'Murder Threats' To Telecoms Engineers Over 5G (bbc.com) 145
Telecoms engineers have told Radio 1 Newsbeat they're being threatened and harassed by people who believe they're working on 5G, which has been wrongly linked to coronavirus. From a report: Claims about any link have been branded complete rubbish by scientists. But the union and trade body representing thousands of workers across the UK say they've had around 120 cases of abuse reported to them. The reports have included threats of extreme violence. "We've actually had cases where people have been threatened with being stabbed, threatened with physical violence and in some cases actually threatened with murder," says Andy Kerr, deputy general secretary of the Communication Workers Union (CWU). CWU represents nearly 40,000 telecoms engineers. Andy says most aren't even working on 5G -- they're maintaining the network and playing "a crucial role." "People are stuck at home -- whether they want to watch their box set of Peaky Blinders or somebody's isolated and they want to keep in touch with family.
"The only way to do that is the telecom network. More importantly these are engineers maintaining the network so it's there for all the health and emergency services."
Tinfoil Hats (Score:3)
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Can someone just post a video about how they've wrapped their whole house in foil in order to keep out the 5G signals and then just do some bullshit signal test or just show an app screen that's reading 0.
AMC, certain episodes of "Better Call Saul."
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Now with the 5G scare, that's so totally obvious nonsense, only someone with major brain damage could ever believe it. There is no physical mechanism how a simple ra
Disable those people's service (Score:5, Insightful)
For anyone found to be threatening any engineers, disable their service.
When they later call in saying "My cable/DSL Internet isn't working" they can be told:
"Sorry, you've been found to have threatened our service techs in the area - you're no longer eligible for service calls.
But we can send over a self-serve package; would you like that?"
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Providing the package includes only a 14.4k modem!
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Providing the package includes only a 14.4k modem!
I would've gone with a 2400bps one.
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300bps with acoustic coupler.
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Give them one of the Bell 101 modems that have a data rate of 110 bits per second.
Might as well... the end user is never going to figure out how to connect their iPhone / iPad or modern device and use that modem; hell even full blown laptops don't come with the basic serial port needed these days.
Re:Disable those people's service (Score:5, Funny)
That's harsh, because we all know that the sound from a 300 baud modem causes brain cancer.
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Providing the package includes only a 14.4k modem!
No, make the "self-service package" a crate of homing pigeons.
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That's animal abuse! What do you have against winged rats?
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Two tin cans and string!
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A lantern with shutters!
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Can we ever get reporting on the types of threats ?
Is this a 4chan or /. rant like - "I want to kill those 5g engineers!" -- note, not a credible threat. This feels like when people include port scans or pings in "hack attempts".
But sometimes they are real threats, like burning a cell tower down, or murdering a technician. Would be nice to know which is which.
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But sometimes they are real threats, like burning a cell tower down, or murdering a technician. Would be nice to know which is which.
What was reported was engineers being approached by someone saying "I'll get my mates here and we will kill you".
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I don't think the stockholders would appreciate this kind of callous disregard for profit.
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I don't think the stockholders would appreciate this kind of callous disregard for profit.
But then the ones that do this are the only ones left with their infrastructure intact, ready for 5G!
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And in conclusion, this is why every telecom provider in the world needs to merge with each other.
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Or just say "We've cut off 5G to your house, along with all other harmful elecromagnetic fields."
Fools! (Score:3, Funny)
This is completely ludicrous, 5G has nothing to do with Wuhan flu! Everyone knows it is *evil spirits*, and can only be cured by drinking stump water at midnight in a cemetery.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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You want to know the REAL scandalous secret behind 5g towers? They all run HostAPD on a little Alix router. Thats right. You heard me. Every single one of them runs a copy of HostAPD and so does EVERYTHING ELSE.
Is this meta-trolling? Or meta-meta-meta-trolling? I lose track... It's definitely sublime.
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what did we ever do to you?
CANCER!!!! You're irradiatngng me!!!!
Worst argument ever (Score:5, Insightful)
"whether they want to watch their box set of Peaky Blinders" ... "The only way to do that is the telecom network"
The whole reason for having a box set is there is no need for a telecom network.
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WTF is a peaky blinder?
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It's what you decorate your Fawlty Towers with.
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The whole reason for having a box set is there is no need for a telecom network.
Yeah but shops are closed, so how are you going to buy it from Amazon?
What should we expect? (Score:1, Insightful)
When we live in a world where the majority trembles in front of imaginary beings and we have stuff like this: https://www.reuters.com/articl... [reuters.com] , and people think the Nazi vampire space alien werewolves are after them and they feel the need to warn everybody online and IRL.
Face it, underneath the modern facade society is still in the Dark Ages.
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I swear, honey, it was huge before. It must have been one of those sorcerers and their shrinking spells!
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Enlarge/Reduce doesn't work that way. It's like giving Viagra to a lawyer -- the entire person gets bigger, not just one piece.
Conspiracy Theories (Score:2)
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I grew up in North Redneckistan (aka Michigan), there is no shortage of people who are either stupid by nature or who deliberately prefer to remain ignorant (a decision which absolutely dumbfounds me). I'm not surprised that they're third in COVID-19 deaths and are actually protesting to open things up again.
part of a bigger misinformation campaign conspiracy to discredit those who are trying expose the real conspiracies that are happening in the world today.
That is a very old intel tactic called 'poisoning the well', and the US public is very susceptible to it because our educational system equates 'voice of authority' with 'god-given truth'. The moment
Yeah that'll help (Score:2)
How does harassing and threatening random telecom engineers help stop a global conspiracy, exactly? Rhetorical question, of course.
Target Bill Gates, he's the one who is behind it all. :-P LOL, morons.
Send out police in technician's uniforms (Score:2)
Say, 1 in 5 technicians are actually beefy plain-clothes police.
Park other plain-clothes police within 50 metres of a tower.
Officer "I'm not really a technician" starts make-work at the tower, with a covert voice recorder in his pocket. Perhaps mount some technical-looking box at head height, said box contains a video camera.
Wait for murderous protesters to turn up and start making threats. Maybe even use someone's FB to post the info.
In come the other police.
Profit.
Terrorism (Score:2)
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Youtube.
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Youtube.
They managed to find them before youtube.
It is the nature of the beast. Or to be more exact the nature of Homo Sapiens. Some of us are not particularly Sapient and need to fervently believe in something. It does not matter what it is - that wifi is killing us, little green men, rapture, noodle monster - whatever.
That is relatively harmless when they do that alone.
The problem is when they get organized and here the Internet has a lot to answer for. It has decreased the threshold for organizing a band of
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In the '70s I remember chain letters, people had to make the effort to pay to copy the letters, buy envelopes and stamps, and then address and send them. I got several (of course I lived in northern Michigan, aka 'North Redneckistan'), apparently from people who knew me or were relatives. A cousin used to inundate me with pro-Bush conspiracy garbage mass emails, until I started to Reply To All and debunking them to all her friends (we don't communicate at all any more). Now all they need to do is click a
Re:Where do these ideas come from? (Score:5, Insightful)
More than likely state actors, who target the messaging at idiots. Idiots just need a little push, and they can do the rest.
Frankly, I think it's reaching the point where the West should sever the fiber links with Russia and China, and connect the two countries with the rest of the world through three or four ISDN modems.
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Frankly, I think it's reaching the point where the West should sever the fiber links with Russia and China, and connect the two countries with the rest of the world through three or four ISDN modems.
Indeed. This will help Russia and China a lot, they make sure to squash nonsense like this one.
The "5G causes COVID" conspiracy flared up after a brainless TV host in the UK gave it publicity.
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The "5G causes COVID" conspiracy flared up after a brainless TV host in the UK gave it publicity.
Lots of people will believe anything the media tells them, no matter how often they are caught pushing the fake.
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Lots of people will believe anything the media tells them, no matter how often they are caught pushing the fake.
Well, except in this case the main major newspapers have been debunking this. It was a "major TV network" to translate into Americanish and the host did actually accuse the "mainstream media" (of which he's part) of suppressing the story, so it's kind of mega-ironic.
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More than likely state actors, who target the messaging at idiots.
And when we find out which one, let's see what other anti-science movements they may be promoting in Western countries. Follow the Bitcoin.
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Some anti-science movements are pretty firmly rooted in the US. Take Creationism, that's by and large home grown, and is probably the prototypical antiscience/pseudoscience movement.
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Some anti-science movements are pretty firmly rooted in the US. Take Creationism, that's by and large home grown, and is probably the prototypical antiscience/pseudoscience movement.
Yes, definitely homegrown, but also private and non-intrusive. When was the last time you saw a mob of Creationists blocking work on an infrastructure project?
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Did you conveniently forget about attempts to require schools to teach Creationism, blocking discussion on fairly standard scientific theories like evolution, and trying to claim it's "only a theory not a fact"? Because sure, that's somehow private and non-intrusive, right? Starting source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (yes do your own research, this is a starting point ONLY). It's been going on for more than 2 decades.
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Cultural support is a vital factor here. So long as creationists don't have the media and Hollywood backing that other anti-science movements get, they don't present an actual threat to school systems.
Re:Where do these ideas come from? (Score:5, Insightful)
These people had always existed but before the internet they were isolated to their own crazy beliefs. Now the internet lets them find each other and feeds their mental illness.
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I am not crazy! My 7 internet friends said so!
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The idea starts with a few tinfoil wingnuts who really believe it, but then as with anything else like this, there are state level actors that look for these kinds of conspiracy theories that have already shown to be able to cause divisions in society for hardly any effort and those state actors amplify the message with bot farms on social media. Eventually it starts to take hold in the minds of even otherwise rational people who aren't all that scientifically minded, simply because they hear it so often a
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I don't know why western countries can make use of this for our own purposes. Why not start rumors in Russia that Putin is not actually the messiah but is a very naughty boy?
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Who's to say the western alphabet agencies aren't doing exactly that? I'd be shocked if they weren't to be honest.
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Does it matter? There's a demand being supplied and we have spent decades making it easier for every scam-artist lowlife to make up whatever bullshit they want and sell it.
imho, the more interesting question is why there is so much demand. i think reality is usually boring and frustratingly hard; most people know they aren't going to amount to shit anyway, so why be critical about what you believe? also, people like mysteries, but most of them are too stupid to solve any that aren't cliches by now, so they
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Conspiracy believers get a thrill off of not being nobodies anymore instead, they're a part of the small group that is in on the secret. Maybe they think they can save the planet, or maybe they're just satisfied not being one of the sheeple. Honestly, not much different from people holding on to their New Age crystals or buying stone eggs from Goop.
Ie, flat earthers have not yet tried to blow up Nasa or even hinted at it. Instead they just trying to have meet ups and "educate" others, even if they're laugha
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well of course, NASA has too much clout and is too "protected" by "them". shooting up a mosque or going vigilante on an (ahem) "alleged" pedophile ring cleverly concealed as a pizza parlor, though? that's old news.
and, yes, one could say "not all conspiracy theorists!", but if even 0.01% are willing to go to these extremes, it's a problem. i mean, it was enough of a problem for us that it justified invading Iraq.
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Re: Where do these ideas come from? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Where do these ideas come from? (Score:4, Funny)
Probably my brother he is educated enough that he can sound like an expert on most subjects to the clueless masses and enjoys messing with people.
Re:Where do these ideas come from? (Score:4, Funny)
Your brother is Deepak Chopra?
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case in point lol: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
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8 years ago, my in-law apartment block owners rented the roof out to the mobile operator for a cell site. That coincided with us paying her a visit. What I did not know was that she at some point a few years earlier told the neighbours I work in mobile (something I have not done since 2007). Bad idea considering that they had a whole rattlesnake nest of anti-radio nutters.
They tried to torch my car in front of the apartment block with me and my 4 years old (at the time) daughter in it. I
Re:Where do these ideas come from? (Score:5, Informative)
Serious question. Where do these ridiculous ideas come from? Who is telling people this is?
It apparently started with one Belgian doctor [wired.co.uk] and then the story took off.
It took off from a combination of people being in a stressful situation and political propaganda which has conditioned people for decades to distrust the media / educated experts and instead trust self-proclaimed experts who know "what's really going on." Electing disgraceful leaders is only one symptom of this problem, a growing population of people who cannot discern facts from falsehoods has plenty of other ripple effects.
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It was these same media / educated experts who lied us into the war in Iraq. Tell me again about falsehoods and facts?
Are you serious with that? Our government leaders lied about Iraq. It took less than a six months after the second Iraq war for stories to come out about how those claims were false, and within 18 months it was commonly known that claims of weapons of mass destruction were false.
Only legitimate media was covering this well, however. One survey [archive.org] found that 80% of people who got most of their news from Fox News had one or more misconceptions of evidence of Iraqi / al-Qaeda links, WMD's found, and world public
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In the UK, it's usually that loud pillock at the pub that drinks to much and bullies everyone. You know, the lazy one who's legless by noon and blames everyone else for holding him back. It's one giant conspiracy to him.
Yes, that guy.
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No, the real question is how can a radio signal cause a virus to be created, let alone be lethal to only humans? What possible mechanism could exist to cause this to happen?
If 5G can cause a virus to be magically created, why hasn't any other radio signal done the same thing?
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It came from the Flat-earthers,
They are all just mad that his rocket test didn't work out and have to take it out on somebody.
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Along with Alex Jones and 'Lord' Mockton.
WRONG! A random sampling shows 47% (Score:4, Funny)
Get your made up facts straight
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Get your made up facts straight
Damn, wish I had mod points...
Re:14% of New Yorkers have had COVID-19 (Score:4, Insightful)
A random sampling of 3,000 people in New York at grocery stores and shopping centers has resulted in the fact that 13.9% of them have already had COVID-19. [cnbc.com] Presumably these people had the virus and either never new it, or the symptoms were so mild they didn't think it was anything serious. This percentage is high enough that it will start to move the R0 needle, and if it continues, soon infections will start to significantly decline due to herd immunity. This means the vaccine may very well be too little, too late. It also means the virus spread much more quickly than anyone believed, and it much less fatal that people believe. Various studies in other part of the country and world have implied that the true infection rate is anywhere from 50x to 80x what we think it is.
That's cute.
Now here's a hard fact that will dispel anyone coming forward with mere "numbers"; Our healthcare system is STILL getting destroyed.
One thing you need to understand; Americans (or humans for that matter) are NOT cowering in our homes because we know for a fact how deadly or dangerous this "novel" virus is. Americans are cowering in their homes because the most expensive healthcare system on the fucking planet can't handle a +1 to the healthcare party.
THAT is the reality today. And until you're ready to address THAT problem, kindly shut the fuck up.
Re: 14% of New Yorkers have had COVID-19 (Score:2)
One thing you need to understand; Americans (or humans for that matter) are NOT cowering in our homes because we know for a fact how deadly or dangerous this "novel" virus is. Americans are cowering in their homes because the most expensive healthcare system on the fucking planet can't handle a +1 to the healthcare party.
Well, no, the reason people are cowering in their homes is because the government has ordered them to cower in their homes. Of course some are starting to rebel against that now, but the majority are still following orders.
The medical system has been handling things just fine in the vast majority of the US. In some areas it has struggled, but is still performing to an acceptable standard. All the panic about needing tens of thousands of extra ventilators and military assistance to provide more care has c
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No, not quite true. Where there is a good number of folks, even WITH the quarantine measures, the healthcare system has been strained (Seattle, NYC, Philly, etc). Just look at all the medical staff demanding PPEs and the lack off weeks after needs were assessed. And without good testing capacity, the current quarantine measures just delay the infection rate, it doesn't flatten the curve, just pushes it down the line. With testing, you can target your quarantines so that the majority can still work.
Sayin
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Anyone who is cowering because they think the medical system has been "destroyed" is just an idiot.
You seem to arrogantly speak from a comfortable perch where you haven't lost any loved ones to this global pandemic. In the meantime, humans around the world in hot spots were sent home to die ONLY because a pandemic destroyed their capacity to save their life.
There are a LOT of people in New York, Italy, and Spain that have been cowering in their homes for no other reason than knowing a hospital couldn't save them right now. And the rest of us around the world would be doing the same damn thing if we wer
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Our healthcare system is STILL getting destroyed
Yours. Not mine in Toronto. Except in long-term-care facilities that are under-paid and under-regulated. Go into the ER with breathing problems, you get tossed into an isolation bed and a prompt Covid-19 test. Within 48 hours you'll have the results back, and if negative, scooped out of that bed to one in a regular room. Both types of beds are still available. No BS, that's exactly what happened to my family member yesterday.
Of course, we're a country that values societal well-being over individual. At leas
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"A random sampling of 3,000 people in New York at grocery stores and shopping centers has resulted in the fact that 13.9% of them have already had COVID-19."
A random sampling of 3,000 people in New York at grocery stores and shopping centers has resulted in the fact that 50% of them have an IQ of under 100.
Re:14% of New Yorkers have had COVID-19 (Score:4, Informative)
@Moderators: The murder threats are because of coronavirus conspiracy theories, so coronavirus threads really aren't off-topic here, hence why I'm responding.
It also means the virus spread much more quickly than anyone believed, and it much less fatal that people believe. Various studies in other part of the country and world have implied that the true infection rate is anywhere from 50x to 80x what we think it is.
Actually, it means that the virus is spreading exactly as quickly and has exactly the fatality rate that everyone well-informed has believed. Every illness has an IFR that is at least an order of magnitude higher than its CFR, because most people don't report minor illness.
The other thing you're missing is that a random sampling of people who are out in public isn't the same as a random sampling of everyone. The people at highest risk are mostly staying indoors and getting deliveries to minimize their exposure, or they are in nursing homes that are locked down to minimize their exposure, or whatever. Those people aren't represented in that semi-random sampling, and almost all of them are likely COVID-negative.
As for it being less fatal than people believe, that's just not true. The current COVID-19 death tool for New York State represents 0.057% of the population. The 2009 flu season killed 0.00079% of the population. That means that COVID-19, even WITH extreme mitigation, is already 100x more deadly than H1N1 was. And if we assume herd immunity will be meaningful at 70% and we're only at 14%, that means we've only seen one fifth of the deaths that we're likely to expect, which means without distancing, it could easily have been 500x more deadly.
And that's before you take into account all the high-risk people who weren't represented in the semi-random sampling. In the worst case scenario, it could be 1000x as deadly as H1N1.
The saving grace is that it mutates much more slowly than influenza, so there's a better chance of herd immunity or vaccines limiting its ability to come back every year, and possibly also reducing the death toll in future years.
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...saving grace is that it mutates much more slowly than influenza,...
We don't know this at this time. The hope is that it mutates at the same rate or slower (so far it appears so). Which would allow proper vaccines. We will see what the SK's say in a week after they finish their assessments of the folks showing positive again. Hopefully it is just the virus being dormant and remanents activating to be shut down. Or just as likely, there were a few false positives in the initial tests.
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Yeah and other studies have show that 40-85 TIMES as many people have been exposed as was thought. It is fairly obvious that the virus has been around longer than we thought and is widespread and the actual mortality rate is around 0.08%, which is in line with other pandemics. But you will never convince the "smart" people here. I mean, they have Teslerati forms where they prove conclusively that billions are going to die. And ourworldinfo.com says everything is "doubling" every X days!11!!!11!! It MUST be true. Read it on the Internet.
NO statistical numbers care about the obvious, which is MANY healthcare systems are getting destroyed by this virus.
Unless you're ready to address THAT problem, kindly shut the fuck up with your "statistics", because you are NOT helping.
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That's because the smart people here are smart enough to understand that the same has been true for every other viral illness throughout history, and that comparing the true number of sick people in this pandemic to the reported number of sick people in previous pandemics is nonsensical.
Ultimately, the only thing that matters is death rate per capita, and by that standard, COVID-19 with mitigation is two orders of magnitude worse than H1N1 in New York was
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"I don't believe COVID19 and 5G are related but..."
"BUT????" SERIOUSLY? I can't believe I even read that. I stopped reading at that. This website is full of idiots. JESUS CHRIST.
Re:I don't believe COVID19 and 5G are related but. (Score:4, Informative)
"So it is possible..."
i know "science fiction" has the word "science" in it, but...
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There are a lot of science fiction authors who have written a lot of stories over the decades. It's easy to root through the pile, find the dozen or so that somewhat predicted a future event, ignore the hundreds of others that got it wildly wrong, and then declare science fiction authors as successful prognosticators. And I say this as someone who writes science fiction. Go ahead and buy my book, but don't take anything I write as an accurate prediction of what the future will be like.
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as Theodore Sturgeon said: "zero point zero nine percent of everything is amazingly prescient"?
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Not "some cheesy sci-fi stuff" he says, as he defends the book about a nuclear bomb activating a sleeper virus. Sure.
You lost me at "but" (Score:2)
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No. Such book is a work of complete fiction that isn't even realistic.
There is no biological pathogen that could be activated by radiation other than radiation sickness, Or perhaps a network of electrical or mechanical bioweapon delivery devices that had radiation detectors built in and used as a triggering mechanism.
But as for actual viruses: they are inanimate, a simple strand of genetic material, and in the event that radiation starts interacting; over
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I'll admit the book was written in the 80s so I would agree that the bioweaponry information would not be as sophisticated.as today. Such a contagion would almost certainly be a bacteria ( or even amoeba ).
One particular approach would be to use two different bacteria, One bacteria would produce a protein which is released when it dies from radiation poisoning. The second bacteria would detect the protein and become virulent
The basic idea though is to have a benign infection spread through the popula
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I read a fiction so I know this is possible... durrr
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I remember a book called Emergence by David Palmer.
In it a nuclear war happens between the US and the USSR.
The thing is that the USSR does not blow up cities. They detonate their bombs over the country.
What then happened was the radiation actived a disease that tyhe Russians had been planting for years causing a massive plague.
So it is possible, though I doubt that China is sophisticated enough to engineer something like that.
Overly complicated (and probably not biologically possible). If you have the ability to detonate nukes over major cities then just....do that. The EMP blasts alone would be enough to cripple most of the US and grind virtually everything to a halt.
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So it is possible, though I doubt that China is sophisticated enough to engineer something like that.
I don't give them that much credit. It came from eating bats and racoons. It's not the first time and won't be the last.
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Your attempts are so pathetic and you've run out of steam long ago. Find a new hobby already.
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The Internet today is a vital service for the world. It ranks just under Shelter, Clean Water, and Food.
Not bad for a 50-year-old technology. While 90% of it is used for entertainment. that 10% for vital services are indeed vital. Being about to online order products you need without going to the store. Being able to communicate with your doctors over the video, stopping you from going to the office unnecessarily. Getting up to date information all is very vital stuff.
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stopping you from going to the office unnecessarily
Now and forever, amen.