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德州比特币矿工是否导致居民生病？
比特币疾病的奇异案例
本文要点：
· 德克萨斯州格兰伯里的某些症状与长时间暴露在高噪音环境中有关。
· 其他投诉，如耳部感染，目前尚无已知的与噪音暴露过度有关的联系。
· 鉴于声学恐慌和噪音引发疾病的可疑声明的历史，我们需要谨慎对待。
我曾广泛研究过群体心理性疾病，因此当我了解到德克萨斯州格兰伯里的居民中，有些人坚信他们所遭受的一系列健康问题是由2022年夏季开放的比特币矿场的噪音直接导致时，我的兴趣被激发了。这些症状包括耳鸣、偏头痛、眩晕、听力问题，甚至心血管问题。还有报道称，鸡停止下蛋，树木正在死亡，所有这些都归因于这个新设施。
当我读到这个案例时，它唤起了我对“嗡嗡声”的记忆，这是一种在世界许多地方报告的神秘声音，并被认为与许多健康投诉有关。有令人信服的证据表明，“嗡嗡声”具有强烈的心理性成分（Frosch, F., 2016）。历史上也有许多人声称由于演奏或听音乐而生病，特别是18和19世纪的女性。在这期间，人们普遍认为音乐对女性“脆弱”的神经系统有害，虽然这种说法没有科学依据，但当时的许多医生支持这一观点。暗示的力量如此之大，以至于在这一时期，许多女性报告在音乐会期间生病，有时甚至昏厥，并将她们的病情归咎于音乐。德国作曲家卡尔·莱奥波德·罗利格（约1754-1804）反映了这种流行的观点，他写道，演奏某些乐器可以“使女性昏厥；使狗抽搐；通过一个减七和弦使睡着的女孩醒来尖叫，甚至导致一个非常年轻的孩子死亡”。历史学家詹姆斯·肯纳威在他的音乐与健康史中指出，“音乐引起疾病的许多案例很可能是指真实的身体症状和痛苦，尽管通常是心理性而不是直接的生理解释”（Kennaway J., 2015）。
嗡嗡声和风力涡轮机
声学恐慌有着悠久的历史。2016年至2017年在古巴，第一批怀疑遭到声波武器袭击的美国外交官和情报官员被要求记录他们的“袭击”。前21名“哈瓦那综合症”受害者中有8人做到了这一点，他们的录音后来被分析，发现是蟋蟀的声音。同样值得注意的是，这种“综合症”包括了一份模糊的症状清单，从疲劳到视力问题不等。
1990年代初期，新墨西哥州陶斯的居民报告说，他们因一种神秘的嗡嗡声而感到不适。症状包括头痛、普遍不适和耳痛。在对“陶斯嗡嗡声”的政府资助研究未能确定声源后，德国听力专家弗朗茨·弗洛赫得出结论，大多数受害者可能是经历了耳鸣。
在世界的一些地方，人们报告由于暴露于风力发电场的声音而生病。风力涡轮机发出低频噪音，包括次声波，频率低于20赫兹，低于人类听觉阈值。没有证据表明这种声音对健康有负面影响。即使是人类呼吸也会产生比旋转叶片更高水平的次声波。值得注意的是，生活在相同涡轮机附近但没有担心其健康影响的人没有报告症状。奥克兰大学的一项研究让一组健康志愿者暴露于涡轮机声音中。那些认为暴露可能对健康有负面影响的人报告了更频繁和更强烈的症状，反之亦然。这项以及其他关于风力涡轮机的研究清楚地表明，与风力发电场相关的症状可以通过群体暗示和期望来解释。
比特币噪音会是心理问题吗？
据报道，比特币噪音在70到90分贝之间，这个水平已知会对人体健康产生不利影响。自该设施开业以来，一些当地医生报告称，出现头痛、耳部感染、失眠和眩晕的患者有所增加。持续暴露在这种噪音水平下可能导致耳鸣、偏头痛和睡眠障碍，并导致皮质醇水平升高，增加高血压和心血管问题的风险，还会干扰葡萄糖进入血液的调节，增加患2型糖尿病的风险。它还可能导致认知障碍，如记忆力和注意力问题、抑郁和焦虑症。
问题是，据报道，在2020年人口普查显示人口为10,958的小城镇中，相信其健康问题源于比特币设施的居民数量约为40人，这个样本量很小。偏头痛、睡眠障碍、高血压和心脏问题是常见病症，而耳部感染既不与长期暴露在高噪音环境中相关，也不与因居住在工厂附近产生的烦恼所引起的压力相关。耳部感染通常是由细菌或病毒引起的。昏厥通常也与暴露在报告的分贝水平中无关，可能有其他原因：热暴露、脱水、服用某些药物，甚至长时间站立。一对夫妇指出，自比特币设施迁入镇上后，他们后院那棵有百年历史的橡树死了。但是，长时间暴露在80到90分贝的噪音中并不会直接损害树木的健康，树木没有像动物那样会受到噪音直接影响的感觉器官。
我们需要谨慎地将风扇的嗡嗡声归因于各种病症，并注意声学恐慌的悠久历史。虽然我们应该认真对待这些说法，但在没有进一步研究的情况下，还不能将格兰伯里的问题明确地与比特币噪音联系起来。
Is a Texas Bitcoin Miner Making People Sick?
The strange case of bitcoin sickness.
KEY POINTS
· Some of the symptoms in Granbury, Texas have been linked with prolonged exposure to elevated noise.
· Other complaints, such as ear infections, have no known association with excess noise exposure.
· We need to be cautious given the history of acoustical scares and dubious claims of noise triggering sickness.
I have written extensively on mass psychogenic illness, so my interest was piqued when I became aware of residents in the small city of Granbury, Texas, some of whom are convinced that an array of health problems that have befallen them is the direct result of noise from a Bitcoin mining operation that opened in the summer of 2022. The symptoms include tinnitus, migraines, vertigo, hearing problems—even cardiovascular issues. There are even reports that chickens have stopped laying eggs and trees are dying, all due to the new facility.
When I read about this case, it rekindled memories of "The Hum," a mysterious sound that has been reported in a number of places around the world and has been attributed to scores of health complaints. There is convincing evidence that "The Hum" has a strong psychogenic component (Frosch, F., 2016). There is also a long history of people claiming to have been made sick by either playing or listening to musical instruments, especially women living in the 18th and 19th centuries. During this period, women were believed to have been more susceptible to the strains of music, as it was widely thought to harm their ‘delicate’ nervous systems. While this has no scientific backing, many doctors at the time supported the notion. The power of suggestion was so great that during this period, many women reported becoming sick during concerts—sometimes fainting—attributing their condition to music. German composer Karl Leopold Röllig (circa 1754-1804) reflected this popular belief when he wrote that playing certain instruments could “make women faint; send a dog into convulsions; make a sleeping girl wake screaming through a chord of the diminished seventh, and even cause the death of one very young.” In his history of music and health, historian James Kennaway notes that “it is quite possible that many of the accounts of music causing disease refer to real physical symptoms and suffering, albeit generally with a psychosomatic rather than direct physiological explanation” (Kennaway J., 2015).
The Hum and Wind Turbines
There is a long history of acoustical scares. In Cuba during 2016 and 2017, the first group of American diplomats and intelligence officers who were suspected of having been attacked by a sonic weapon were asked to record their ‘attacks.’ Eight of the first 21 victims of ‘Havana Syndrome’ managed to do this, and their recordings were later analyzed and found to have been the sounds of crickets. It is also notable that the 'syndrome' consisted of a vague laundry list of symptoms, from fatigue to vision problems.
During the early 1990s, residents of Taos, New Mexico, reported feeling sick from a mysterious humming sound. Symptoms included headaches, general discomfort, and ear pain. After a government-funded study of the ‘Taos Hum’ failed to identify an acoustic origin, German auditory expert Franz Froch concluded that most of the victims were likely experiencing tinnitus.
In some parts of the world, people have reported becoming sick from exposure to sound created by the turning blades of wind farms. Wind turbines emit low-frequency noise, including infrasound, at frequencies below 20 Hertz, below the threshold of human hearing. There is no evidence that such sounds negatively affect health. Even human respiration creates higher levels of sub-audible sounds than the turning blades. Conspicuously, people living near identical turbines where there were no concerns raised about their health impact—have not reported symptoms. An Auckland University study exposed a group of healthy volunteers to turbine sounds. Those who believed that the exposure could negatively affect their health reported a greater frequency and intensity of symptoms, and vice versa. This and other studies of wind turbines have clearly demonstrated that the symptoms associated with wind farms can be explained by mass suggestion and expectation.
Could the Bitcoin Hum Be Psychological?
The Bitcoin Hum is reported to be at between 70 and 90 decibels, which is a level that is known to adversely affect human health. Since the opening of the facility, some local doctors report an increase in patients presenting with headaches, ear infections, insomnia, and vertigo. Continuous exposure to loud noise at those levels can cause tinnitus, migraines, and sleep disturbances and lead to elevated cortisol levels, increasing the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular issues, and messing with the regulation of glucose into the bloodstream, which can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes. It can also result in cognitive impairment, such as memory and concentration issues, depression, and anxiety disorders.
The problem is, the number of residents who believe that their health issues are emanating from the Bitcoin facility is reported to be about 40, a small sample size in a city of 10,958 according to the 2020 census. Migraines, sleep disturbances, high blood pressure, and heart problems are common conditions, while ear infections are neither associated with long-term exposure to elevated sound nor with stress that could be generated by annoyance from living near the plant. They are typically caused by bacteria or viruses. Fainting is not typically associated with exposure to the decibel levels being reported and could have other origins: heat exposure, dehydration, ingesting certain medications—even standing for long periods. One couple noted that after the Bitcoin operation moved into town, their centuries-old backyard oak tree died. But prolonged exposure to noise levels of 80 to 90 decibels is not known to directly harm the health of trees, which do not have the sensory organs that would be directly affected by noise in the same way that animals do.
We need to be cautious in attributing the sounds of the whirring fans to every ailment under the sun and mindful of the long history of acoustical scares. While we should take these claims seriously, without further study, it is not possible to definitively link the issues in Granbury to the Bitcoin Hum.
翻译 | 周怡伶
编辑 | 刘文慧
