
Ask HN: Is 5G Safe? - antibland
After reading handfuls of articles and watching some videos on 5G, it&#x27;s still very difficult to discern fact from speculation. Mainstream media is no longer a reliable source for truthful coverage due to many of them being sponsored by the purveyors of this technology (Verizon&#x2F;Sprint&#x2F;etc). Can anyone here shed accurate light on any real health concerns associated with 5G proliferation?
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underyx
At Astroscreen[0] we're working on analyzing the activity around #Stop5G and
related Twitter discussions. We haven't published a full report yet, but I can
reveal preliminarily that we found manipulation by a network of bad actors
(one random member is [1]) who tried to artificially spread disinformation
about the risks of 5G technology.

[0]: [https://www.astroscreen.com](https://www.astroscreen.com)

[1]: [https://twitter.com/WarriorWifeMom](https://twitter.com/WarriorWifeMom)

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yokaze
It's not safe, as the tinfoil theories sprung up about 5G technology can make
you die from laughter.

It's fricking non-ionising RF. TV stations were sending with much more power
than the 5g base stations replacing them.

It's not new (em-)radiation, or more of it, it's only a new use, with actually
lower sending power than before.

Better turn your WiFi off, if you fear the water heating 2.1GHz radiation.

~~~
noisefilters
You are actually right.....but the issue is that 5g doesnt travel distance
well and particularly not thru walls very well. So, those safe frequencies
that you mention needs to be amplified and you need a LOT more towers and
repeaters to extract the real value of 5g.

~~~
yokaze
That's why TV frequencies got freed up (600MHz), and are also used in 5G: they
travel great though walls. And one or two stations serviced a city.

The FR1 range is nothing new.

Yes, FR2 ranges (aka mmwave) has more potential for higher speeds partly
_because_ it doesn't travel through walls, you need practically line of sight.
(Spatial multiplexing).

And you cannot simply amp up the power, to get through it as reflections will
drown you.

Different use-cases, different frequencies.

And those frequencies are still non-ionising, and at most heat your skin.

So why the qualifier of "safe" for frequencies? We are talking radio here, not
UV, x-ray or gamma.

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tzs
A lot of the anti-5G material comes from a series of reports on RT, which many
blogs have repeated without attribution. Details in this comment [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20788559)

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wavepruner
Dr. Martin Pall's work on the effects of EMF on Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels
(VGCC's) is the most compelling critique of non-ionizing EMF I've seen.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780531/)

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gus_massa
Non ionizing radiation is safe. Ionizing radiation (gamma rays, x-rays, some
uv rays) are dangerous when the dose is high.

The main problem with multimedia is that they don't have some specialist to
cover the news and they just copy&paste the press release of any study
floating around. So they make a big scandal about in a study that report like
20 subexperiments and only one of them is statistically significant with p <
0.05.

~~~
tzs
> Non ionizing radiation is safe.

The assorted things that have burned or exploded when I left them in my
microwave oven too long suggest that this is not entirely correct.

Ionizing things is not the only mechanism by which radiation can cause harm.
It's the only one known to be able to cause cancer, which seems to be the main
thing people worry about, so it would be accurate to say non-ionizing
radiation cannot cause cancer.

The non-ionizing ways radiation causes harm also tend to require high
intensity and prolonged exposure, so it is probably accurate to say you don't
have to worry about them unless you make a habit of, say, hanging out directly
in front of high power microwave antennas.

~~~
greyfade
You realize your microwave operates at over 1100 watts in a small enclosure
designed to reflect RF, while 5G currently maxes out at 1100 watts in an open
space that dissipates the energy in all directions, right?

You also realize that a microwave is designed to use a frequency band that
sympathetically excites hydrogen atoms, while 5G is a collection of
technologies that use UHF, high microwave, and submillimeter bands that _do
not_ sympathetically excite hydrogen, right?

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samspenc
My biggest concern with 5G is whether the standards and implementation are
being done by [1] companies based in democratic countries, or [2] companies
based in non-free (dictatorship-run) countries where the companies have close
ties with the regime that runs the country.

Products from companies in the latter bracket seem to have a history of
suspiciously simple backdoors and a record of sending data "back home".

~~~
wright7
Based on what CIA, NSA and FBI is known for, is USA [1] or [2]?

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aguzzi94
I've watched see video on this very interesting subject a while ago. Take a
look at it:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbNh7x3lVWc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbNh7x3lVWc)

My opinion is that we still don't know for sure, and anybody who pretends to
be sure about a certain position doesn't have a clue in reality.

~~~
exo-pla-net
Fearmongering. Our current understanding of physics precludes 5G from having
any effect on the human body. 5G is not ionizing: this is a matter of physical
reality. And non-ionizing electromagnetic waves lacks the energy to do
anything interesting to matter.

The fear is induced by calling electromagnetic waves "radiation," a scary
word. If you accurately called these waves "high spectrum light", the fear
would evaporate.

The pedantic scientific caution is that our model of electromagnetism may be
wrong. Indeed, light may be small demons seeking to enslave us, and only
coincidentally behaving in accordance with the Schrödinger equation, but this
is unlikely.

And so it is just as reasonable to outlaw rain dances from subsistence farmers
in Africa (Our model of cloud formation could be wrong! Who knows what effect
these dances could have?), as it is to be worried about 5G.

Myself, I'm looking forward to high resolution, negligible latency VR, as well
as no longer having to buy computer hardware: VM's will perform just as well
as your tricked out local computer, so it won't make sense to buy computer (or
even a smartphone) anymore. The smarts will live in the cloud, and you'll just
need a screen, an input device, and a connection to work or game. 5G is
coming, so you might as well be excited about it!

~~~
aguzzi94
What?! Light is not small evil demons coming from the sun directly into our
eyes?! Anyway amazing, I've never thought about the non-hardware perspectives.
You got me excited!

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noisefilters
I think the key point is that the media outlets are not a reliable source of
information. I can tell you that the big wireless providers are working hard
to influence local governments to push their agendas. For example, one local
non-profit that I know (that advocates for startups and tech in the city)
received a sponsorship out of the blue from one of the big wireless companies.
They gladly accepted the $7500. A few weeks after, the company was asking the
non-profit to give them access to the City, Managers, advocate for 5g, etc.
Essentially, they were acting as a lobby and tried to leverage the non-profit
for this. Yeah, I know.....its how the system works. But just imagine that
this wireless company is doling out $7500 to multiple organizations in every
mid-sized city in America (this city is 200k population). It just tells you
how important this initiative is to the wireless telcos.

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rhoyerboat
Any research biologist I know would balk at the idea that anyone outside of
people that have had access to 5g in a bio lab for 10 years could even have a
credible starting point from which to answer this question.

