Oddbean new post about login | logout #Grounding #Earthing https://m.primal.net/LWKM.jpg
We need Scientology like levels of awake. I am at grounding currently.
Been enjoying your podcast @Ben Wehrman keep it up!
While I am fascinated by the grounding science and theory, I don’t think it’s a conscious conspiracy. There are plenty of very real and persistent incentives to protect our feet that didn’t come from artificial sources, and it would also require a depth of knowledge and awareness of very nuanced issues for this to be a broad, explicit attempt to control people, rather than a typical human misstep inspired by ignorance.
I very strongly doubt there's anything to this grounding thing. I think it's placebo. But if you believe it, a simple way would be to take a wire from a ground point, whether putting it in the earth literally, or the earth connection of a wall socket, and the other end onto your bed sheets which you have washed with fabric softener. The resistance of the fabric softener treated sheets, even though extremely high, is going to be way lower than that from you to anything exerting an excess or deficit of electrons, i.e. static buildup, effectively grounding you, all night.
They legit make grounding blankets that do exactly this. You can buy them on Amazon 😆 I also have been really skeptical until I saw the experiment where they watched blood under a microscope with and without grounding. And when they were insulated they literally clumped together. They lost their ability to regulate space between each other. Definitely made me raise an eyebrow. 🤔
What was the source of static electricity? Was it just ambient, or did they apply a field, and in that case how strong in comparison to what can be expected day-to-day?
It was taking the blood of someone who hadn’t been grounded for a whole day, and then again after 30 minutes grounded. So they didn’t artificially apply anything. It was a before and after look at the cells and how they interacted.
TBH, that seems more like one of the samples got contaminated with soap or something. The difference shouldn't take much more time to manifest than the time to discharge, which would at most be in the order of seconds. Also, a tiny sample on a plate would have such low capacitance to ground that just sliding the plate in different ways when putting it under the microscope could cause differences in charge. The only possibility I can think of would be if the effect wasn't electrostatic in itself, but something the cells actively do - which I have never heard of, but I don't know enough about biology to confirm or deny it - and the field slowly causes changes in them which prevent them from doing it, and they slowly heal from that in the absence of a field. Seems far-fetched, but I'd need an opinion from someone who knows this part of biology to know. (As I have written before, I don't like the appeal-to-nature-and-the-past "explanations" i.e. "we've always been grounded, so that's what we should do". I want explanations of the mechanisms involved.)
When I was in college, there were guys running around barefoot all the time. They were really more mind-body connected than others I knew. Me, I prefer being barefoot and touching grass or at least hardwood feels really good after a day with shoes on. We are, at the root, meant to be in touch with the earth, I feel.
Grounding is a real thing. Electrons are fake as fiat though.
If not electrons, what causes the phosphors in a CRT to light up?
It’s more than electrons - your body is a mechanical system and placing a soft layer in between your foot and the ground distorts the pain signal in your foot that normally prevents you from placing too much stress on your joints. Over time leads to back, knees, etc problems upstream - especially if not walking/running on soft ground like soil.
