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Dark Sky Lighting

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Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not really going to engage on the "$person's magic mirror funhouse" type conversation as it doesn't go anywhere. My opinion is it'd be nice to have dark skies. I'm talking about how we can properly dismiss the alternative views, not why I think x is what you as an individual should want to prefer or not. If the majority of people want something of the commons other than what I want then I'm going to assume my pre…

But we're not having a conversation about the full scope of reasons a person could want A or B. I'm saying the null hypothesis is Dark Nighttime. You are insisting it's not. GP above said one argument against Dark Nighttime is that it puts them to sleep. That is not a good reason, as Nighttime for humans is meant to be sleep time, and for animals where nighttime is meant to be wake time, the dark is what keeps them a…

Now we have a discussion :D!

You'll be hard pressed to convince everyone the null hypothesis should be either A or B, which is the biggest reason it doesn't get anywhere to argue from that stance alone. For more than the lifetime of anyone living in a city, the baseline expectation of a city has been "light pollutingly bright". Similarly, making light is something a city has to do so one may argue the baseline is "a city is dark unless we do something". But is it still a city if you do that for all things about the city? There are dozens of arguments why the null should be A or why the null should be B. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter unless all you want to comment is "the null agrees with me so it's your problem" so we don't actually need to halt until everyone to agrees what the null is to debate what we should do.

So instead of commenting to ahmedehab_01 it's a feature & not a bug, their problem to deal with (for which they'll think & say the exact same in reverse - which as just as valid unless you can first get everyone to agree what the null should be) we can just skip to talking to the merits of their point, as you already did here.

I.e. yeah, white does keep people up more. Amber's impact was low enough it's not an impact to safety though & the inverse (not being kept up as you walk around a city) . There's no option which has every benefit so we need to weigh all of the impacts as a whole, which means it may have a few downsides like making you sleepier walking around at night. That speaks directly to why we should turn down the light pollution regardless of the null, and is exactly how the article went about it (which could be referenced again for the safety portions or the like). It's not even 100% clear ahmedehab_01 was saying "because of this, we shouldn't have dark lights". They may have just been casually lamenting one particular downside. The chain kind of forced it to be taken as a debate opener, and then forced a choice of which null should be assumed, and then went a long way of debating that, and then finally talked about what was really said only at the end.

Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But we're not having a conversation about the full scope of reasons a person could want A or B. I'm saying the null hypothesis is Dark Nighttime. You are insisting it's not. GP above said one argument against Dark Nighttime is that it puts them to sleep. That is not a good reason, as Nighttime for humans is meant to be sleep time, and for animals where nighttime is meant to be wake time, the dark is what keeps them a…

Now we have a discussion :D! You'll be hard pressed to convince everyone the null hypothesis should be either A or B, which is the biggest reason it doesn't get anywhere to argue from that stance alone. For more than the lifetime of anyone living in a city, the baseline expectation of a city has been "light pollutingly bright". Similarly, making light is something a city has to do so one may argue the baseline is "a…

Who has the goal of "convincing everyone" of anything? Maybe you misunderstand how policy gets set...

Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#54
I hike at night fairly regularly and use either a dim red light or no light at all. I'm willing to bet that most people don't have any idea how good their fully dark adapted night vision actually is, especially with any sort of moonlight. The bigger problem I've found are bright lights that just blow out your night vision entirely. It only takes a few seconds to undo 30-40 minutes of adaptation.

Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#56

> Too much light ... makes us less safe by creating harsh shadows and giving criminals a place to hide. LMAO

This is an issue driving the mistaken belief that we need more and more light, especially bright blue LEDs. The LEDs have a hard cutoff between light and dark zones, and both the blue tint and the excessive brightness of the lights decrease your night vision and make your eyes become more unable to see anything outside of these small lit zones.

The low-frequency flicker also reduces motion resolution, and these LED lights are typically narrowband, meaning the CRI (Color Reproduction Index) is typically low enough that it meaningfully affects resolution across the board, from motion resolution to shape resolution.

Typically under these bright blue narrowband LEDs I still find myself squinting and unable to make anything out, despite the intensity of the light. The whole industry of public lighting is a massive scam that is completely out of touch with the research.

Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#57

I've not seen a streetlight anywhere that wasn't collimated downward. Traditional neons are amber. So we had it right well over half century ago as far as street lighting went.

I've seen pretty much every variant of https://i.imgur.com/l9msIIM.jpeg somewhere around most places I've visited in North America/Europe.

Ah ok. The naked globe type things that illuminate the vast cosmos above, I have seen in places like semi-private walkways around condo buildings or some commercial properties. Never as a high-powered municipal street light for traffic.

Re: Dark Sky Lighting

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen pretty much every variant of https://i.imgur.com/l9msIIM.jpeg somewhere around most places I've visited in North America/Europe.

Ah ok. The naked globe type things that illuminate the vast cosmos above, I have seen in places like semi-private walkways around condo buildings or some commercial properties. Never as a high-powered municipal street light for traffic.

Look at the lights next time you are in Gastown.
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