A.K.A u/hucifer
Dolce et Decorum est - Wilfred Owen. A grim, anti-war masterpiece written by a soldier fighting in the trenches in WW1
Ozymandias - Percy Shelley. A reminder of human transience and hubris
Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas. Helps me to endure when things seem bleak or hopeless.
I get that you’re trying to be funny, but no they’re not exactly “equally valid”.
The WHO lists RF waves (including those from cellphones) under category Group 2B of possible carcinogens, along with a bunch of other stuff.
Are they being overly cautious? Almost certainly, yes. However, the idea is not inherently ridiculous.
Certainly, but the existence of this research is why countries like France are taking this precautionary approach.
To be fair, it’s not completely made-up. There is a body of evidence that suggests that even non-ionizing EM radiation may have so-called “biological effects” in humans.
Organizations like the Environmental Health Trust have been banging the “cellphones cause infertility and cancer” drum for years, and cites numerous studies on their website.
Of course, much of this research is of questionable relevance to real-world use cases involving actual phones and actual humans as opposed to, say, a bunch of rats being exposed to low-power microwaves in a lab for hours on end, but it exists nonetheless.
Lol you’re right about this giving native English speakers a headache. I’m not sure the subjunctive is the correct explanation here, though.
The subjunctive mood in English primarily uses the past tense form of verbs (“were,” “were to,” etc.) to convey wishes or counterfactuality. E.g. ‘I wish you wouldn’t drink so much coffee’, or 'If I were you, I wouldn’t…"
However, ‘would you like a coffee?’ is a direct question of preference, which means it technically is using the indicative mood rather than the subjunctive. Here, ‘would’ functions as a model verb to soften the request and make it more polite.