Ban on threads discussing Wi-Fi health risks for children

Writing with chalk on a classroom blackboard sends dust swirling all over the room, which means students are basically breathing it in all day long. Nobody seems to give a damn about the potential damage to their lungs, hilus, sinuses, or even the upper digestive tract.
There isn't even a public debate about it. 😵

I honestly thought we were living in the 21st century, Guga & Co., but thanks for the reality check and showing me just how wrong I was.

Man, seriously, this Guhehe guy is just like those folks down in Florida who swear salt air eats through plastic and glass, so they’re out there frantically scrubbing their windows and doors after every single storm just so the salt doesn't "devour" them 🤦

Maybe they should just tune into a skeptical podcast to get a grip on how things actually work—you know, to find out what the actual official stance from the National Academy of Sciences is. And while they're at it, maybe just repeat to themselves fifty times: 'I f...ing love science!'

Then suddenly, everything will click.

Joseph Allen71 said:I was under the deep impression that we were living in the 21st century, Guga & Co., so thank you ever so much for pointing out just how mistaken I was.

Don't mention it, I'm happy to help.

If I've pointed out something that apparently has to stay hush-hush here in the 21st century—well, now you know that France, Germany, Israel and other authorities in this modern age actually ban or restrict Wi-Fi in schools.

PS: besides the whole "chalk and blackboard" thing, there is also "hardwiring." Haven't you heard of it? Does all your energy have to "float through the air" just to be considered cool? Not that it matters, I guess; the bigger question might be whether anyone has ever stopped to consider if learning is actually a cognitive process rather than an electromagnetic one...? And it still hasn't been proven that "swapping chalk for tablets" leads to better results (except maybe in subjects specifically about IT), no matter how hard those IT marketing types try to spin it...

Nathan Moore6 said:Nathan Moore6, have you purged your apartment/house of cell phones, Wi-Fi access points, and other microwave tech just so you can be completely consistent?

"Completely consistent"... with what, exactly?

With the fact that I am comparing the regulatory standards of France, Germany, and Israel against American regulations regarding Wi-Fi in schools?

You (and I) can do whatever we want at home. For instance, we could drive a nail into our own eyes, install a WLAN station inside our skulls, cuddle up to a tablet, sleep with it, keep it right next to us during sex, and so on. That’s a personal choice; we can choose to do it or not, and in whatever quantities we deem fit. I personally don't even own a microwave—I don't know anyone who does, except perhaps as some useless wedding gift sitting on a kitchen counter gathering dust—and we use our phones sporadically; we aren't glued to them constantly. Most people I know are perfectly fine with a wired connection; they don't feel the need for wireless everywhere.

Exposing 500 kids in a school to six hours of exposure from 50 nearby Wi-Fi nodes and 500 tablets transmitting heavy amounts of data (text, images, movies, etc.) is a completely different beast altogether:

First off—it’s mandatory; a child can't just opt out. School is an obligation, a state-imposed requirement.
Secondly—it happens for long, uninterrupted stretches: 6 hours a day, 300 days a year, over 12 compulsory years.
Thirdly—no one has actually measured the cumulative effect of all that yet; it's something that still needs to be studied. That's why governments in more advanced nations (compared to ours) tend to share my perspective rather than yours.

Anyway

Joseph Allen71 said:I was under the deep impression that we were living in the 21st century, Guga & Co., so thank you ever so much for pointing out just how mistaken I was.

..I don't know if you realize that back in the 20th century, there was:

- smoking was totally fine on planes and buses...
- using X-rays in department stores just to see if a ring looked good on your finger...
- installing lead water pipes right in people's homes without a second thought
- painting watch hands with radioactive paint just so they'd glow in the dark
- making everyday kitchenware like pots and spoons out of aluminum
- letting kids buy alcohol
- letting kids buy cigarettes
- spraying children down with DDT

I suppose we should be thankful that we aren't living in the 20th century anymore, because most of those things aren't considered normal or legal in this day and age. Just like how, even in the most progressive and liberal Western nations today, you won't find kids buying booze or getting sprayed with DDT, it follows that you shouldn't be exposing students in schools to massive doses of electromagnetic radiation either. There are actual laws regulating it now.

But here, I guess, you aren't even supposed to talk about it.

I'm still sitting around waiting for a senior moderator to actually address the questions I tacked onto the end of my first post.

We still see radioactive paints being used on things like watch dials and gun sights today, and we manufacture all sorts of aluminum cookware too—which, by the way, has never actually been proven to cause any harm. Plus, you see teenagers drinking and smoking just as much as they always have, regardless of what the laws say 🤣

Honestly, I feel like we’d get a lot more bang for our buck if we fought against cigarettes instead of worrying about Wi-Fi; Wi-Fi helps spread knowledge, and those low-level fields aren't harmful, whereas even a little bit of cigarette smoke is way more damaging, and you can often catch a whiff of it right outside our schools...

By the way, just because a government is super liberal doesn't mean they're actually progressive; in many ways, they lean more toward that populist communist style that Americans talk about, where they try to control everything under the guise of "knowing what's best for you." That's why there's so much bureaucracy over in Europe, where everyone seems to be getting fleeced by the system every single day

Listen, everyone,
if we’re looking to dive into legal regulations, then this belongs in Law. If the goal is to debate potential harm or impact, perhaps Natural Science would be a better fit. Regardless, this isn't quite right for the PŽK section. The moderator has already explained why they don't feel this topic fits under Politics; until their stance on Politics changes—assuming there's even a reason for it to change—you'll need to find another home for this discussion.