact on non- (or not-just-) phone use.
Jonnax 7y ago
Because 5G is more efficient. Here's a graph of predictions of data usage over the next few years: https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-data-traffic-forecast/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/271405/global-mobile-dat... People use their phones for data and the data consumption is increasing. You might not but people live stream sports, games, TV to their mobiles. Frequency bands are like radio stations. Better algorithms/etc to transfer more data at an instant means that more people can have a better experience using the airwaves. Like in busy train stations people will often have full signal but unusable internet connectivity. Faster speeds means that people are not using the airwaves for as long. Also mmWave is a way to get an extra density of data pushed as higher frequency means more throughput look at 2.4Ghz WiFi Vs 5Ghz WiFi. Of course the issue is that it gets blocked very easily. It's a progression. 3G masts have been switched to 4G and it'll start in a few years for 5G. But honestly it's a long multi year process. And it's not like 4G is going anywhere. Other things that 5G does is latency is lower so it could open up use cases such as data for autonomous cars, AR and VR (I'm a bit dubious on that tbh). Reason being that the break out to the internet can be at multiple points rather than a single point as it often is with LTE. But yeah, honestly from a user perspective there's not really going to be much of a difference. I don't think many operators are going to try selling 5G plans like they did for 4G

s9w 7y ago

The only 5G campaign I can see are the flood of articles over alleged 5G-Corona conspiracies. Those however are not popular even in "dirty" corners on the internet and if so mostly for fun. It's like flat earth.. it's fun to see people embarrass themselves on Twitter when they tout their superior intelligence because they don't fall for that. There are however concerns about 5G itself, without corona. I haven't really dived into the matter but it passes at least a cursory smell test, see for example https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317998

vincnetas 7y ago
Well, im probably living in really "dirty" corners of internet, as i see constant stream of "Burn all 5G towers because they cause corona" in all "Eco" "spiritual" "nature" facebook groups. Im not saying anything about 5G safety here, just saying that this "5G + corona" conspiracy is really getting traction.
- s9w 7y ago
  Fair enough, I don't know what's on FB etc. I meant more like conspiracy subreddits, 4chan and so on.
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    4 Chan and Reddit aren't the real world. Internet users put way too much stock in their societal impact. Facebook and group messaging apps are how a lot of people communicate.
    - s9w 7y ago
      Right! But I specifically wrote dirty corners, which fits well for those sites and less for FB.
    - pjc50 7y ago
      But there's no hard boundary. 4Chan is the viral breeding ground, occasionally some particularly well-developed memetic pathogen is weaponised onto Facebook or Whatsapp where it spreads among a non-immune population.

foreigner 7y ago

My strategy is even simpler: if I see a long Facebook post, especially "shared" from a source other than my Facebook friend, I quickly scroll to the bottom and check if it says something like "copy and paste this post". If so I simply ignore it.

guerby 7y ago

The main issue I see with 5G is the frequency grab by private operators, this happens without any data about actual bottlenecks being shown and discussed. Private operators already have a huge share of public spectrum and I suspect it's nowhere near saturated except may be in very small and dense areas.

dekken_ 7y ago

No mention of the surveillance potentials of 5G? Or it's ignored as it's true?

BenjiWiebe 7y ago
No more and no less than 4g, and 3g before it. Probably even much the same as 2g.
- dekken_ 7y ago
  I think the necessity for more masts is a big difference no?

lucideer 7y ago

The biggest worry about the raft of covid-5g conspiracy theories is not that people will believe them (some may, momentarily, and quickly move on to the next viral thing) but rather that there'll be a backlash of blind, uncritical 5g support. Troy's article, while not explicitly defending 5g, is much more likely to encourage such a backlash than anything. Please be critical.

andarleen 7y ago

Any psychologist here able to explain a bit why some people are prone believing conspiracy theories? I can’t for the life of me figure out why some people, even highly educated, have a tendency to lean towards a mystical or conspiratory explanation for anything just slightly difficult to understand. Is there a part of the brain responsible for this? Edit: I live in a country where people will find such an explanation for anything ranging from bad weather, to a bad economy, to even covid. And such theories are so prevalent that “normal” people are basically outliers.

mothsonasloth 7y ago

The same hysteria happened with the first steam powered trains travelling at 12mph in the UK. Farmers thought their cows milk would turn sour from the train noises and people thought their heads would explode or body damage would happen travelling that fast. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-thought-make-womens-uteruses-fly-out https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/67806/early-trains-were-... https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-children-first-technology-and-moral-panic/?re https://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/07/11/women-and-child...

kartoshechka 7y ago

These urgent copypastas are funny as hell and they are not going anywhere simply because it's much faster and convenient to fall for this pseudo-counter-popular opinion that expose these nasty technologies than make your own. In the end of the day none of these boomers give a damn about 5G unless it is criticized on national TV or in WhatsApp groups.

PudgePacket 7y ago

Did this get artificially pushed down the HN list? Lots of other items with lower scores and earlier posting times are on the first page while this is on the third....

jacquesm 7y ago

So, last night in NL a number of telephone base stations was destroyed because of this. This seriously impacts the availability of the local emergency number so this hoax is now costing actual lives at a time when the chance of a particular base station being required to call emergency services is quite high. Sick and tired of these idiots. The people in this thread who are arguing for research into the 'potential health implications' of 5G: you are part of the problem, you are giving cover to the idiots by allowing them to argue that there very well may be such implications so better safe than sorry before we're all going to be mind controlled.

hncensorsnonpc 7y ago

It is not a hoax to be concerned! To say it causes C19 is something else but even on this highly biased HN I have seen people with brains link to the studies that show how it clearly can be harmful! This urge to focus on people who spin it further and use them to dismiss valid concern pisses me off!

newcrobuzon 7y ago

I try to examine everything with an open mind. For instance couple of years ago after a surgery I had plenty of time and I watched some conspiracy documentaries (like 9/11 or chemtrails), and I was almost disappointed how quickly they crumbled (within minutes) as they were completely lacking any data or proofs - and I really was curious and open-minded and was looking forward to learn something :) This issue however becomes much more complicated when discussing environmental and health issues - there usually the technology at hand actually should and needs to prove its safety. However deranged some of the 5G theories are, it should not hide the fact that - afaik - there is no proper safety study for continues exposure to >24GHz. Even thought theoretically we might think it is safe, it is still paramount to fully safety test it. So lets stop with all the straw man stuff and do some real studies (or find them if they are already out there).