A buddy of mine has two on his property, one within a stones’ throw of his house and barns. Not only does the sound not drive him insane, I couldn’t hear it (at all), nor any of the other ~600 in the area.
No, it won’t. This myth was started in the 2000s by Nina Pierpont who was looking for reasons to oppose wind farms near her property but it’s been studied repeatedly and there’s no credible evidence of any significant impact. Roads are at least as noisy, and have other forms of pollution, but I’ve never seen the same people call for banning cars.
All of the people advancing those claims also think they have a lot to gain, too. Those claims are hard to evaluate because humans are famously subjective and prone to misattribution, which is why we invented the scientific method. Every high-quality investigation has been unable to find support for them.
This is why many people don't trust "The Science". It's the positivist materialist institutionalist gaslighting. If the conflicted institution hasn't published the opinion or the measurements then it doesn't exist. Don't believe your lying eyes or ears. If you notice somethingnot published, you are automatically wrong. All whistleblowers must be discredited.
Isn't this a tactic of con artists & cult members who have much to gain from public perception & policy?
> If the conflicted institution hasn't published the opinion or the measurements then it doesn't exist. Don't believe your lying eyes or ears. If you notice somethingnot published, you are automatically wrong. All whistleblowers must be discredited.
It’s striking how many wrong things are packed into that paragraph. Science isn’t trustworthy because of the institution, but because it challenges its theories and anyone can review and repeat it. In contrast, the claims being made here started from someone’s belief that they have a financial benefit to not having windmills nearby and work backwards to construct a supporting narrative.
> If the conflicted institution hasn't published the opinion or the measurements then it doesn't exist.
More accurately, we’re asking for those measurements so anyone else can review them. We’re asking for the methodology so anyone else can review or replicate it. Emotional reactions like yours tend to be a great sign that someone has a strong interest in a particular outcome and humans are notoriously bad at critically evaluating things they want to be true. Scientists are no different, which is why they put so much effort into looking for ways to test their work.
A great similar example are the “electromagnetic hypersensitive” people who claim to have all kinds of health problems caused by wifi or cellular signals. They’ll claim that they’re not being taken seriously because they’re starting backwards from the position that their health issues are caused by EMF and anyone who disagrees is “suppressing” them. The problem isn’t “lying eyes and ears” — their headaches or sleep problems are real - but that they have made a wrong explanation part of their self-identity and are unwilling to reconsider that. Repeated double-blind studies have shown that these people can’t identify EMF at better than chance, and that they’ll report health issues caused by EMF which never existed, and that’s a tragedy because there is a real cause they’d likely be able to find if they were willing to give up on that theory. Many of the wind power opponents are arguing in bad faith trying to make their aesthetic tastes sound scientific but I’m certain that some of these people have real, non-psychosomatic medical issues which are not caused by turbines but could be localized if they put their effort into broader investigations.
So what are the sources for people driven insane by it?
(I have no opinion, but find it mildly suspicious given that I happen to sometimes drive through Germany, and the country seems to be currently less insane than, say, US)
This as a sarcastic rallying cry of conspiracy theorists has always amused me.
You ARE aware of visual and auditory illusions right? Or the various ways your brain outright lies to you in order to save a few calories worth of thinking?
How much of your vision is real? Do you know? Can you prove it?
I moved to a house that has the main road on my side. I do not wish it to anyone. I cannot stand noise, and I hear cars 24/7, ambulance at least 10 times a day if not more, and they turn on the siren even at 3 am when there is no traffic because of some specific laws.
I also got a cat (against my will, but gotta take care of her) who wakes me up around 4:30-06:00. :|
I cannot stand the noise pollution. It makes me want to live by the countryside even more.
I used to live down the hill from 1, and 99% of the time could hear nothing. But on a lucky day when the wind was in the right direction and right strength, you could just hear a faint woosh woosh woosh.
Personally I liked the sound. But we only had 1, so maybe different with many more. Though never heard the wind farms I've stopped by.