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Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

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Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#31

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

Same goes for sugar. We know the dangers it poses, we are also seeing how much it increases risk of death due to covid. I don't think we should be surpsied, as much as pushing to regulate this garbage. As an aside, Michelle Obama's campaign when Obama was in office was about improvement children's health. Her focus was going to be on nutrition (lunch food). Shortly thereafter Coke and Pepsi came in with "donations" a…

Sugar is at least a substance that one can choose not to eat. Lead poisoning and pollution aren’t choices.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#32

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

similarly, the second leading cause of death is cancer, and yet we willingly bask in cancer-causing substances all the time. future generations will probably look back and think, wtf?

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#33
post #17
post #6

Didn't we have a previous study debunking this research on statistical grounds?

there's this thing about the modern internet era which makes it possible to find a study to debunk (or support) pretty much any idea/theory you want. specially in the midst of an information/propaganda war all I'm trying to say is that I have decided not to think in the way you just did e.g. "where's that study which supports what I already believe?". It doesn't seem like a good tactic anymore

I'm sort of asking if anyone remembers this as well, was posted on HN, I probably could find it myself but since I don't have the time right now I thought I'd make the comment!

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#35

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

People didn't wear seatbelts in the 1950's. Infant mortality was 10% before the age of 1 in 1910. At the same time, homeless children would roam the streets of cities and orphanages were common. The #1 form of surgery back then was amputation.

To make such a statement implies how little perspective one might have for how hard life was, the risk and tradeoffs being made, especially when there were unknown - and especially for 'how good we have it now'.

I'm not even that old, but I have the lived experience from my grandparents who were born on farms without electricity and I believe without a doubt that we have crossed the line into 'civilizational wealth'. We are really rich for the first time in history. Unequal, yes, but even lower-middle class people have access to vast material bounty: actions, travel, decorative clothing, choices, opportunity, education, amazing produce throughout the year, entertainment, technology, delivery, amazing health care innovations. Heck .... people are even less afraid of getting shot these days because we know how to stabilise and save people. Getting 'shot' used to mean 'pretty much going go die'. Even 'heart surgery' is now done on an outpatient basis these days like getting an oil change.

'Millenials' have already let loose Facebook and other completely destructive technologies, and are taking absolutist views on necessarily complicated things like gender identity (and more) and I'm 100% certain that history will come back like a wrecking ball on at least those things, of course it's already happening with Social Media.

The issue with lead is hard to fathom, it's still a bit grey, I'm wondering what the effect of some other things are going to be i.e. micro plastics, and the steroids they use on livestock etc..

I'm not 'organic' by ideology but I'm wary that there's a lot of risk in those kinds of things.

And it goes further: lighting in the cities all night, and noise pollution in the city and with our gadgets. It should be mostly dark and quiet at night.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#36

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

Speaking as a millennial, don't praise us too soon. We haven't really gotten the reins of power yet, so it's easy to claim that we'd do it better. In reality I imagine we'll still succumb to various corrupting forces just like every other generation.

Granted I still think we have a more enlightened perspective on some issues as a generation just due to better education overall, but at best we might manage a marginal increase in overall quality of life for people.

Plus the basket of crises we've faced starting with the Great Financial Crisis has allowed many to blame external factors for their situation and not take personal responsibility, even when they clearly should. I've met plenty of unwise/stupid millennials who could do more to better their situation, but are happy to just sit still and bitch about everything but their self-destructive habits.

It's like how the Boomers got associated with Woodstock/the hippies/counter-culture, but in reality most Boomers didn't rebel all that much. Boomers elected Reagan, and he ran in part as an anti-counter-culture figure.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#37
post #17
post #6

Didn't we have a previous study debunking this research on statistical grounds?

there's this thing about the modern internet era which makes it possible to find a study to debunk (or support) pretty much any idea/theory you want. specially in the midst of an information/propaganda war all I'm trying to say is that I have decided not to think in the way you just did e.g. "where's that study which supports what I already believe?". It doesn't seem like a good tactic anymore

It also does not help that many scientific papers suffer from a reproducibility problem.

But I hate to sink into defeatism and assume that there is no such thing as objective fact unless I do the experiments myself (and get them right...).

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#38

It makes me angry to think of how wreckless the generations before millenials were. Lead's risks and damages were well-known long before 1996. And they still didn't ban it until then.

Lead still isn't banned in the US. You can go buy 100LL and burn it in your plane all day long showering it over the land below. Completely legal.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of 2021, out of 432 members in the house of congress, a scant 31 are millenials. In the senate, just 1. Millenials are -not- the ones responsible for disastrous policies (yet). They haven't been around long enough yet. It's mainly boomers, some gen x, and a few silents. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-sil... edit: Added "(yet)" because it's not obvious, I suppose. My point here is that the…

Who is the largest single voting bloc? Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE.

Generations don't vote as blocks, but of the named generations the largest number of actual voters are Boomers, still.

2018 was the first election where Gen X and younger together outvoted Boomers and older.

Re: Lead exposure in last century shrunk IQ scores of half of Americans: study

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of 2021, out of 432 members in the house of congress, a scant 31 are millenials. In the senate, just 1. Millenials are -not- the ones responsible for disastrous policies (yet). They haven't been around long enough yet. It's mainly boomers, some gen x, and a few silents. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/02/12/boomers-sil... edit: Added "(yet)" because it's not obvious, I suppose. My point here is that the…

Who is the largest single voting bloc? Edit: That struck a chord with millenials, ha! Tell your friends that bitching does not help, voting does. Boomers seem to understand this and so they have a disproportionate amount of influence. You want it to stop? VOTE.

It's my understanding that millenials and gen-z make up 31% [0], as of -2020-. Boomers and older still make up 44%. So sure, go ahead and blame millenials and gen-z for policies made in 2020 and onward.

0: https://catalist.us/wh-national/

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