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] 15 points 1 day ago (1 children)

what could explain the incredibly high numbers of Americans who seem incapable of critical thinking

Garbage education system.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

100%. It's been intentionally neutered to keep people ignorant and stupid in their decisions.

It's 'razing of the library of Alexandria' bad for our near future. The only thing worse I can think of is plastic pollution.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

You’d have to shoot thousands of rounds in an unventilated room to get even close to one day of leaded gasoline exposure

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I figured copper jackets would greatly reduce lead exposure, which is all I used when I used to shoot.

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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) (7 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.)

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Leaded gas wasn't fully stopped until 1996. Still in some aviation used (piston plane engines).

But yes I wonder about shooting ranges too. I think a couple times a year at an indoor range isn't insignificant.

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

You're half right, they're are brain damaged.

But bullets?

I don't know man. Seems unlikely. Leaded fuel and lead paint tho..?

#Lead Exposure in Last Century Shrank IQ Scores of Half of Americans

Leaded gasoline calculation to have stolen over 800 million cumulative IQ points since 1940s

A new study calculates that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from more than 170 million Americans alive today, about half the population of the United States.

https://today.duke.edu/2022/03/lead-exposure-last-century-shrunk-iq-scores-half-americans

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

Probably not.

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