I am against the myth of unregulated markets somehow self regulating, but I can appreciate how government can be a hindrance.

With the China thing… I was kind of off-base with that one. I was just trying to illustrate how government control might look good on the face of it, but ends up limiting industries in the long run. The amount of government regulation (you will thoroughly test every aspect of your device even if your hot coffee containment device is clearly not designed for inverted vertical containment while over a person’s genitals) itself needs to be limited and considered carefully before removing market controls from the equation. Remember, whatever you give the government will rarely be given back to you.

I think you might have misunderstood what I am saying.

“Wrt forcing manufacturers to fund studies… ouch. Can we say “stand still while China beats us into a bloody pulp”? ”

China is already beating us to the pulp, because in a modest estimate 80% of what comes out (even the big brand names), comes out of Chinese factories that might still be under western (incl. taiwan, and japanese) control but sooner rather than later when China make a case for themselves and become economically robust, they are going to demand better terms, and that means they are still going to have the facilities to themselves. That said I appreciate what you are saying, about the need for fluidity in the economy, but I still think that should not compromise safety. The chinese have the highest number (a staggering number) of fatal factory accidents because they are super “fluid” and underregulated. Should we become like that too? And who’s going to benefit? Because so far the only ones that are benefiting are the big sharks in the game, the public’s benefits are marginally or none at all. Should we cut down on the safety procedures in the pharmaceutical industry too, because India is producing worse generic drugs faster?

“Now, if you’re concerned about this matter and know someone with this affliction – gather some friends and conduct a decently-documented double-blind study”

It’s really much more complicated than that unfortunately.

For sure, the best attitude is between that of the skeptic and the acceptor. With total skepticism comes the inability to accept anything in this world, and a complete standstill while everything is tested. However, with the total acceptor comes a complete lack of progress as we stand still thinking that the entire world is falling on our heads.

Wrt forcing manufacturers to fund studies… ouch. Can we say “stand still while China beats us into a bloody pulp”? Like I’ve mentioned, this is a dirt simple thing to test. The poor dying chillun in these stories all demonstrate immediate sickness and poor health. Immediate sickness and immediate health. You don’t need “billions” of dollars to run a double-blind study of something this simple and fast acting. We can stop all development and become a total nanny-state or concerned citizens can get off their asses and test these things. It’s not difficult.

Now, if you’re concerned about this matter and know someone with this affliction – gather some friends and conduct a decently-documented double-blind study! If you don’t want to, or don’t want to take the five minutes to design such a study, then you’re not concerned. Take these findings and publish them, if your study is up to snuff then you’ll get noticed and the scientific community would be more than happy to hop on and take a look.

If you’re concerned about this matter and don’t know anyone with this affliction – then take a few minutes and think about what could cause it. I mean, seriously. Right around 2Ghz is microwave communication and radar in addition to this terrible-danger that is Wi-Fi. What makes Wi-Fi communications so different from these other forms of much higher powered devices that it causes little Timmy to get sick? On what level does it cause damage?

What we’re also talking about here is not long term illness caused by Wi-Fi. We’re talking about the little Timmys of the world who get sick the instant that they walk into a ~2.4Ghz@0.1W electromagnetic field. If you’re interested in watching how this doesn’t often occur, walk through the campus of your nearest university. Chances are that it is entirely blanketed in Wi-Fi… do you see many people falling ill the instant they cross some particular boundary? Do you see any people doing this? Walk by McDonald’s… walk by Starbucks… go into an apartment building…

Some guy went as far as to say that is someone poisons(sic) their lungs smoking then they shouldn’t be really worrying about the minor risk of wi-fi technology. According to this argument if someone is exposing themselves to a serious health risk such as smoking they should then go ahead and expose themselves to other health risks as well, and go all the way into recklessness. Of course this argument is first and foremost irrelevant as was the blogger’s comments on cell phones and how parents should be worrying about these instead of wi-fi. Such statements have got me thinking that besides math and grammar argumentative logic should be mandatory in schools and in universities, as it seems even people getting degrees are not smart enough to figure out a simple nonsensical argument. (But then again a lot of people in universities at the moment shouldn’t have been there to begin with…). Of course the blogger’s grasp of the issue didn’t go as far as wondering whether the same parents were indeed concerned about cell phone health hazards AS WELL. Or, like I said before, simply considering that two wrongs don’t make a right, or because there’s a bigger evil we should not be worrying about the lesser one.

Of course it’s a relief to read a lot of comments too that do make sense. The bottom line here, as mentioned by others too, is that a lot of technological input in our societies is very dubious, to say the least, when it comes to safety and health, and more awareness is required as well as more of THEIR (the manufacturers’) dollars or euros not going into their pockets or the usual bribes to authorities to turn a blind eye, but more into research for the technology they are putting out on the market.

I would wager that 95% of the technology that comes out is superfluous and most of it proliferates based on a marketing system of false needs and status anxiety, the least they can do (and we can urge them to) is get some serious research into the safety of this technology.

Same goes for wi-fi. As another reader said cables could easily do the trick in most cases, but somehow we got to open up another market for appliances so we have wi-fi flooding in, while the fact of the matter is that there is no real, concrete and unilateral evidence of it being harmless.

For sure, the worst type of attitude wrt these issues it the attitude this blogger took that of sneer and contempt for the people’s fears and concerns over their health and safety. That shows arrogance of the worst sort, because it’s not even justifiable by his ludicrous (non) arguments or his (non) expertise.

Also… nobody here is saying that because they themselves don’t get “sick” from radiation put off by Wi-Fi devices that nobody else does. I think that the consensus here is, “Where’s the proof?”. Nothing points to any abnormalities in human beings being caused at this amplitude and frequency.

Furthermore… Electro-sensitivity? Let me tell you… absolutely everyone alive is sensitive to electricity. I have no qualms with agreeing that everyone is “electro-sensitive”.

AJ, not to attack my own force – but “hertz” means “cycles per second” it is a measure of the frequency of a given wave. NOT the amplitude (or power).

Paul; Perform a scientific experiment and then we’ll listen. Until then, rational beings don’t care. You are either making it up, experiencing real effects, or experiencing imagined effects – study psychology to learn the values of a control in terms of judgmental decisions.

David; Good point. Thank you for linking to a better study than Jordan’s proposed one. Obviously though, that doesn’t help people like Paul who believe that they have a problem.

ANYWAY, sadly this appears to be getting more media attention. It’s terrible that we’re focusing on a problem with no scientific basis (THE TESTS ARE SIMPLE YOU IDIOTS) meanwhile hundreds are dying in Iraq and Fox News tells us that Mother America is winning. Yae for modern society.

Cellphoneradiation

I think that you need to look at this more on a larger scale. Your router gives off enough power to transmit a 2.4GHz signal within your house. Meanwhile, how many radio station towers are blasting radiation that can be picked up miles away. Not to mention all the satellites transmitting 30GHz signals for your TV. As well the cellular towers that are popping up all over the place handling thousands of calls daily. Do you REALLY think that little router is going to cause you that much harm? Radio waves are harmless… Fear mongering indeed.

In spite of a WiFi transmitter’s very low power output, I have experienced headaches, eye irritation, twitches and tremoring in my nerves as a result of being in close proximity to the transmitter. I find it generally takes a minute for the symptoms to develop and increase in intensity and often, surprisingly, many hours for them to subside after turning off the transmitter. I have also had these problems from mobile phones. There is definitely a problem but it seems that not everyone is as ’sensitised’ for some reason.

However, what Jordan describes is a single blind test – the ‘gold standard’ (and therefore the only way you can ‘prove’ anything) is double-blind. This is where not just the subject but the people performing the tests don’t know who’s being exposed to wi-fi radiation (or where/when they’re being exposed), so they can’t inadvertently influence the outcome. And since wi-fi signals are pretty pervasive (my laptop finds five in my South London house), all the rooms would have to be electromagnetially screened.

This all makes it rather more troublesome, but not beyond the reach of a short university research project.

At the risk of going over to the other side, I think we shouldn’t completely rule out potential effects on humans. We are very complex electrically as well as biologically and physiologically, and there’s a lot we don’t understand about how the nervous system works.

But it would be very strange for 100mW wi-fi to have an effect when when 2W of mobile phone signal held against the head doesn’t… or is it just that all our brains have been fried anyway?

Think twice before you use your cordless phone and the next time you decide to use your microwave at home :-)