Re^2: [OT over OT] Re: [OT] What is "the German Institute for Security in Information Technology"?

[polettix]

I followed the issue quite closely here in Italy, and I can assure that most of the limits have been set for political reasons. The reasoning is more or less this: "ICNIRP identifies some thresholds, and sets limits that are 50 times below (for population)? Well, we can do better, we can drop it by other 3 dBs!". This at a national level. Then comes the local authority and says: "national limits? We can do better! Shove another 3 dBs!". There you go, without any real connection with the studies.

The rationale for this lowering is simple: "brief" studies can only apply to short-term effects (heating). But what if there are more subtle, long-term effects? Here come lower thresholds, but note that this issue can be addressed only with statistical studies over reasonable timespans. So the "I can do better" lowering race can be brought to whatever level you like: it's something that we don't know much about, so a lower level makes a better politician.

One interesting thing we had to reflect upon is that science will never, ever be able to say that radiations, at any level, aren't harmful. As a matter of fact, it cannot say this for anything we are aware of: we're only allowed to demonstrate that something can be harmful, not that it cannot be. So, it makes me laugh when they ask me "do EM fields harm?" - the only truthful answer being "we can never be sure they don't harm, evidence so far shows this and that, but it could be discovered something different in the future". Which sounds much like "we don't have a clue, just avoid them". So you have massive campaigns against "antennas" on the buildings, where a big chunk of the very same people is willing to put an EM emitter 3cm from the brain. Go figure!

Last, but not least, there is the issue of the non-disclosure of results, for political or economical reasons. Many research centers are privately funded, and are less likely to spread results that could harm "the industry". This is really sad, and eventually backfires to "the industry" itself.

[BrowserUk]

... I can assure that most of the limits have been set for political reasons.

Thanks for your time and expertise. That just about sums up the (lay) conclusions I reached.

It never ceases to amaze me the levels and diversity of expertise of the people that frequent this place.

Interactions like this just make me wish all over again that this place had an "off-topic" section--despite that I know that it has been discussed and dismissed many times in the past. I can't think of anywhere else I could have gone and got such a quick answer on this subject. The CB just isn't a substitute because its short lifespan means that only a few ever see a question and that excludes most of the monks, most of the time.

Maybe if posts to the section were discarded after some short period of time--say 1 month?

And maybe instead of the posts acquiring XP in the usual sense, voting could be translated into 'keep' votes that after some preset level deemed the post/thread worthy of retaining its disk space.

Ah well. Just another random thought for the bit-bucket.