A Bitcoin mine moved to a small town in Texas. One by one, the residents fell ill.

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.

  • RavuAlHemio@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    Any statewide legislation is sure to hit significant headwinds, because the very idea of regulation runs contrary to many Texans’ political beliefs. “As constitutional conservatives, they have taken our core values and used that against us,” says Demetra Conrad, a city council member in the nearby town of Glen Rose.

    Maybe your core values are really stupid…

    • barsquid@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      “Lack of regulations is supposed to harm only people below us in the capitalism pyramid. But now we realize we’re lower in the pyramid than we thought, so this needs to be stopped via regulation.”

      It’s somehow 90 dB, that’d be horrific if I gave a shit about Repubs harming themselves with shitty legislation.

      I do feel bad for anyone politically sane subjected to that despite voting otherwise. I wish it was 90 dB at the residences of Rafael Cruz and Ken Paxton instead of them.

  • asap@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    🙄 Sounds a lot like this classic example where residents complained about headaches, rashes, nausea, tinnitus, etc from a cell tower, only for it to be revealed that it was not powered up:

    https://mybroadband.co.za/news/wireless/11099-massive-revelation-in-iburst-tower-battle.html

    “Headaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns…”

    At the meeting Van Zyl agreed to turn off the tower with immediate effect to assess whether the health problems described by some of the residents subsided. What Craigavon residents were unaware of is that the tower had already been switched off in early October – six weeks before the November meeting where residents confirmed the continued ailments they experienced.

  • Imgonnatrythis@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    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@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      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@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            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.

      • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
        0·
        5 months ago

        There’s one two guarantees in life: Death and taxes. Real currencies are the ones you can use to pay the latter.

        • QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          4 months ago

          If you live in El Salvador you can pay your taxes in bitcoin… that makes it a “real currency” according to your test.

          • barsoap@lemm.eeEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago

            Won’t last for long because deflation is built into bitcoin and every sane state matches monetary supply to economical output to keep prices stable. El Salvador isn’t doing that anyway, though, otherwise using USD, or getting many tax payments in bitcoin, the thing being about as liquid as asphalt, so it doesn’t really change much.