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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I think it’s important to differentiate (as this website does) the human made noise from the natural.

I love being in the woods / fields / lakes. Fishing, hunting, hiking, etc. when you’re out there for a while you realize how much noise there really is. I wish everyone could / would take a few days a month and just spend it in the the natural world.

I feel revived after spending a day or two listening to the leaves blowing. As some have pointed out here, going back to civilization is hard. The noise doesn’t necessarily bother me on a conscious level, but it eats my focus and drains me throughout the day. Almost creating a tension, just from the constant sounds and being alert.

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My partner works for the Forest Service and went to Colorado State University where they have what is called a Listening Lab.. pretty cool stuff.

https://sites.warnercnr.colostate.edu/soundandlightecologyte...

> The Colorado State University Listening Lab was established in 2013 as a collaboration with the Natural Sounds & Night Skies Division of the National Park Service. The primary goal of the lab is to aid in the preservation and understanding of natural soundscapes by providing a resource to efficiently analyze the thousands of hours of acoustic data collected each year within parks, allowing park officials and scientists to promptly employ effective soundscape management decisions where needed.

> The lab typically employs 5 to 10 well-trained undergraduate student listeners to analyze the acoustic data that our NPS Scientists & Research Associates record within national parks around the country. Many of our student listeners are also enrolled in the University Honors Program and use their time in the lab to complete their honors theses. These students have moved beyond basic data analysis and have explored how noise affects the natural world to produce the following theses:

A long time ago I moved from a big city to the country and the difference in noise was remarkable. In retrospect, I’d say noise level adjustment was actually the biggest pain point. I went from being fairly desensitized to constant noise to being hyper sensitive to something like a blade of grass being bent outside my bedroom (“WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?”), to finally acclimating to it. Nights were difficult. Any animal going through the yard sounded like a person to me and I couldn’t sleep. Now I can generally tell what’s outside by the sound it makes and it doesn’t bother me. I can’t stand being in densely populated areas anymore.

I had a similar feeling moving from London to deep English countryside with my parents as a kid. But it was the sheer silence of the place we moved to that unnerved me, and it took me a good few weeks for me to go to sleep normally. (There were plenty of small animals, but my bedroom was on a high first floor, so I couldn’t hear things scuttling about). I live in a small city again now, and really miss the true quiet at night. Funny enough, the pandemic lockdowns in the UK were reminiscent of being in the country - far fewer cars and public transport meant that there was real quiet for once and the reduction in pollution meant that you could smell al sorts of things that were normally dominated by ambient exhaust fumes. I remember one time in particular when i realised I could hear a train in the far distance for the first time since I moved here.

> But it was the sheer silence of the place we moved to that unnerved me

I live in a small town in Canada and I can travel outside the town just a few minutes and be in rural area. Although it's getting increasingly longer to get outside sprawl.

When I am there I often think to myself how quiet it is. At times it feels like my skull is going to collapse from the negative pressure of lack of sound.

And where I live near (~500m) the main hospital it seems to be with the increase in population comes an increase in ambulances. They at times seem to be constant on weekends or warm sunny days. Plus the emergency life flight helicopter. Maybe that's why the silence of rural areas is such a contrast to me.

Also the difference between outdoors a generation ago and outdoors now. Depending on where you are, the decrease in birdcalls is huge, but happens so slowly that most people don't know what we're missing. That loss has been happening over longer than a generation or two.

Also, there are fewer places where you hear no car noises or planes at all.

We can do something about it, but it takes work.

I’m personally of an opinion that’s a good thing — that means progress and a more robust civilization.

I don’t think there’s a limitation on places that are relatively silent. In other words, you can get a relatively silent world even 30 min for nearly every place on this map.

That said, I support forest preserves and places like the boundary waters

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters

Where they intentionally create preserves with no motors or human civilization.

I’ll also mention the decline in bird populations also startled me. For much of my life I went to the woods and heard so many birds. Even in the past few years I’ve notified the rapid decline.

That said, I always try to put it in perspective. 100% of the trees, grass, birds, bugs, etc in North America only came around the last 10,000 - 20,000 years. I’m not sure what is causing no the bird decline (I suspect it’s pesticides, with the protective agencies not regulating effectively or invasive species such as cats). I’m sure natural will adapt to fill the niche, but it’s definitely different.

Even as part of the normal seasonal cycle, I don’t notice how much less birdsong there is until it’s spring once again and the air is filled with bird calls. I don’t notice it getting quieter overs the weeks leading into summer.

It also varies. I live in a small village, and it's usually quite quiet, minus when a train goes past (railway is about half a mile away) or the bus goes past (bus route about 30 metres away). But on the very rare occasions when we get a decent covering of snow, then it gets really quiet - not just because the road is unused and the animals are hunkering down, but also because snow absorbs sound really well.

> [Natural] noise ... I love [it ...] out there [...] you realize how much noise there really is

It's because you are healthy. After an indigestion of artificial noise, even natural noise becomes an issue, unbearable. If you "break" after the "artificial" (more, "unnatural"), you will be compromised for the natural.

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