LEDs are soulless

This page was created 10/09/25

This page was last modified 02/03/26

Work in progress. The plan is for this article to be a description on why LEDs are bad, how to avoid them, replacements, etc.

This article was originally written in response to the question: "which technology has most negatively impacted the world and society" and "what single technology would I get rid of if I had the chance". Hence I started thinking about things that have recently affected society negatively; I decided you could effectively model these things as chains linking to a root cause:

So the statement I am making in this article is: LEDs are soulless, have fuelled the destruction of the planet and are the architect of a downfall of society.

Lighting is all around us at all times. So the way we produce and use light is very important.

What are LEDs

LEDs are an unnatural light source created by passing electricity through a special type of diode. While most other light forms are created by heat (the sun, halogen lamps), LEDs are created by electricity only. This means that they create unnatural light. LEDs essentially mimic normal incandescent light in form and function but are a fake replica of the "traditional" light created by heat.

LED lights flicker at twice the mains power frequency, so either 50x2 = 100hz or 60x2 = 120hz. Most bulbs have driver and smoothing circuits built in, which reduces the flicker effect by increasing the frequency at which thebulbs flicker to 1-20khz. This is obviously really bad for our eyes and health. The argument that incandescent/halogen bulbs flicker at 50/60hz due to power frequencies is easily refutable because the filament does not have enough time to cool down in 1/60th of a second. If the frequency was closer to 20hz, that could be a problem. This is easily observed on any filament lamp. Just try turning it off and see how long it takes to cool down and stop emitting light.

Why LEDs are bad

Low colour temperature LEDs do not fix the problem - they are still unnatural light

As you can tell from this image, LEDs have a very unnatural blue light spike around the 450nm wavelength. They also have a lot less red light compared to sunlight (about half of what the sunlight has, and 1/3 or 1/4 the amount that incandescent bulbs have. The more red light, the better, especially for your sleep. After all, you only need lighting when it's dark and you should be going to bed soon. The way it should work is that you have sunlight throughout the day to keep you awaye, then have incandescent light or heavily red light to use in the hours before bed. Unfortunately, we now have sunlight + LED light during the day, then LED light at night which keeps us awake. Absolutely ridiculous.

Why are other types of lighting better

Now you know what LEDs are and why they suck. But why are other types of lighting better?

Atmospheres

We used to have a very diverse set of lighting used: incadescent, sodium vapour, mercury, arc, gas, neon, etc. This led to different atmospheres depending on the method of lighting used: you had cool neon lights for a futuristic atmosphere in the city, sodium vapour lamps used on highways - creating a nice evening drive home, and so on. Atmospheres are really important and can also enhance your memories of certain places. I remember driving home late at night after a holiday with family with that distinct orange glow emitted from the street lamps.

In fact, my local main road still uses (I believe) Low/High Pressure Sodium (LPS/HPS) bulbs. The difference between this road and the road right next to it (a residential street) is quite striking especially since I can see the difference with my own eyes as a side by side comparison. The blue LED lighting looks sharp and cold, whereas the warm glow of the LPS/HPS lamps makes you feel comfortable.

Evils made possible by LEDs

They are the reason why both small and large flat panels exist. Previously, there existed only medium sized flat panels (plasma), which did not enable advanced modern phones, advertisement boards, and so on.

Advertisement boards are probably one of the most infuriating uses of LEDs. I don't mind the concept of advertising - it can be a good way (in a capitalist society) to advertise your business or product, when the traditional word of mouth method does not suffice. But modern advertisement overreach and the technologies used to fuel this enrage me. Looking at modern advertisement boards, we see that they are made out of very high power output LED screens. Some of these are even mounted on cars which are then powered by diesel generators (whatever happened to the "environmental benefit" of LED's?). Walking around at night and even during the day past one of these screens is eye searing and also attracts all the bugs which hover around these screens. Whereas previously, advertisements would have been displayed on a sheet of paper with possibly a row of CCFL tubes as a backlight. This goes beyond the scope of this article and I guess I will make another article about this, but advertisements through the internet are a whole different breed.

Through car LEDs (far too bright and far too high colour temperature), city lighting (destroys the natural environment and wildlife), household lighting (soulless colours and kills your eyesight and sleep pattern, obviously can lower colour temperature but that doesn't matter), we see that LEDs destroy out wildlife, sleep patterns, everything really.

They disrupt our lives and nature

Health

LEDs destroy out circadian rhythm.

When I spend the later part of my evenings with my 2800K halogen pointed at my red window blinds (which reflect red light), then go to get warm milk from the kitchen which has cold blue LEDs, my eyes feel like they are being seared open by a very sharp blade. I am not overexxagerating. These artificial light sources tend to make you feel sick, especially after not having used them after a while. I don't understant how people go to sleep right after being in a room with LED lights and actually sleep well. This is one of the reasons why people have such poor sleep. The same issue can be seen with EMF radiation: Try leaving your phone out of your pocket for 2 weeks and put it back in. You will almost certainly feel something in your legs, balls, etc.

There is also a lot more science to this. Cortisol increases when the eyes and body are exposed to blue, artificial light. This in turn decreases your Testosterone levels and capability to do work. It also suppresses your Melatonin, which doesnt only enhance your sleep but also decreases T. Your T levels are quite important and have reduced in the average male by roughly 50% over the last 50 years.

For more information on this, see my sleep article.

Brain function

It has actually been found that LEDs (and some other light sources, e.g. flourescent)negatively impact the brain and its ability to learn/concentrate. Another factor affecting this is the count of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) in the air, of which values above 1000ppm (parts per million) can affect your cognitive function by up to 35%. Imagine being 35% dumber just because you didn't open the windows. Bad lighting can have the same effect.

Nature

Things I have personally experienced:

Environment, efficiency

LEDs are supposedly better for the environment yet they harm not only the actual wildlife but also our body and mind.

Has anyone realistically seen a drop in energy prices following the adoption of LEDs? I don't think so! Supposedly, New York (or another city, see 4chan thread) saved "14 million dollars" by switching to LEDs. But this probably only factors in the energy costs and not the actual cost of the bulbs, which typically cost more than the sodium vapour equivalent. And really, this cost reduction amounts to $2 per head (considering taxes are spread out equally, which they are not, so realistically the top taxpayers would pay a little more and ordinary peoples would pay less than a dollar) - not a significant cost - which I suppose many people would pay. I guess this article could be linked to another one about how we are being misled about energy prices and usage. Using LEDs at home instead of an incandescent is not going to "save the planet", even if the entire planet somehow switched (as has pretty much already been done). Net energy usage is still rising - and fast. Data centres, a boom in consumption and the delayed clean energy transition are all harming the planet more than incandescent bulbs or other less "efficient" technologies ever could. The hypocrisy is that people will gladly empty a water reservoir by using AI but will not use a lamp which benefits their health and the ecosystems around us. And the argument that if "everyone saved a bit of energy by using LEDs" is total bogus, as household energy usage does not even contribute much at all to the total energy consumption. (Source needed)

How long they last compared to incandescent? Energy efficiency?

Street Lighting - Cost, and the big, fat LIE

Industry lobbying, misconceptions, and a total disregard for our health, are the only reasons why streetlights use LED bulbs.

Get ready to have your mind blown away: LPS (Low Pressure Socium) bulbs are cheaper, more efficient, more environmentally friendly, and easier to recycle than LED equivalents.

WHATTTTT??? You say? Well it is unfortunately the harsh reality we face. Researching this topic and finding all the LIES, the industry SCUM, and so on made me really mad. It's too bad everything is about money and thus all good things will get destroyed over time.

Misconceptions

As I said above, LEDs are worse in almost every aspect, when compared to LPS. The first thing we need to consider is that it is not about how many Watts the bulb and fixture uses, but rather how much light output you get per Watt. This is called "Lumens per Watt (lm/W). Another potential issue is how efficient the light actually is; LED light is all output in the direction of the bulb, whereas LPS is output all surrounding the bulb (you can observe this with the shape of the bulb) [NOTE: INSERT IMAGE]. This causes LPS to lose some of its efficiency, because to output all light in one direction, you have to use a mirror, which slightly decreases light output. LPS also requires a ballast, and needs more replacements.

Now that we have the negatives out of the way:

LEDs are much less reliable (archived). They may last a fair bit longer, but are often riddled with problems such as flicker, light output decreasing a lot over time, colour changing over time, etc.

Price, industry lobbying

Because LEDs promise lots of things which I have debunked above, the LED insustry likes to charge a lot more for these bulbs than the LPS equivalent. [NOTE: ADD SOURCE]

WARNING - I am not sure how accurate this data is:

Metric LPS LED
Manufacture cost ($) 10-50 15-150
Retail Price ($) 15-60 150-1250
Profit $ / % 5 - 15 / 50 125 - 1100 / ~400 - ~900
Installed price per pole (retrofit) ($) Example Example
Installed price per pole (new pole) ($) Example Example

Environmental impact

LEDs are MUCH more difficult to recycle.

They use a lot more rare earth metals.

Production of LEDs emits a lot more CO2. The manufacturing energy is much higher too.

The economic and capitalist perspective

Diggy's "How money and the profit motive destroy everything" (archived) explains this well: We are destroying the environment, our health, and many other things for a barely measurable cost saving. There are a plethora of different solutions to stopping climate change and saving money.

Why are governments banning the sales of filament bulbs, CCFL tubes, etc?

How to avoid and replacements

A promising technology which may be a viable solution to the problem of computer monitors is eink. It is currently still very expensive and being developed, but it looks like it doesnt need any LEDs to drive it, possibly only being used as an optional backlight. Another promising alternative, although relatively expensive ($600), is the incandescent backlit LCD display.

LEDs are technologically superior, but sometimes a technologically superior product is not better for us.

Sometimes, less is more.

Feel free to share ideas by contacting me.

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