• merc@sh.itjust.works
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    15 hours ago

    Anxiety, nausea and sleep problems can be caused by many things. One of those things is believing that a nearby datacenter is making you ill.

    Sure, investigate it and see if it is actually happening. But, do a proper double-blind study.

    I take this personally because my mother is a conspiracy nut who thinks that everything is making her ill: wifi, chemtrails, street lights, electricity, gluten… if she heard about infrasound she’d add it to the list of things that are hurting her health.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      2 hours ago

      Infrasound isn’t some fringe conspiracy theory, it’s well-understood, and infrasound weapons are banned by the laws of warfare because they literally torture people to death and can cause internal bleeding.

      The infrasound in this article is obviously less intense than a deliberately designed weapon, but it can still cause extreme discomfort, pain, illness, and stress.

    • Jesus_666@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      You don’t need a double-blind study to determine if acoustic emissions are the culprit. You just need to measure specifically for infrasound (and ultrasound, for that matter). It’s an unusual form of pollution but very much measurable if you know to look for it.

      Unlike the things you mentioned, infrasound is understood to be a thing these days and is sometimes considered in construction. It’s not exactly witchcraft; most equipment (including decibel meters) just isn’t built to account for very low frequencies.

      If the data center does put out noise at very low frequencies that’s probably some kind of unintended resonance that they’ll have to stop. It might be as simple as slightly changing the RPMs of some cooling fans or installing sound proofing in specific places.

    • chunes@lemmy.world
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      12 hours ago

      It’s very likely that she does have some sort of health problem and doctors weren’t useful in finding it. It’s very hard not to be superstitious in that situation