Mobile Phone Masts
May 28 2008 10:13
So one decent part of my job is I spend a lot of time talking to local community groups fighting against various things like lack of social housing, cancer units being closed, huge developments being built on top of their estates or whatever. This is the good part of my job as I get to help out the small guys and hear about a lot of community groups who quite often win their struggles.
One issue more than anything seems to really motivate people and thats mobile phone masts, every suburb has an action group organising around this and most of them get the mast companies to back down. Problem for me is - for all the talk of cancer and radiation there doesnt seem to be any peer-reviewed science to suggest they are dangerous at all?
Seems a bit mental to me.
(ITT - no anti-civ nuts or anti-whitebread activists)
May 28 2008 11:18
#2
I think the mobile phone mast stuff is bullshit - but they also seem to be one of very few struggles that communities are winning these days. Not that its even a good thing, just interesting I guess.
Funnily enough the one I am writing about today was going to be on top of a garda station, the locals blockaded construction with their cars and the gardai were told to remove them. Awkward for all concerned as 47 of the pigs had signed letters of protest too.
May 28 2008 12:35
#3
Weeler wrote:
I think the mobile phone mast stuff is bullshit - but they also seem to be one of very few struggles that communities are winning these days.
Summing up entirely why you are in the WSM.
"Yeah I know it's a pile of daft nonsense but it's the only struggles we have to socially insert ourselves in."
May 28 2008 12:47
#4
Weeler wrote:
I think the mobile phone mast stuff is bullshit - but they also seem to be one of very few struggles that communities are winning these days. Not that its even a good thing, just interesting I guess.
Selective quotes are selective.
May 28 2008 12:50
#5
Weeler wrote:
Weeler wrote:
I think the mobile phone mast stuff is bullshit - but they also seem to be one of very few struggles that communities are winning these days. Not that its even a good thing, just interesting I guess.Selective quotes are selective.
It's the fact you said but,as if that mattered.
May 28 2008 12:55
#6
May 28 2008 13:22
#7
that's a lovely dog
May 28 2008 16:33
#8
xConorx wrote:
For reals, this is common problem when issues of basic scientific education and critical thinking come in.
It's similar in other issues like MMR, creationism in schools etc....
Interestingly enough Conor, I thought of you the other day cos an English student of mine (doing an Engineering PhD or Masters, can't remember) claims to be anti-Darwinist (although he wouldn't quite say creationist) on scientific grounds. I almost gave him your email cos I figured you spent all day long lounging around bored and debating that kinda shit's probably your idea of fun.
May 28 2008 16:37
#9
xConorx wrote:
what is the actual case isn't democratic - we don't vote or have a discussion, or try to reach consensus, for whether phone masts cause cancer, whether creationism is legit, or whether MMR causes autism. science isn't democratic; it's dependent on evidence and observation - so if something's bullshit, whether we like it or not, whether community groups want it or not, it's bullshit.
Yeah c'mon, surely that's the most important point here. The mobile phone mast thign's an issue currently in doubt (I'm not sure of the science of it either, although I have heard of cases of yuppy cunts gettign ear cancer) and therefore it's valid that people should force the issue into debate, rather than accepting the totalitarianism of capitalism on this. The WSM would do well to avoid the word "community" though, seeing as how they aren't in the Labour Party and all.
May 28 2008 17:03
#10
Ay carumba!
May 28 2008 17:05
#11
Alan wrote:
xConorx wrote:
For reals, this is common problem when issues of basic scientific education and critical thinking come in.
It's similar in other issues like MMR, creationism in schools etc....Interestingly enough Conor, I thought of you the other day cos an English student of mine (doing an Engineering PhD or Masters, can't remember) claims to be anti-Darwinist (although he wouldn't quite say creationist) on scientific grounds. I almost gave him your email cos I figured you spent all day long lounging around bored and debating that kinda shit's probably your idea of fun.
i just interviewed was borderline creationists today, was pretty interesting.
As far as engaging with supporting community groups and their interests, it would appear in some cases that telling them to shut the fuck up and stop being hysterical might be the best course of action 
Na serious though, providing them with the proper information that is evidence based would go a long way, though as can been on a variety of issues, there's a real issue with public engagement with science - which means people buy into all sorts of wacky shit and daft scaremongering (like GM frankenstein foods)
May 28 2008 17:11
#12
what the fuck are you ay carumba-ing about Jess?
get to fritzlshirts.com
May 28 2008 17:27
#13
Quote:
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* Check the address for typing errors such as
ww.example.com instead of
www.example.com* If you are unable to load any pages, check your computer's network
connection.* If your computer or network is protected by a firewall or proxy, make sure
that Firefox is permitted to access the Web.
I wanted to say ay caruma on the thread about mexicans starving because there weren't enough tortillas, but I thought it would be insensitive there.
May 28 2008 17:46
#14
well you could go and purchase the domain name Jess, i mean ffs, I'm the designer, not the web-nerd-type!
May 28 2008 18:25
#15
Thought you were sellin the idea to F4J? Don't make me photoshop a picture of a geezer in a batman outfit with the tshirt on, i'm revising!
Oh, make it Del Boy in that classic episode of what I affectinately call "Only Fools". The second funniest moment in the series. DAVID JASON dressed as BATMAN! Oh how I laughed.
May 28 2008 19:06
#16
David Jason, dressed as BatMan, in a Fritzl shirt.
May 28 2008 19:16
#17
Yeah get on with it pls.
May 28 2008 20:59
#18
I set up a cafepress.com account with the fritzl stuff and got banned right away. 
May 29 2008 04:15
#19
What would people think if communities were to fight cell phone towers on grounds other than whether it causes cancer... like say cause it harms the local environment (that folks live in) or its ugly, or because of various negative social effects of cell phones - increased car crashes, less communication, the fact that your work can call anytime, the fact that people wear these:
May 29 2008 10:23
#20
I'd say some of those reasons would be fair enough, some would be wank
unfortunately, if we challenged things on the basis of them making people look like wankers we'd probably have to start a campaign to ban everyone from this board except me
May 29 2008 10:29
#21
OliverTwister wrote:
like say cause it harms the local environment (that folks live in)
They dont though, they are mostly put on top of local buildings, you dont notice them.
OliverTwister wrote:
or its ugly
Again I wouldnt buy that.
OliverTwister wrote:
or because of various negative social effects of cell phones
Luddite! I put in a warning at the start. Mobile phones are the shit, you are obviously too young to remember when it was impossible to find your mates ever and had to carry change for pay-phones. That is shit.
OliverTwister wrote:
increased car crashes
Seperate issue, make using a mobile while driving illegal - we did.
OliverTwister wrote:
less communication
Hippy.
OliverTwister wrote:
the fact that your work can call anytime
Turn it off.
OliverTwister wrote:
the fact that people wear these:
Punch them in the ear.
May 29 2008 10:41
#22
you know what i hate? When you're meeting friends, and due to unforseen circumstances plans change, and you're able to inform them of the change.
Not having a mobile these days is anti-social as fuck, unless you're about 90.
May 29 2008 10:44
#23
this is true, not having a moible these days really is just a fucking disgrace
there was 4-page feature in the Independent this week where a bunch of twats were saying how 'liberating' it was not to have a mobile
May 29 2008 10:49
#24
I like nothing more than heading into the city centre on friday and saturday night then trawling all of the bars in the city to see which people I know are where. Then giving a girl my postal address at the end of the night and telling her I look forward to getting a well written letter from her.
May 29 2008 11:14
#25
Haha do you remember when people didn't have mobile phones? Do you remember? DO YOU?
May 29 2008 11:17
#26
I have had one since I was 15, I can only vaguely remember. It was pretty shit.
May 29 2008 11:28
#27
I actually didn't get one til 2002 - i was kinda being a bit of of a luddite although it was mnore because I thought everyone who had one when they got popular was a wanker, whih was true.
But I shoulda had one a lot earlier really.
May 29 2008 11:42
#28
But now thanks to mobile phones no one can manage to meet up anywhere because instead of going to the place they're supposed to they just kep ringing and texting and confusing each other.
May 29 2008 11:44
#29
Your group needs a fascistic leader who will strop if people dont go to where he is. 
May 29 2008 11:49
#30
say this leader went to wexford at the weekend?
would you gyp your other friends for said leader?
For reals, this is common problem when issues of basic scientific education and critical thinking come in.
It's similar in other issues like MMR, creationism in schools etc.
You have a significant lack of evidence, hard evidence, for an area (say, that MMR jab causes autism, worse in this case given the original authors of the Lancet article in the 90s since retracted their claims about MMR), yet still have concerned (genuinely so) parents calling for one thing or the other and then you have a few sob-stories of desperate people just looking for answers as to why their kid is sick (leukaemia seems to be the big claim with the phone masts, autism with MMR).
When it comes to issues of basic scientific fact (i.e. confirmed observation), what is the actual case isn't democratic - we don't vote or have a discussion, or try to reach consensus, for whether phone masts cause cancer, whether creationism is legit, or whether MMR causes autism. science isn't democratic; it's dependent on evidence and observation - so if something's bullshit, whether we like it or not, whether community groups want it or not, it's bullshit.