this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2024
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I have been thinking a lot since the election about what could explain the incredibly high numbers of Americans who seem incapable of critical thinking, or really any kind of high level rational thought or analysis.

Then I stumbled on this post https://old.reddit.com/r/guns/comments/16ires5/lead_exposure_from_shooting_is_a_much_more/

Which essentially explains that “Shooting lead bullets at firing ranges results in elevated BLLs at concentrations that are associated with a variety of adverse health outcome"

I looked at the pubmed abstract in that Reddit post and also this one https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5289032/

Which states, among other things, “Workers exposed to lead often show impaired performance on neurobehavioral test involving attention, processing, speed, visuospatial abilities, working memory and motor function. It has also been suggested that lead can adversely affect general intellectual performance.”

Now, given that there are well in excess of 300 million guns in the United States, is it possible lead exposure at least partially explains how brain dead many Americans seem to be?

This is a genuine question not a troll and id love to read some evidence to the contrary if any is available

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I doubt that there are enough people shooting enough guns often enough for it to be more than just trace exposures, it likely must be something else.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 1 day ago (5 children)

It's regular old religion, shit culture, and propaganda just like it always is.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Plus, Gen-X and Boomers were exposed to a lot of lead.

Gasoline types used to be "Regular or Unleaded" and Regular, I think, and required a"special" engine.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

There is an episode of Mind Field on youtube, it's their halloween episode that explored the source of fear in humans. It had a campy feel to it but also contained a lot of good information.

The conclusion made in the video is that there are very few "universal fears", things that cause fear in every human test subject regardless of race, culture, age, etc.

They were able to find one though: humans universally do not like the feeling of suffocation, specifically we are pretty sensitive to the ratio of oxygen and CO2 we are inhaling.

The brain interprets an increase in the CO2 concentration in the blood as "suffocation" and activates the fear response to try to protect us.

What have been dumping absolute metric fuck loads into the atmosphere in the past centuries? Countless amounts of CO2. And the concentration is only going up and up and up.

All of us are experiencing elevated amounts of CO2 in the blood, and all of us are universally feeling some level of the fear response because of it. Might explain what seems to be a lot of really bad decision making across all of society, people are scared, don't know where it's coming from, and are seeking anyone and anything that can help fix it immediately, whether or not it's actually helping.

Fear is the mind killer.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I really can't imagine CO2 concentrations in the air is "suffocating" us. Air is mostly nitrogen, then oxygen, CO2 is a tiny sliver (which yes traps heat, different problem.)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The other commenter didnt say it's suffocating us, just that CO2 levels are used by the body to figure out whether we are suffocating, and that the elevated levels might cause a subconscious reaction. We nearly doubled the CO2 compared to before industrialization.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Seriously? I used the word suffocating to reference what he said about suffocating, however he danced around it. It's called context. *I added quotation marks to match his quotation marks if that helps.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

First off, no need to be so condescending.

Next, what do you mean by dancing around it? The original comment just said that we might have some adverse effects, not that it is suffocating us. The word suffocation was originally only mentioned to explain that our body is capable of noticing differences in CO2 concentration.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Whatever their attitude, the poster is right. They added valuable information that disproved the OPs hypothesis.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I still dont see how it disproves anything. Yeah, we have little amounts of co2 in our air, why should that mean that we can't detect a change?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

It's really the idiocracy theory. Dumb people have more and more kids while smart people tend to have 0 to 2 kids. It's exponetially growing the amount of dumb people. Besides some people that had potential dumbed themselfs down by joining organized religion. very sad

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Eugenics but because a funny movie said it it's suddenly acceptable to parrot. 🙄

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (4 children)

It's not eugenics. Nobody was forced to have more or less children and none of it was based on ethnicity. It's an uncomfortable thing to talk about, but it's real. Unlike eugenics.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes it it it at least spreads harmful ideas about genetic and biological essentialism.

And no its not because of "stupid people" that the election turned out the way it did.

The subject is more complex and saying it was due to stupidity is a very easy answer that ignores the role power and wealth and a broken system play into the victory of trump.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not smart vs dumb though, it's educated vs uneducated. I seemingly small distinction but a critical one.

There's a distinct inverse correlation with the mean education level of a population and their birth rate (the better educated a group is the fewer babies they have) especially when you look at the women in that population.

Uneducated parents don't value education in their children and so on and so on. Educated parents very much do value education in their children and actively participate in the schooling.

These two factors together mean that there's a increasing number of people who do not value educating themselves or their children and also tend to identify with those politicians who present as uneducated (while actually being highly educated and highly intelligent but lacking in any empathy or morality). This is one factor in why populist parties are gaining traction again in western democracies.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

Don't forget the gutting of the school system over the past 40 years. Now we're at "Let's abolish the Department of Education". It's so sick.

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