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Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

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Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#21

Post by taylodl »

ironmagma wrote: post #9
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #4

In terms of literally ending the human race, this seems a bit of hyperbole. The statistic that matters is the percentage of women who want to have children but cannot. I didn't see that pointed to as a trend, and if it actually did become worrisome, those who have virile sperm can donate so those women can still become pregnant.

It’s not okay if you’re just scraping the bottom of the barrel for viable sperm. All of human evolution, there has been a wide variety of males to choose from, of whom only a small percentage reproduce. That’s how we evolve. If we are arbitrarily eliminating say half of all the males due to environmental reasons from the pool, that’s a big problem for our ability to evolve.

Environment pressure is a huge force in Natural Selection. If the changing environment makes it so that 50% of males can't sire offspring then Natural Selection is working, right? I'm not following how this is "bottom of the barrel", this appears to be simply how Nature works.

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#22

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

lm28469 wrote: post #5

> Total sperm count in the Western world had fallen 59% between 1973 and 2011. It doesn't take a genius to see that the West is degenerating. We've never been so fat, unhealthy, lazy, complacent, &c. when our whole lifestyle revolves around producing chemical waste and consuming exhaust fume, micro plastics and leftover pesticides it really isn't a surprise our bodies are starting to fail, garbage in garbage out. But…

Hrm. But... that isn't limited to the 'west'. For one the 'fatkins-diet' is popular in other areas than 'the west' too. For another being exposed to toxins in the environment is actually more likely elsewhere. At least nowadays.

Maybe one should call it 'reckless industrialisation', or something. But it is no 'western' phenomenon anymore.

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#23

Post by stareatgoats »

taylodl wrote: post #20
lm28469 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes we got better at artificially maintaining people alive that's for sure, I hardly count that as a meaningful metric. It's a bit like GDP, if all you look at are the two things on a positive trend you might miss the forest for the trees. We can also talk about depression, suicide (both attempted and successful), &c. When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese you have to start asking questions, this i…

When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese - there's a saying for this: these are first-world problems, i.e. this is a good problem to have. I'm not denying obesity is a problem and it's having an impact on our health, but if I were a policymaker I would much prefer having the problem where 40%+ of my country's population is obese than 40%+ of my population is starving due to crop yield failure and fai…

Textbook false dichotomy there my friend.

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#24

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

lm28469 wrote: post #18
machinebun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down Except somehow life expectancy is the highest ever (excluding a small spike down lately in USA). Plus we took lead out of houses and gasoline, and smoking rates are down across the world... this should not be under-estimated. The young generation right now is actually likely one of the healthiest comparatively (even with the increased obesity rates)

Yes we got better at artificially maintaining people alive that's for sure, I hardly count that as a meaningful metric. It's a bit like GDP, if all you look at are the two things on a positive trend you might miss the forest for the trees. We can also talk about depression, suicide (both attempted and successful), &c. When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese you have to start asking questions, this i…

Because we all aspire to the ideals of living like in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WALL-E and/or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy <- Not Zexy! Or is it?

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#25

Post by ironmagma »

taylodl wrote: post #21
ironmagma wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not okay if you’re just scraping the bottom of the barrel for viable sperm. All of human evolution, there has been a wide variety of males to choose from, of whom only a small percentage reproduce. That’s how we evolve. If we are arbitrarily eliminating say half of all the males due to environmental reasons from the pool, that’s a big problem for our ability to evolve.

Environment pressure is a huge force in Natural Selection. If the changing environment makes it so that 50% of males can't sire offspring then Natural Selection is working, right? I'm not following how this is "bottom of the barrel", this appears to be simply how Nature works.

Yes, but historically the environmental limitations have likely been a bit more meaningful than, "this group of males unknowingly bought product X which unknowingly contained contaminants from a grocery store," or "this group of males live near an airport."

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#26

Post by Isinlor »

lm28469 wrote: post #18
machinebun wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's like every single meaningful metrics are going down Except somehow life expectancy is the highest ever (excluding a small spike down lately in USA). Plus we took lead out of houses and gasoline, and smoking rates are down across the world... this should not be under-estimated. The young generation right now is actually likely one of the healthiest comparatively (even with the increased obesity rates)

Yes we got better at artificially maintaining people alive that's for sure, I hardly count that as a meaningful metric. It's a bit like GDP, if all you look at are the two things on a positive trend you might miss the forest for the trees. We can also talk about depression, suicide (both attempted and successful), &c. When 40%+ of your country's population is medically obese you have to start asking questions, this i…

We would characterize life of practically all our ancestors from before 1900 as extreme poverty today [0].

Children and youth mortality It was norm back then to have kids with the assumption that you have to have twice as many kids as you need to help you with your work.

Child labor was norm, not exception. Ability to read was exception too.

Life expectancy at birth some hundreds years ago was around 30 to 40 years all across the world [0].

Currently, no country in the world has a lower life expectancy than the countries with the highest life expectancy in 1800 [0].

We eliminated basically all infectious diseases in the west and we are rapidly doing the same in the rest of the world.

COVID-19 during Smallpox would barely register to our ancestors (2% CFR vs. 30% CFR) [2].

Last decade extreme poverty was the lowest it ever was [3].

Around half of the world population lives today in democracy. [4]

[0] https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality

[2] https://ourworldindata.org/smallpox

[3] https://ourworldindata.org/extreme-poverty

[4] https://ourworldindata.org/democracy

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#27

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

missedthecue wrote: post #12
lm28469 wrote: post #5

> Total sperm count in the Western world had fallen 59% between 1973 and 2011. It doesn't take a genius to see that the West is degenerating. We've never been so fat, unhealthy, lazy, complacent, &c. when our whole lifestyle revolves around producing chemical waste and consuming exhaust fume, micro plastics and leftover pesticides it really isn't a surprise our bodies are starting to fail, garbage in garbage out. But…

Fatter, yes. But I think it might surprise you how toxic basic life was in the 1950s. There was a time that this was a normal day in London - https://i.imgur.com/8jRGvYf.jpeg And this, a normal day in LA - https://i.imgur.com/YlimuGS.jpg

My all time 'favourite': http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/print_document.cfm?docum...

Instead of 'canary in the coal mine' dead crows near the oil plant.

edit: There isn't any heavy industry there, just cows, sheep, and grass, maybe some other agriculture, and peat. Has always been like that, and is almost unchanged now. Also no heavy traffic at all. Just the petrochemical plant. And a nuclear power plant. But that had no leaks.

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#28

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

jonnycomputer wrote: post #13

Nuclear annihilation is a much more likely threat to the human race. We just constantly shove it out of our minds because its too damn scary. I know I do. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, or focus on my job if I thought about it too much. Climate change is also scary. And could lead to conflicts that cause nuclear exchanges. That's also a more credible threat than falling sperm count. Falling sperm count may be…

Take it easy! Spontane Verdampfung führt zur Entkrampfung!

(Spontaneous vaporization leads to relaxation!)

Yeeeehaaaaw!

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#29

Post by taylodl »

ironmagma wrote: post #25
taylodl wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environment pressure is a huge force in Natural Selection. If the changing environment makes it so that 50% of males can't sire offspring then Natural Selection is working, right? I'm not following how this is "bottom of the barrel", this appears to be simply how Nature works.

Yes, but historically the environmental limitations have likely been a bit more meaningful than, "this group of males unknowingly bought product X which unknowingly contained contaminants from a grocery store," or "this group of males live near an airport."

Natural Selection is going to select for who's best able to survive in a man-made world. We already see that happening with animals. I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing but simply how the entire ecosystem is evolving.

Re: Falling sperm counts could threaten the human race

#30

Post by ironmagma »

taylodl wrote: post #29
ironmagma wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but historically the environmental limitations have likely been a bit more meaningful than, "this group of males unknowingly bought product X which unknowingly contained contaminants from a grocery store," or "this group of males live near an airport."

Natural Selection is going to select for who's best able to survive in a man-made world. We already see that happening with animals. I'm not entirely sure this is a bad thing but simply how the entire ecosystem is evolving.

Right, that's how things are, but it's not probably what should be. Man-made contraptions are hardly long-term stable or hospitable to life, including our own.

Additionally, IVF bypasses natural selection since it is artificial.

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