6 ms·

>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing

>so many people who thought 5G caused corona literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. If you want to make your case for describing the state of the internet, please avoid nonsense exaggerations like this.

avh02 2y ago
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g... oddballs, i agree. but a dangerous group of oddballs. > Across Britain, more than 30 acts of arson and vandalism have taken place against wireless towers and other telecom gear this month, according to police reports and a telecom trade group. In roughly 80 other incidents in the country, telecom technicians have been harassed on the job. that is not a small number, we discuss smaller things on HN. And these are only the cases that have manifested in to arson or harassment, so includes zero couch conspiracy theorists.
Ylpertnodi 2y ago
>literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. So not literally nobody?
- leovingi 2y ago
  Given that the original comment implied that the reason we could not have an "open and really big" internet is because of the handful of oddballs that thought 5G towers caused Corona, yes, it might as well be literally nobody.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    The number shouldn't matter though. We can have an open and big internet regardless of how many people believe in ideas that seem to be batshit crazy to the average person. Who cares what someone else chooses to think or believe?
  - avh02 2y ago
    you can still have an open and really big internet with these people, the question is if it remains anything like the bastion of great thought the "open and really big" part implies (along with the example provided in the original post I was replying to)
_heimdall 2y ago
A coworker of mine tried to convince me of this during the pandemic. I guess she realized I was a bit more antic establishment than normal and thought I'd like that hypothesis. It was a small minority, but there were (and are) absolutely people who believed this. They also usually explain it poorly, I think their idea really is that 5G radio signals caused disease but it gets morphed into a claim that 5G somehow created the virus that caused the disease.
- account42 2y ago
  Ok but then how is this relevant? Crazy uncles have existed long before the Internet.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    > literally nobody thought this Well it seems relevant because the comment I replied to was minimizing the number of people who thought 5G may have caused covid to a miniscule number of people. I raised my experience because I only know a small number of people and did in fact know someone in real life who believed this and sent me plenty of links and whitepapers making the same claims. Is my anecdotal experience statistically significant? Absolutely not. But I also hesitate to believe that the number of people who bought into the idea was so small as to effectively not exist.
  - smackeyacky 2y ago
    Crazy uncles were unable to find other crazy uncles and coagulate into the fatbergs of information flow before the internet. Now the algorithms push them together.
    - _heimdall 2y ago
      But again, who cares if someone else or a group of people think something you find to be crazy? If they act on it that's totally different, but we have laws for that already.
      - 2y ago
deleted 2y ago
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avh02 2y ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g... oddballs, i agree. but a dangerous group of oddballs. > Across Britain, more than 30 acts of arson and vandalism have taken place against wireless towers and other telecom gear this month, according to police reports and a telecom trade group. In roughly 80 other incidents in the country, telecom technicians have been harassed on the job. that is not a small number, we discuss smaller things on HN. And these are only the cases that have manifested in to arson or harassment, so includes zero couch conspiracy theorists.

Ylpertnodi 2y ago

>literally nobody thought this, perhaps except a handful of oddballs. So not literally nobody?

leovingi 2y ago
Given that the original comment implied that the reason we could not have an "open and really big" internet is because of the handful of oddballs that thought 5G towers caused Corona, yes, it might as well be literally nobody.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  The number shouldn't matter though. We can have an open and big internet regardless of how many people believe in ideas that seem to be batshit crazy to the average person. Who cares what someone else chooses to think or believe?
- avh02 2y ago
  you can still have an open and really big internet with these people, the question is if it remains anything like the bastion of great thought the "open and really big" part implies (along with the example provided in the original post I was replying to)

_heimdall 2y ago

A coworker of mine tried to convince me of this during the pandemic. I guess she realized I was a bit more antic establishment than normal and thought I'd like that hypothesis. It was a small minority, but there were (and are) absolutely people who believed this. They also usually explain it poorly, I think their idea really is that 5G radio signals caused disease but it gets morphed into a claim that 5G somehow created the virus that caused the disease.

account42 2y ago
Ok but then how is this relevant? Crazy uncles have existed long before the Internet.
- _heimdall 2y ago
  > literally nobody thought this Well it seems relevant because the comment I replied to was minimizing the number of people who thought 5G may have caused covid to a miniscule number of people. I raised my experience because I only know a small number of people and did in fact know someone in real life who believed this and sent me plenty of links and whitepapers making the same claims. Is my anecdotal experience statistically significant? Absolutely not. But I also hesitate to believe that the number of people who bought into the idea was so small as to effectively not exist.
- smackeyacky 2y ago
  Crazy uncles were unable to find other crazy uncles and coagulate into the fatbergs of information flow before the internet. Now the algorithms push them together.
  - _heimdall 2y ago
    But again, who cares if someone else or a group of people think something you find to be crazy? If they act on it that's totally different, but we have laws for that already.
    - 2y ago

deleted 2y ago

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