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Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

nationalgeographic.com

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Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#981

Post by jesterson »

abenga wrote: post #951
jesterson wrote: post #914

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spot on. There is substantial amount of companies/people profiteering from climate change fearmongering, so we may expect the trend not to go down very fast

Really? I get the sense we (as in all of us collectively) are not taking it seriously enough. I wonder where this "fearmongering" is happening. A lot of stuff that is happening (the Western US drought that seems to be the worst in a millenium plus the consequent heavy use of groundwater, triple dip la nina, etc.) seem like they should worry us more than they actually are.

What you describing is your personal perception, based (like most of us) on what is circulating in media.

Objectively, “climate change” was happening on this planet allegedly since it was born 4.6 billion years ago. It’s a natural course of things.

To understand the scope of fear mongering you can look what “priests” were saying 10 years ago and how much of their predictions came out as true. It’s quite interesting. They use shortness of human memory.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#982

Post by sudneys »

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #973
Dig1t wrote: post #778

Earlier quoted context omitted.

sigh Okay, so there is a decent amount of scientific evidence suggesting there could be a link. I mentioned in my comment that she treats the subject very gingerly, rightly so, because people will respond the way you are likely to respond. However, saying that it is dangerous is a very good way to shut down the conversation completely, or demonize those trying to gather an honest understanding of reality. Consider th…

­> Okay, so there is a decent amount of scientific evidence suggesting there could be a link. That's the thing -- there isn't. At best, it's a working theory that is equal to any other theory. Saying that something is dangerous means that we should err on the side of caution, it does not mean that we should not discuss it. Plenty of scientific topics are dangerous and require a close cooperation with an ethics board…

If it's not a disease, then it shouldn't be treated like one. The hormonal medications, breast surgery and genital surgery should all be stopped immediately.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#983

Post by polio »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #929
polio wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These things are not mutually exclusive. I don't see any evidence that would justify a high degree of confidence that the person you're replying to is wrong.

The extraordinary claim is the top comment: that trans people are exploding in count vs it being a repressed demographic. It is the obligation of THAT person to provide evidence, since they are making the claim that it is some "evil toxin in the environment".

Nobody has said that the population is exploding or that there is an evil toxin. The evidence here is for a proliferation of endocrine disrupting compounds. Given that gender expression is affected by hormones, I don't see how the claim is extraordinary.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#985

Post by ironmagma »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #913
TexanFeller wrote: post #855

One thing that I'm genuinely curious about that I've never heard addressed is whether the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular) could be related to the same factors that are causing lowered sperm counts and testosterone in men. There are massive amounts of compounds in our environment that are endocrine disrupters or mimic sex hormones like estrogen. Like maybe many persons assumed…

This is not the first time I have seen a question like this asked on HN. It's generally really controversial to ask it because trans individuals are fighting for recognition, rights and humane treatment at the most basic level, so it generally gets taken as a means to be dismissive and attack their cause rather than helpful and suggesting a possible alternative path for at least some trans individuals. The world has…

If you ever need an example of “chilling”, just reread that last paragraph. HN front page is a great place to discuss these issues; there are lots of thoughtful and intelligent minds to iterate on an answer.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#986

Post by ironmagma »

4gotunameagain wrote: post #947
maxsilver wrote: post #896

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the large increase of people identifying as trans(trans women in particular) Well, that's not quite accurate. (a) there isn't a large increase of trans people, historically speaking, just folks being more open and honest about their status recently, since it's become marginally less punished in a few specific places, than it has been prior, and (b) in recent years, trans men or transmasc folks are the largest group…

Currently it is impossible to know whether the increasing numbers of people identifying as trans is due to less fear of punishment as you say, or due to hormonal disruption. The only way I've thought of is long term studies of endocrine disruption quantification in pregnant mothers and their children, correlated with transexualism. > This is barbaric if you think about it for more than 5 seconds. It is barbaric to no…

The expediency with which children are put on this surgery track is truly disgusting. Let them grow up and decide with a brain that can consent.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#987

Post by lisper »

siftrics wrote: post #907
lisper wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be, but that is not what TFA was about. It was about human sperm counts dropping, and that is absolutely not an emergency. Humans are in no danger of going extinct.

Why don't you just go hide in a corner and stop interacting with humans if you hate them so much?

There are no corners to hide in. The entire planet is infested with homo sapiens.

(For the record: I don't hate humans. I just think the current supply is more than adequate, and that in the long run it would not be a bad thing if there were fewer then 8 billion of us alive at the same time.)

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#988

Post by kazinator »

inkblotuniverse wrote: post #933
kazinator wrote: post #856

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The species that mutilates and heats the planet, and which created those companies? This may be a long-overdue self-correction. Global infertility may just be what solves global warming.

You're welcome to properly end your own fertility at any time. I quite like humans.

I can prove that you don't quite like humans.

How many destitute families are you sheltering in your home?

The world is polluted, and heating up. The most obvious parameter of that is this: the sheer number of people.

You can like people and be on board with the idea that there is such a thing as too many people in one place at one time. The extreme example of that is crowding incidents in which people die, like the one in Seoul this Halloween. No, it's not always "the more, the merrier".

Buildings, vehicles, and various structures and equipment which support or carry people all have maximum occupancies.

Maybe, so do planets?

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#989

Post by biomcgary »

seydor wrote: post #834
akiselev wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the vast majority of recorded history people married someone from their village of 200 people or from a nearby village a few miles away. It doesn't matter how weird our mating rituals are when there's not much variability to begin with. Modern urban cities provide access to a much more diverse gene pool which allows individuals to select across a much wider range of characteristics.

Then it seems that sexual selection selects for weaker sperm? That sounds like a contradiction

Sexual selection is invoked to explain all sorts of things that seem counter-intuitive at face value. The best know example is peacock feathers, which make males more susceptible to predators and are energetically costly. Thus, a male who has an elaborate display must be healthier and more vigorous than one that does not.

Re: Sperm counts worldwide are plummeting faster than we thought

#990

Post by kelseyfrog »

TexanFeller wrote: post #893
janef0421 wrote: post #877

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be the case that endocrine disruptors may be increasing the likelihood a person is trans, but what you are proposing is almost certainly incorrect and would not work. Using sex-aligned hormones to cause a person to become cisgender is sometimes tried and does not appear to be effective, and I am not aware of any evidence that transgender people's pre-transition hormone levels are substantially lower than the…

> Also, this theory would suggest that eunuchs, self-identified men who voluntarily undergo gonad removal, would generally come to identify as women, but this is not the case Not necessarily, there are other possibilities, for example the mechanism might not be lack of male hormones, but elevated female hormones, or environmental contaminant analogs thereof.

If true, it would likely be much more complicated than simply hormone levels. Many trans people have their hormones tested before HRT[1] to establish a baseline and then again after starting to dial in the correct dosage. If it were that simple, baseline testing would reveal it en mass.

The hormone panel is typically T,E1,E2, but human hormonal pathways are complex[2] and not fully understood. There are, for examples, hypotheses involving "backdoor" pathways that should/could be verified, but aren't due to lack of research funding directed toward an admittedly small group of people.

1. That's not to say all or even most, but it is very very common.

2. https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/WikiJournal_of_Medicine/Diag...

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