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Comment by Asparagirl | Hacker News Reader

I live in a part of unincorporated Marin county (Tamalpais Valley) that has a Mill Valley postal address, and the discussion about this issue on our local NextDoor was BANANAS. You could satirize this situation any way you like and it wouldn’t come close to how terrible and anti-science the comments were.

Meanwhile, I don’t even have cellphone service of any kind at my own house, not even 3G/4G, thanks to a combination of hills and NIMBYism about more towers. My family has to rely on a combination of a microcell and WiFi calling. It’s infuriating.

Actual discussion:

Guy: Come to this meeting or else they might put a 5G cell on a telephone pole right outside your house!

Me: OMG that would be amazing, yes please!

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I live downtown. Let's coordinate on getting this nonsense overturned. There's enough geeks in the community to get this done!

You know that BANANA stands for "Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anybody", right?

If it makes you feel better, the discussion of 5G on Nextdoor in Oakland was and remains bonkers. It’s not Marin, it’s people of a certain age. There just happens to be more of them in Marin.

Piedmont Nextdoor is similar. Bunch of people with no background in RF health effects or non-ionizing radiation tissue interaction arguing pointlessly with conspiracy theory website as supporting evidence. Seeing a few scientists (in other fields) try to respond is exasperating. I don't bother.

Whole Bay Area, I guess. Remember, the city of Richmond (California) passed a resolution against orbiting mind-control satellites. It’s juat wacky around here.

I particularly like the Nuclear free zone signs in Berkeley.

That wasn't about resident safety, it was about a moral position against war. IIRC, those went up in the 80s when residents wanted to ensure that Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory couldn't legally do the kind of weapons-directed research that Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory did.

On the other hand there has not been a single nuclear explosion within city limits since those signs went up.

Well, at least that's dangerous.

Don’t they have a research reactor on campus?

The reactor under Cory hall was decommission years ago and it's the CS department now.

One of my physicians won't take me seriously because he's had too much of them and their abuse of the internet. He would rather that I stuck to exactly what he had prescribed - that was failing - than humour me, my degree, and my academic journal access.

Fortunately, the specialist he referred me to was pleased with the steps I have been taking.

I can't really blame the first specialist - I'll concur that he is going to do the greatest good to the greatest number with his tactic. But, it means that our interests are in conflict: not an ideal relationship to have with your medical counsel.

  not an ideal relationship to have with your medical counsel

It's a reasonable relationship to have considering you'll only spend an hour or so a year in direct consultation. In some sense it is ideal. He's putting you on notice that you can't rely on his advice in such a context because he has neither the access nor the diagnostic resources to personalize his advice, neither in the moment nor especially on an ongoing basis. Time budgeting is at the root of many professional relationships and their tensions. If you want more personalized advice, you have to be prepared to pay for it.

I've run some ideas past doctors and have always tried to make clear that I understand any thumbs up or thumbs down is contingent on the absence of complicating factors. But that's a difficult position in which to put a doctor, lawyer, engineer or most any other professional. Even if they agree to play along, the value of their affirmation is questionable.

I'm sure doctors see a ton of patients that disregard their advice and fail miserably in the process. It's probably quite rare for a patient to say "you know what? I fucking got this" and be right.

Nah, it's Marin. It's a mecca for anti-vaxers.

Not sure how these ignorant memes get started. Some memes refuse to die after thousands of years and evidence contrary. Like Flat Earth hypothesis.

don't you mean "some memes refuse to die no matter how much RF radiation they're exposed to?"

There will always be one off weirdos, but the prevalence of the idea that radio waves can cause cancer is unfortunately too great.

Ditto. Thankfully, my corporate phone is Verizon, and I get LTE on that. If you plan to stay long term, it’s probably worth switching carriers.

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