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Inside the 'Nightmare' Health Crisis of a Texas Bitcoin Town (time.com)

submitted 5 months ago by [email protected] to c/technology

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 5 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Ragdoll_X 21 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

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.

[–] Plopp 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

You're thinking of the nocebo effect. Placebo is positive. Nocebo is negative.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ok, but that's a drum that is you are going to wear thin beating.

[–] Plopp 3 points 5 months ago

What, why? I've never heard anyone call a negative effect a placebo effect before in my life, and the people I've told about the nocebo effect have all been just as glad as me that we finally have a word to describe the opposite of placebo.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 months ago

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.