[BubRoss]

Why do you think there is a risk to babies? What are you having that on specifically? It seems like you are reaching for something "untested". Also microwaves use 2.4Ghz, heat lamps are infrared, 5G is a wide array of spectrums, so what specific frequency and power do you think will harm babies and why?

(Also if something just affects babies, it doesn't make sense to talk about the cumulative effects over decades)

[owenversteeg]

The established consensus is that mm-waves do penetrante the dermis of babies. Even recent research can agree on that. Here's one recent source.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/334078749_Millimete...

I do not believe that anything in the tens of GHz is either safe or unsafe. The frank reality is that we simply do not know, as not one person in human history has ever lived with a mm-wave source of any power for an extended period of time.

With new RF technology, the burden is usually on the creators to demonstrate its safety, not random Internet commenters to prove its danger.

I was hoping to have an actual discussion here, but I guess people would rather just blindly defend any new technology without even a cursory look at its safety.

[BubRoss]

That's not even remotely close to being a source for what you are saying.

You need a source that shows that there is something different about babies, different about the 5G frequencies, and different from the light, infrared, microwave and radio frequencies that are currently being used everywhere.

Instead, you referenced a paper on a military pain ray that uses focused super high power 100Kw 95Ghz waves that says it penetrates 1/64th of an inch. Your microwave is 2.4Ghz, just like your router, but it works at 1kw. There is an enormous gap between saying "what about babies" and what you linked. They have basically nothing to do with each other. I think you realize that, but you keep saying "we don't know", when you really mean "I don't know".

> the burden is usually on the creators to demonstrate its safety

How can anything be deomstrated to someone who ignores what they are being told and repeats "we just don't know" while supporting their predefined beliefs with giants leaps in logic and excessively irrelevant information?

> I was hoping to have an actual discussion here

I don't believe you. You didn't even confront my original question of what frequencies and effects you are specifically worried about. All you have seemed to being up so far is heat from power 100 times what your microwave uses. 100kw is 4,000 times the power of a soldering iron that can melt tin and lead.

[owenversteeg]

Oh come on. What I am saying - and I will repeat this - is "mm-waves do penetrate the dermis of human babies." No more, no less. This is the scientific consensus. I provided the first source I found, which related to military research, yes. The broader context is irrelevant, I'm not sure why you wrote a whole comment harping on that. I provided it as a simple counterpoint to someone saying that mm-waves did not penetrate skin.

And the broader context of what I am saying is not that 5G is dangerous, just that there should be more effort to determine its safety before rolling out a new type of EM radiation that humans have _never lived with before_.

Looks like I am not the only one saying existing studies do not cover things, and there is a need for further research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6765906/

[BubRoss]

You realize that a source would be something that has to do with what you are saying right? I asked for a source on how a 5G frequency at their amplitude would affect a baby differently and you linked a 100kw military pain ray that has nothing to do with what you are saying, then said, 'i just linked the first source I could find'. That isn't a 'source'. Also your current link doesn't say anything about what you are claiming and actually contradicts it. Even what you linked says that it doesn't go as deep as the thickness of a fingernail. Wifi penetrates more and infrared heat lamps are far more powerful, so again, what frequencies and what effects are you specifically worried about?

> new type of EM radiation that humans have _never lived with before_.

It isn't a 'new' type of em radiation. It isn't a mystery, it is just a mystery to you. You just avoid confronting real information by saying "I don't know". You have been shown facts, your ignorance of the subject is your own fault at this point, but you are desperate to hang on to it.

[dang]

We've warned you multiple times that we'd ban you for attacking other users. You've kept doing it, so I've banned you.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [e-mail] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[BubRoss]

It looks to me like I've been banned for calling a ycombinator funded hypnosis app nonsense.

[owenversteeg]

Nah, sorry, you can't use that both ways. Either you generalize existing research to cover a range of EM and circumstances of use, or you don't. You can't just pick one when it's convenient.

>> You have been shown facts, your ignorance of the subject

OK, +1 for making me actually laugh. Dude, I am the only one of us linking any scientific studies or literature review whatsoever. You're the one sprinkling snarky one liners about routers burning you. You also still didn't respond to https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6765906/

Just relax: I'm not saying 5G is the illuminati turning the frogs gay, I'm saying -maybe- we should research a new technology before deploying it to humans at an unprecedented scale.

[dang]

Please don't post flamewar comments to HN. It's exactly the opposite of what this site is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[ac29]

> we should research a new technology before deploying it to humans at an unprecedented scale.

5G is an industry marketing term, not some fundamental redefining of physics. Nothing about emission of radio waves is some new or unknowable phenomenon that requires more research to understand. If you're suggesting otherwise, the burden of providing even a mildly plausible hypothesis is on you, not just "I dont understand this, therefore maybe it is bad".

[BubRoss]

All you did was link a 20 page paper without quoting what you think is relevant, and yet I already said that it contradicts what you are saying. It doesn't talk about children or infants or babies but it does talk about how shallow the penetration depth is.

I've given you real numbers from your own sources and broken them down into intuitive examples. You might not realize this, but this is just an exercise in seeing what someone does when they have to continually reject information while having none of their own to hold on to a belief that is rooted in emotion.

> I'm saying -maybe- we should research a new technology

Now you are saying that, before you were saying "what about penetrating a babies thin skin". It has been researched, you found some research, it just doesn't say what you want.

We haven't even gotten to the fact that microwave communications are already on lots of cellphone towers and used to communicate with office buildings etc. Not only that but these higher frequencies don't even go through walls. They barely go through rain or fog.