cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/14304762
Over the course of several months in 2024, TIME spoke to more than 40 people in the Granbury area who reported a medical ailment that they believe is connected to the arrival of the Bitcoin mine: hypertension, heart palpitations, chest pain, vertigo, tinnitus, migraines, panic attacks. At least 10 people went to urgent care or the emergency room with these symptoms. The development of large-scale Bitcoin mines and data centers is quite new, and most of them are housed in extremely remote places. There have been no major medical studies on the impacts of living near one. But there is an increasing body of scientific studies linking prolonged exposure to noise pollution with cardiovascular damage.
Any statewide legislation is sure to hit significant headwinds, because the very idea of regulation runs contrary to many Texans’ political beliefs. “As constitutional conservatives, they have taken our core values and used that against us,” says Demetra Conrad, a city council member in the nearby town of Glen Rose.
Maybe your core values are really stupid…
“Lack of regulations is supposed to harm only people below us in the capitalism pyramid. But now we realize we’re lower in the pyramid than we thought, so this needs to be stopped via regulation.”
It’s somehow 90 dB, that’d be horrific if I gave a shit about Repubs harming themselves with shitty legislation.
I do feel bad for anyone politically sane subjected to that despite voting otherwise. I wish it was 90 dB at the residences of Rafael Cruz and Ken Paxton instead of them.
🙄 Sounds a lot like this classic example where residents complained about headaches, rashes, nausea, tinnitus, etc from a cell tower, only for it to be revealed that it was not powered up:
https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wireless/11099-massive-revelation-in-iburst-tower-battle.html
“Headaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns…”
At the meeting Van Zyl agreed to turn off the tower with immediate effect to assess whether the health problems described by some of the residents subsided. What Craigavon residents were unaware of is that the tower had already been switched off in early October – six weeks before the November meeting where residents confirmed the continued ailments they experienced.
It could be but also datacenters are ridiculously loud and the sound is very high pitched. Would drive anyone nuts if they could hear it.
On the inside, yeah maybe; but a properly designed data center shouldn’t be louder than any typical building on the outside. But hey, this is in a rural Texas town, so I won’t be surprised if the building is not up to code.
Huh? That makes no sense. High pitched sounds are attenuated VERY easily and the only sound you could ever hear outside the dozen or so I’ve worked in/around you could only hear the HVAC gear outside. There’s a reason why when you go see a concert outside there’s a linear array of horns facing the audience while the subs are under the stage.
'[The Constable measures the sound level at 91dB, the max that his decibel metre can record]
This level of noise, the CDC writes, can cause hearing damage after two hours of exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises that employees can only work in 90-decibel settings for eight hours a day and are required to wear ear protection. And Texas state penal code deems any noise above 85 decibels unreasonable. Over the course of 2024, [the Constable] has recorded a noise above 85 decibels coming from the plant more than 35 times. "
Whilst the health concerns reported are the thing that would make these complaints more serious (if true), this level of noise is also just insanely high from a nuisance perspective, even if the health problems of the town are unrelated.
I’m no bitcoin mining apologist for sure but this is just crap journalism. There’s a story like this for all kinds of industries in small towns with poor health. There are lots of industries that noise pollute (a lot of people live near airports) and I’m all for reasonable regulations to limit noise pollution, but this has boogeyman tinfoil hat nonsense all over it.
Yeah while I don’t doubt that noise pollution can affect one’s health I have to wonder how much of this is just the placebo effect, like with people complaining that cellphone towers are giving them migranes or rashes.
I lived next to a cell phone tower and I can tell you it certainly shriveled up my penis, so there’s that. If Time wants to run an article about it I’d be happy to talk to them or show them pictures or let them talk to people on my tindr about it. I’m sure it’s happened to a lot of people.
nice to see bitcoin is following the traditions set by coal
can you imagine those losers that downvoted you? Probably have their investments in Bitcoin and will forever be hopeful that they are going to be rich one day
Well, if you manage to retrieve my old phone I accidentally dropped off a sailboat into the Chesapeake Bay in 2013 and somehow retrieve the flash chip’s contents, you can be semi-rich. There’s no password on the wallet. And I made no backups. I’m poor now due to my own stupidity.
My friends and I would bullshit with the coin when they first started and they only cost a few cents each. Then one of us started collecting all of them. IDK what happened to that guy, he stopped coming around. But we figured he had at least 20 or 30 coins from us. He had gambling issues so I don’t think he ever saw the big payout but I always remember goofing off and giving someone a coin that’s worth thousands now.
A question that comes to mind: Is there a power plant nearby that’s been running at a higher level since the Bitcoin mine settled there? The issue might not be just noise pollution.
