9 ms·

À quieter world would be life changing. It’s incredible how low tech we are in regard to sound.

piva00 2y ago
From my own experience, it is life changing. I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, an extremely noisy city mostly due to traffic: old vehicles, motorbikes with open exhausts, cars honking, noisy trucks passing by residential neighbourhoods, an airport inside the city (with take-off and landing ramps over major residential neighbourhoods, including one I lived at), etc. Moved to Sweden more than a decade ago and lived in very quiet places here, nowadays right in front of a forest with a couple of lakes nearby, and I simply cannot spend more than a few weeks back in São Paulo after getting used to the quietness. I feel much, much more stressed just existing there, even inside apartments on the 20th floor, even on the "quieter" parts of the city, it's a physical feeling that I do not shake off until I'm back home in Sweden. One can get "used" to noisy environments but the difference it is to live in quieter areas is really hard to describe, I don't think I can tolerate living in noisy environments after seeing how life is on the other end of the spectrum...
- soneca 2y ago
  I live in São Paulo and I noticed that contrast when I visited the central area of Kopenhagen. It was impressive and delightful how quiet that neighborhood (without cars) is. Of course I still can tolerate the noise, since I still live here. I am used to it and, most of the times, I don’t consciously care. But I do appreciate and miss the quietness.
- throwaway13337 2y ago
  I had a similar experience when I moved to a very rural house for a couple of years. It was extremely comfortable. Whenever I got back to the city, I felt overwhelmed. I ended up living in the city and getting used to the noise again. I made the conscious decision to do so because I felt like I limited myself a lot in the places that were acceptable. Comfort is it's own prison. I wonder, though, if there is some kind of gain I miss out on by getting used to discomfort.
- pja 2y ago
  The introduction of electric vehicles has made Spanish cities much quieter. The youth can hurtle around on their electric bikes / scooters in the wee hours without waking everyone up for miles around!
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    In NY electric bikes haven't made much of a dent in sound pollution, there are still fat slobs on their Harley's disturbing blocks and blocks of residents either at night or during the day. Hoping I can drape this silk over my ears or something...
- nox101 2y ago
  Interesting? I don't generally find forest to be quiet. The cricket noises, shuffling leaves, etc keep me up. Of course city noises keep me up to but suburbs are often quiet
  - flawsofar 2y ago
    suburbs are the worst. Natural noises have a rhythm that doesn’t stress us out and wake us. Methodical. A busy road can mostly start to blend into white noise. Unless it’s absolute sociopaths honking in residential neighborhoods. Suburbs though have leaf blowers that your asshole neighbor uses 2 hours before it’s legal to use it. That noise is inconsistent, and it is the worst sound. Some people just suck though.
    - sandworm101 2y ago
      >> Natural noises have a rhythm that doesn’t stress us out and wake us. Florida. Key West. Protected bird species. The parking lot roosters. Nothing methodical about them.
  - piva00 2y ago
    I don't enjoy absolute silence at all, quietness for me is low intensity natural background noise. Shuffling of leaves, birds, crickets, wind through trees' canopy, a stream of water, all of that is very much soothing (and wanted) noise for me. I've been around a few suburbs in the USA and they aren't quiet to my ears, they sound dead for a lack of a better word. Dead with the odd noise from a car's engine and tyres (usually a pickup truck), lawn mower, leaf blower rushing through it. Absolute silence is not even natural, it gives me the creeps when I'm in a deafening silent ambient.
  - nayuki 2y ago
    Suburbs are bad in terms of noise. The biggest sources of noise I heard were (gas-powered) lawnmowers, the weekly garbage trucks, snow plows, car traffic, and air conditioners.
    - throwway120385 2y ago
- balder1991 2y ago
  I also grew up in a Brazilian capital and during vacations I’d go to my grandma’s place in a farm about 2km away from a small city in the countryside. Even to this day, one of my best memory of that place is the quietness I could experience by sitting at wheeling chair in the front of the house and the only sound you’d hear would be the wind, birds and sometimes chickens nearby. Nowadays it isn’t the same sadly, because the city grew enough turn the road at the front much more busy. Now there’s a motorbike or truck passing by every 2 minutes, which spoils the whole experience.
- Unfrozen0688 2y ago
  [dead]
- faceplanted 2y ago
  You seem to think the issue is noise, but have you considered noise might just be the most noticeable symptom of general city living? i.e. having much less personal space, nature, privacy, and free time to spend in them?
  - geodel 2y ago
    Ok, so what are those place where one have lot of personal space, nature , privacy and free time but very noisy all the time.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - piva00 2y ago
    I had a great time living in cities, and still miss it. It's not an objective choice, depends absolutely on your preferences and lifestyle if city living is worth it or not. Having less personal space, privacy, nature, etc. are trade-offs for what a city provides if you are into city life. I don't live far away from the city centre but have nature around, depending where you live on Earth it's not mutually exclusive to have access to both. So the issue is noise, the rest are trade-offs one can make but I'd venture to say that almost absolutely no one would choose "noisy environment" as a preference for their lifestyle.
globular-toast 2y ago
99% of noise is cars and motorbikes. The correct approach is not to invent some high-tech workaround but to go after the source of the problem. Otherwise it's like spending time micro-optimising a program that solves the wrong problem. We don't even need to do anything radical like getting rid of cars. They can be quiet. Just ban loud vehicles. Force the use of quiet tyres on the road. Do not allow modifications that remove silencers etc. to be used on the road. Race tracks already implement a SPL test for cars at the exhaust. It would be dead easy to implement this for road cars. Already you've probably eliminated the need for anything high-tech for most people. Then, for the next level, we need to keep driving cars out of our living spaces. Considering the bicycle exists, there is no need for people to transport their bodies from the outside of town to the inside at an average speed of less than 15mph[0]. It's insane. [0] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/average-traffic-speeds-1 https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do...
- GrinningFool 2y ago
  > 99% of noise is cars and motorbikes If you live in the city, sure. But 99% of the noise I deal with is family members going about their lives. Would love a solution to help prevent sound transfer indoors, so that I can focus (and sleep) better.
  - KingMob 2y ago
    Tell your family to stop motorbiking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Bam, problem solved.
  - jaggederest 2y ago
    Already exists, same as is used for any other soundproofing. Rockwool insulation, resilient channels and a second layer of drywall, mass loaded vinyl, acoustic panels and tapestries (can hide some more mass loaded vinyl in there too), acoustic adhesive, scored screws to kill floor squeaks. They're all quite expensive but hey! Very DIY accessible. For exterior noise the biggest bang for the buck is replacing windows. I had some soundproof windows put onto my previous house and you could close the door on a parade going by and not even know it was happening.
lloydatkinson 2y ago
As I read your comment I became aware of just how loud a simple standing fan I have currently behind me is, even on the lowest of settings. Fan design feels comically lacking in this regard. I am sure it could be much quieter even when faster. Dyson fans are meant to be quieter, but for a premium.
blueaquilae 2y ago
I suspect this can explain a lot of the IQ loss since it become difficult to build concentration.
- shawabawa3 2y ago
  What IQ loss? IQ scores have consistently increased over time
  - simonsarris 2y ago
    I'm afraid your knowledge is a bit out of date. Even Flynn has given talks about the "reverse Flynn effect" in the past three decades. IQ scores have been going down. Recently: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...
    - pixl97 2y ago
      My suspicion on this is not the noise from the device, or even the devices themselves are the problem... It's that we sit on our ass all day watching/listening to them. Brain health is correlated to exercise and movement.
  - throwup238 2y ago
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    - krapp 2y ago
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goda90 2y ago
A quieter world is one where the outdoors is quieter because we stop producing so much noise in the first place. This would benefit us and wildlife, which are very negatively impacted by not just our classic pollution but our noise and light pollution too.
- wetpaws 2y ago
  [dead]
- 2trill2spill 2y ago
  Agreed, its one of the many reasons I cant wait for the shift from ICE vehicles to EVs, they are just so much quieter.
  - nixass 2y ago
    If you're nearby any moderately busy road it's not the engine what makes noise but the tires and then air going around the car. Engine/exhaust noise is a problem but easy to solve
    - pixl97 2y ago
      Yep, there are plenty of ICE vehicles that are quite. A large number of cars/small trucks that are loud are designed that way because the roaring engine noise sells the car.
    - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
      I believe it bas to do more with vehicular speed than business. At low speeds, engine noise dominates; on a freeway, it’s the tyres.
    - lolinder 2y ago
      > Engine/exhaust noise is a problem but easy to solve It's easy from a technical standpoint but practically impossible from a human one. The vast majority of people simply don't notice or care that some large percentage of vehicles are intentionally modified to be louder than the legal maximum. Police won't enforce it, and most citizens barely register the noise as present, much less a problem. Banning ICE vehicles altogether may very well be the only thing that actually gets the problem solved, since that actually has more momentum behind it than enforcement of existing noise regulations does.
rtkwe 2y ago
We know quite a bit about how to block and mitigate sound the issue is it's transmitted through the air which we want to move around for other reasons so it's tough to block one without making stuffy areas.
barrenko 2y ago
Yes, but then more people would start to hear their inner voice.

From my own experience, it is life changing. I grew up in São Paulo, Brazil, an extremely noisy city mostly due to traffic: old vehicles, motorbikes with open exhausts, cars honking, noisy trucks passing by residential neighbourhoods, an airport inside the city (with take-off and landing ramps over major residential neighbourhoods, including one I lived at), etc. Moved to Sweden more than a decade ago and lived in very quiet places here, nowadays right in front of a forest with a couple of lakes nearby, and I simply cannot spend more than a few weeks back in São Paulo after getting used to the quietness. I feel much, much more stressed just existing there, even inside apartments on the 20th floor, even on the "quieter" parts of the city, it's a physical feeling that I do not shake off until I'm back home in Sweden. One can get "used" to noisy environments but the difference it is to live in quieter areas is really hard to describe, I don't think I can tolerate living in noisy environments after seeing how life is on the other end of the spectrum...

soneca 2y ago
I live in São Paulo and I noticed that contrast when I visited the central area of Kopenhagen. It was impressive and delightful how quiet that neighborhood (without cars) is. Of course I still can tolerate the noise, since I still live here. I am used to it and, most of the times, I don’t consciously care. But I do appreciate and miss the quietness.
throwaway13337 2y ago
I had a similar experience when I moved to a very rural house for a couple of years. It was extremely comfortable. Whenever I got back to the city, I felt overwhelmed. I ended up living in the city and getting used to the noise again. I made the conscious decision to do so because I felt like I limited myself a lot in the places that were acceptable. Comfort is it's own prison. I wonder, though, if there is some kind of gain I miss out on by getting used to discomfort.
pja 2y ago
The introduction of electric vehicles has made Spanish cities much quieter. The youth can hurtle around on their electric bikes / scooters in the wee hours without waking everyone up for miles around!
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  In NY electric bikes haven't made much of a dent in sound pollution, there are still fat slobs on their Harley's disturbing blocks and blocks of residents either at night or during the day. Hoping I can drape this silk over my ears or something...
nox101 2y ago
Interesting? I don't generally find forest to be quiet. The cricket noises, shuffling leaves, etc keep me up. Of course city noises keep me up to but suburbs are often quiet
- flawsofar 2y ago
  suburbs are the worst. Natural noises have a rhythm that doesn’t stress us out and wake us. Methodical. A busy road can mostly start to blend into white noise. Unless it’s absolute sociopaths honking in residential neighborhoods. Suburbs though have leaf blowers that your asshole neighbor uses 2 hours before it’s legal to use it. That noise is inconsistent, and it is the worst sound. Some people just suck though.
  - sandworm101 2y ago
    >> Natural noises have a rhythm that doesn’t stress us out and wake us. Florida. Key West. Protected bird species. The parking lot roosters. Nothing methodical about them.
- piva00 2y ago
  I don't enjoy absolute silence at all, quietness for me is low intensity natural background noise. Shuffling of leaves, birds, crickets, wind through trees' canopy, a stream of water, all of that is very much soothing (and wanted) noise for me. I've been around a few suburbs in the USA and they aren't quiet to my ears, they sound dead for a lack of a better word. Dead with the odd noise from a car's engine and tyres (usually a pickup truck), lawn mower, leaf blower rushing through it. Absolute silence is not even natural, it gives me the creeps when I'm in a deafening silent ambient.
- nayuki 2y ago
  Suburbs are bad in terms of noise. The biggest sources of noise I heard were (gas-powered) lawnmowers, the weekly garbage trucks, snow plows, car traffic, and air conditioners.
  - throwway120385 2y ago
balder1991 2y ago
I also grew up in a Brazilian capital and during vacations I’d go to my grandma’s place in a farm about 2km away from a small city in the countryside. Even to this day, one of my best memory of that place is the quietness I could experience by sitting at wheeling chair in the front of the house and the only sound you’d hear would be the wind, birds and sometimes chickens nearby. Nowadays it isn’t the same sadly, because the city grew enough turn the road at the front much more busy. Now there’s a motorbike or truck passing by every 2 minutes, which spoils the whole experience.
Unfrozen0688 2y ago
[dead]
faceplanted 2y ago
You seem to think the issue is noise, but have you considered noise might just be the most noticeable symptom of general city living? i.e. having much less personal space, nature, privacy, and free time to spend in them?
- geodel 2y ago
  Ok, so what are those place where one have lot of personal space, nature , privacy and free time but very noisy all the time.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- piva00 2y ago
  I had a great time living in cities, and still miss it. It's not an objective choice, depends absolutely on your preferences and lifestyle if city living is worth it or not. Having less personal space, privacy, nature, etc. are trade-offs for what a city provides if you are into city life. I don't live far away from the city centre but have nature around, depending where you live on Earth it's not mutually exclusive to have access to both. So the issue is noise, the rest are trade-offs one can make but I'd venture to say that almost absolutely no one would choose "noisy environment" as a preference for their lifestyle.

globular-toast 2y ago

99% of noise is cars and motorbikes. The correct approach is not to invent some high-tech workaround but to go after the source of the problem. Otherwise it's like spending time micro-optimising a program that solves the wrong problem. We don't even need to do anything radical like getting rid of cars. They can be quiet. Just ban loud vehicles. Force the use of quiet tyres on the road. Do not allow modifications that remove silencers etc. to be used on the road. Race tracks already implement a SPL test for cars at the exhaust. It would be dead easy to implement this for road cars. Already you've probably eliminated the need for anything high-tech for most people. Then, for the next level, we need to keep driving cars out of our living spaces. Considering the bicycle exists, there is no need for people to transport their bodies from the outside of town to the inside at an average speed of less than 15mph[0]. It's insane. [0] https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-does/questions-mayor/find-an-answer/average-traffic-speeds-1 https://www.london.gov.uk/who-we-are/what-london-assembly-do...

GrinningFool 2y ago
> 99% of noise is cars and motorbikes If you live in the city, sure. But 99% of the noise I deal with is family members going about their lives. Would love a solution to help prevent sound transfer indoors, so that I can focus (and sleep) better.
- KingMob 2y ago
  Tell your family to stop motorbiking to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Bam, problem solved.
- jaggederest 2y ago
  Already exists, same as is used for any other soundproofing. Rockwool insulation, resilient channels and a second layer of drywall, mass loaded vinyl, acoustic panels and tapestries (can hide some more mass loaded vinyl in there too), acoustic adhesive, scored screws to kill floor squeaks. They're all quite expensive but hey! Very DIY accessible. For exterior noise the biggest bang for the buck is replacing windows. I had some soundproof windows put onto my previous house and you could close the door on a parade going by and not even know it was happening.

lloydatkinson 2y ago

As I read your comment I became aware of just how loud a simple standing fan I have currently behind me is, even on the lowest of settings. Fan design feels comically lacking in this regard. I am sure it could be much quieter even when faster. Dyson fans are meant to be quieter, but for a premium.

blueaquilae 2y ago

I suspect this can explain a lot of the IQ loss since it become difficult to build concentration.

shawabawa3 2y ago
What IQ loss? IQ scores have consistently increased over time
- simonsarris 2y ago
  I'm afraid your knowledge is a bit out of date. Even Flynn has given talks about the "reverse Flynn effect" in the past three decades. IQ scores have been going down. Recently: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289623000156 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016028962...
  - pixl97 2y ago
    My suspicion on this is not the noise from the device, or even the devices themselves are the problem... It's that we sit on our ass all day watching/listening to them. Brain health is correlated to exercise and movement.
- throwup238 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - krapp 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 2y ago

goda90 2y ago

A quieter world is one where the outdoors is quieter because we stop producing so much noise in the first place. This would benefit us and wildlife, which are very negatively impacted by not just our classic pollution but our noise and light pollution too.

wetpaws 2y ago
[dead]
2trill2spill 2y ago
Agreed, its one of the many reasons I cant wait for the shift from ICE vehicles to EVs, they are just so much quieter.
- nixass 2y ago
  If you're nearby any moderately busy road it's not the engine what makes noise but the tires and then air going around the car. Engine/exhaust noise is a problem but easy to solve
  - pixl97 2y ago
    Yep, there are plenty of ICE vehicles that are quite. A large number of cars/small trucks that are loud are designed that way because the roaring engine noise sells the car.
  - BeFlatXIII 2y ago
    I believe it bas to do more with vehicular speed than business. At low speeds, engine noise dominates; on a freeway, it’s the tyres.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    > Engine/exhaust noise is a problem but easy to solve It's easy from a technical standpoint but practically impossible from a human one. The vast majority of people simply don't notice or care that some large percentage of vehicles are intentionally modified to be louder than the legal maximum. Police won't enforce it, and most citizens barely register the noise as present, much less a problem. Banning ICE vehicles altogether may very well be the only thing that actually gets the problem solved, since that actually has more momentum behind it than enforcement of existing noise regulations does.

rtkwe 2y ago

We know quite a bit about how to block and mitigate sound the issue is it's transmitted through the air which we want to move around for other reasons so it's tough to block one without making stuffy areas.

barrenko 2y ago

Yes, but then more people would start to hear their inner voice.