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Comment by throwaway458345 | Hacker News Reader

I lost the past 10 years of my life because of massive mental health damage caused by noise pollution. Started after some seriously shitty neighbors moved next door, with dogs barking for hours without pause, 2 am courtyard parties, blasting music, honking instead than using the doorbell... we managed to move out 2 year later, and got thoroughly screwed by a private airport 3km away that brought small sports planes over us every few minutes up to 8 hours a day most days.

Had to move deep into rural country, giving up all prospects of a decent job, and yet even here there's plenty of noise from dogs, motorbikes etc.

Shitty time to be alive.

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It's a societal issue. I've moved around the world and every place I lived is filled with noise. Then I moved to Tokyo, by far the biggest metropolis I've ever lived in, and yet I've never lived in a place this quiet.

The first time I met my upstairs neighbor he apologized for the fact he has two kids who will sometimes run through the apartment banging their feet on the floor. I told him that I never even noticed that. There's clearly more of an awareness here that you shouldn't bother your neighbors with noise.

Of course not every place here is going to be like that, there's going to be plenty of noisy areas in a metropolis like Tokyo. But you don't have to move out into the wilderness just for some peace and quiet if we're all just a bit more considerate of our neighbors.

Though nature doesn't care about the rules, so there is one source of noise I'll have to get used to: the deafening noise of cicadas in summer.

Is it unpatriotic, as an American, to envy the way the Japanese do things? I was stationed in Japan and really miss it. We could learn a lot.

I guess it depends on your definition of patriotism. I wouldn't use the word "envy" here though.

My perception of what what is patriotic is that we borrow what is most useful from the places our citizens come from.

Absolutely not. I find it more unpatriotic when people say things like "we can't have that/do that here" as if the Japanese are an advanced alien race. It especially peeves me when they take this attitude with anything technological. America can do anything, when it gets out of its own way.

regarding Japan, does this still hold up nowadays with the newer generations raised on american pop culture?

My rental contract has specific rules about what types of noise I'm allowed to make and between what times. No parties after 10PM and practicing instruments in my apartment is banned altogether. This isn't something that's enforced just by popular culture.

The construction in Japan also takes noise into account. My neighbor in a small Japan apartment had an incredibly loud home theater system, and I never heard his movies from my unit. I think the walls were concrete, and on both sides, there was drywall with spacers which provided a small air-gap. I only ever heard him when he was having sex with his girlfriend and both of our balcony doors were open.

Although there's no Swiss law forbidding you to flush your toilet after 22:00, the local custom is not to, and even many rental contracts write down in strong terms the quiet times and what you cannot do during them - no mowing around lunch and on Sundays, no showers at 3am, and the list goes on, with the same point: do not bother your neighbours. Also don't let your car engine running!

I usually wear noise-cancelling earbuds when I'm out. And with some nature sounds if it's not enough.

Only problem is that sometimes it's important to actually hear traffic etc. But I look out better when I have them in.

I like the sound of small airplanes but I can imagine that up close it's not so great.

Ugh! And the small planes are probably allowed to use leaded fuel, so they will spew lead that slowly drifts down to where you are.

They definitely are allowed to use leaded fuel (though these days it's low lead). Problem is there's no good replacement. Nobody bothers making the bigger GA aircraft (eg not ultralight) with an engine that was designed later than the 50s. It's like technology just froze.

In reality it didn't freeze but regulation and certification costs rose and it no longer became viable to build new engines for such a small market. The old ones retain their certification even though they don't meet the new rules.

The ultralight sports category has much less regulation and they do have modern gasoline and diesel engines like Rotax.

There's a few aftermarket turbodiesel options for GA aircraft but they're usually not manufacturer approved, and they need a complete replacement every few years instead of just an overhaul.

Anyway this is why the stupid lead is still around. Us pilots all hate it because we breathe it too and we get it on our skin during fuel inspections.

sounds like a homestead in the mountains could be one of the solutions.

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