kravietz 🦇 @kravietz@social.privacytools.io

@dump_stack

There's a Russian-language fake circulating on Twitter about a WHO deputy director Rayan Patterson was "killed with a broccoli" just before he was to make a sensational announcement about coronavirus.

It took me 5 mins to confirm that there never was a director of WHO by that name. There was WHO deputy director who died but not from broccoli but from heart attack, his name was Peter Salama, and it happened in January and had no relation to COVID-19.

When your elected president is advertising his private business...

A Russian satirical website Panorama (a bit like The Onion) published a satirical story how Belgium is first in the world to introduce a ban on "conservative values". The news is marked as satirical and makes fun of similar fake news by state media.

Not long after Russian "representative for human rights" in the occupied Crimea talks to a journalist explaining that "if we were in Belgium, we couldn't even talk today"... and quotes the story from Panorama.

🤦‍♂️ 😂

https://twitter.com/ia_panorama/status/1259456131887280131?s=20

THIS IS AN IRONIC POST THAT MAKES FUN OF CONSPIRACY THEORISTS 🐢

@guenther Right, I'm sorry 😂

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

The latter - regulation and monopolies - are the biggest obstacle to mesh networks in the UK - and I've seen that in both my attempts to build one locally and also even in case of low-power small-bandwidth networks like LoRAWAN.

People won't engage into mesh networks because they are scared to even route someone else's ping packed due to alleged restrictions of anti-terrorism laws. And broadband and LTE absolutely suck in the UK in terms of both bandwidth and price.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> Maybe we need more transparency around radiation generally

There are few topics in the world that are better studied and documented than radiation, specifically due to the widespread fears around it. The problem is that few people wants to learn anything about it because it's easier to just be scared.

This worldwide radiation monitor network is probably the best I've seen

https://map.safecast.org/

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> need to explore faraday cage-like systems

There's no need for that simply because it still has no biological effect on the residents. People have been living there with this radiation for thousands of years. There is *some* scientific evidence that background radiation actually has beneficial effect on human body (which would be logical because we evolved with it). In some countries people actually do "radon bathes", one of them Germany which is rather ironic.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> or is it purely geology

In these two specific cases it's purely geology but magnetic field of Earth stops a lot of cosmic radiation, so altitude and latitude also matter a lot. On the poles you got more radiation, high in the mountains you get more than on sea-level, in plane even more, but it still has zero biological effect at these doses. If you're interested, this is probably the most informative lecture:

https://scitech.video/videos/watch/60a7b2c5-739b-40ac-8ab1-009d1aa653cd

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> Do you mean "even less energy"

Precisely, I reworded the paragraph and forgot to change. Thanks for pointing this out.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

So the closer you are to the base station, the less power your device needs to transmit data or voice. The old analog mobile phones were the worst because base stations were like 30 km from each other but the trend is now to build more and more stations so they're closer to people. 5G tries to build even more dense network than 4G which will result in even more power needed for communication.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

Mobile phones are different story because in order to talk to a base station located possibly a few kilometers away they need to apply larger power AND you keep them very close to your head. So if you talked for hours, this could have a physical effect of heating your brain, which in turn could slightly increase chances of damage. But you can easily break this chain of "could" by using headset and moving to a place with better coverage (=less power needed).

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> schools in Europe removing WiFi

I have not heard about it but it's definitely possible if there's enough illiterate parents pressuring the school management based on FUD they found on Facebook. There's no scientific evidence that WiFi has any harmful effect on humans and there won't be simply because the power is too small and distance is too big to be able to pass any energy to human body.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

On average every human on the planet receives around 3-6 mSv natural background radiation from the soil, Sun, food, water and everything else that surrounds us but people in some places in Iran or Brazil live in areas where background radiation exceeds 100 mSv per year... and they're just fine.

@dsfgs @mplammers @rysiek

> why are radiation levels set lower in some countries than others

Because lawmakers in different countries are pressured by different lobby groups.

In fact, every stone on the planet contains some radioactive elements and their concentration is very different. If you have more granite in your area, you background radiation levels will be higher - see map for UK as an example.

@wolf480pl @rysiek

Recently Nature published an angry rant against pseudo-science here https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01266-z which is 100% correct in the diagnosis. But then they're calling for - wait for it - scientists to come up with "shareable content" to combat the pseudo-science!

So on one side you've got professional scammers, PR experts who don't care about any credibility, and you want to put a bunch of scientists with "shareable content" against it...

@wolf480pl @rysiek

So what you end up with is a society where a kid can sing historic variants of washing powder ad songs because they see it 10x per day in all communication channels. But all their knowledge about vaccines is based on hearsay they mom discussed at home because she read it on Facebook... because nobody else wanted to tell her more about it.

@wolf480pl @rysiek

To speak of a concrete example: in Poland I found myself in a company of doctors who were complaining about the anti-vaxx movement. I asked them when there was the last public campaign on vaccinations - you know, like we saw in 50's with posters, TV programs, articles etc.

The answer was silence.

And there's a dozen of institutions that have funds just for that: ministry of health, public insurer, all kind of medical associations etc.

@wolf480pl @rysiek

They don't, authority is 100% subjective. If a government has already started prostituting their authority for short-term gains then they've lost their authority already and are screwed by their own will.

In reality this is probably a bit more optimistic: people confronted with all kind of conspiracy bullshit do wait for public authorities statements on controversial topics. If there's none then... it's lost by walkover.