Well that explains a lot. Seriously though, for a wealthy first world nation the levels intellectual rational debate in America is generally pretty shockingly poor.
Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
71–80 of 102 posts
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#72A lot of companies don’t hire people who were born before leaded gasoline was banned. For many roles with high mental load it’s seen as a liability.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the risk of stating the obvious, IQ points aren't a measure and adding them up doesn't yield a meaningful number. It's like adding up the numbers on football player's jerseys; if the total of a team's numbers goes up, that doesn't make the team better. Similarly, a reduction in the total amount of "IQ points lost" could easily correspond to more damage to cognitive intelligence caused by lead exposure.
>> This amounted to a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points, disproportionately endured by those born between 1951 and 1980 > At the risk of stating the obvious, IQ points aren't a measure and adding them up doesn't yield a meaningful number. It's like adding up the numbers on football player's jerseys; if the total of a team's numbers goes up, that doesn't make the team better. Similarly, a reduction in the total amou…
> What matters is that the number conveys a sense of magnitude. We collectively lost almost a billion IQ points!
But losing a billion IQ points might be less bad than losing 10M IQ points, because there is literally no scale.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#74I recall as a kid, soldering circuit boards. I distinctly remember the label "low lead" and also the smell of the smoke it made. At times, and this is stupid, i would find myself chewing on a piece of the unburnt solder as i debugged a circuit board. Mistakes were made...
You were smelling the rosin in the solder burning. All of that lead exposure likely pales in comparison to what was happening driving in a car with windows down (when AC wasn't common) and all the cars around you were burning leaded gas with zero emissions control equipment like catalytic converters. You were just getting blasted by air full of lead and other combustion products.
AC in general wouldn't help so much; air circulation would help a little
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#75A bit of clarification that was something that didn't occur to me immediately from the title: The article is that half of the living US population was exposed to adverse lead levels as a child, not that half of US children today are exposed to adverse lead levels.
Makes sense. We had it lying around when I was a kid (in the 1960's).
We used to make impressions in clay with ordinary objects then fire up the shop gas torch, melt lead chunks in a forge pot, and pour it into our clay molds! It cooled in seconds, you could break the clay and have a lead toy. Fun!
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#76A bit of clarification that was something that didn't occur to me immediately from the title: The article is that half of the living US population was exposed to adverse lead levels as a child, not that half of US children today are exposed to adverse lead levels.
Makes sense. We had it lying around when I was a kid (in the 1960's). We used to make impressions in clay with ordinary objects then fire up the shop gas torch, melt lead chunks in a forge pot, and pour it into our clay molds! It cooled in seconds, you could break the clay and have a lead toy. Fun!
I can’t find the reference but I’m pretty sure the majority of childhood lead exposure was via leaded fuel in cars.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Good to know. I've always wondered, cause I accidentally got a good whiff of it once and ... my cheeks were red for what felt like hours or a day. My memory of it is hazy. I've got ventilation going much stronger now.
It’s not good to be inhaling flux either.
Generally speaking, if you can smell it, it’s not good for you to inhale.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
The poster to whom you are replying is completely correct. It's not the same thing as thinking the windows they're putting in are ugly. It's not even like asbestos mitigation, where stupid decisions there only really impact the people who live there. These are health and safety risks to people around you, not just you yourself. It's a community concern. Your neighbors' decisions around lead management and mitigation…
I'm sorry, can we go back to the part where i "don't let my neighbors" do something? Unless they are in violation of a law that is actually enforced by someone, I don't think I have standing to let or not let them do anything.
In which you have convincing demonstrated that libertarianism and lead poisoning are locked in a mutually-sustaining cycle of brain damage.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
You were smelling the rosin in the solder burning. All of that lead exposure likely pales in comparison to what was happening driving in a car with windows down (when AC wasn't common) and all the cars around you were burning leaded gas with zero emissions control equipment like catalytic converters. You were just getting blasted by air full of lead and other combustion products.
AC in general wouldn't help so much; air circulation would help a little
AC would help because the air coming into the car would pass through an air filter.
Re: Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood
#80A bit of clarification that was something that didn't occur to me immediately from the title: The article is that half of the living US population was exposed to adverse lead levels as a child, not that half of US children today are exposed to adverse lead levels.
Makes sense. We had it lying around when I was a kid (in the 1960's). We used to make impressions in clay with ordinary objects then fire up the shop gas torch, melt lead chunks in a forge pot, and pour it into our clay molds! It cooled in seconds, you could break the clay and have a lead toy. Fun!
In the 70s I made a pair of barbells melting 15 kg of the pipes that were replaced. Definitely fun!