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
I think far more people are exposed to lead in water than from guns. Even gun-owning Americans don’t go to the range that often.
That’s a good point, especially the fact the most people who own guns don’t shoot them that often, but re: lead in the water, hasn’t the issue of lead in water become less significant over time?
This post by New York City government states that actually construction work is the most common source of lead exposure for people in the city, followed by sketchy consumer products. https://a816-dohbesp.nyc.gov/IndicatorPublic/data-stories/adult-lead/#%3A~%3Atext=This+continued+drop+in+blood%2Cair%2C+paint+and+consumer+products.
Maybe just generally we’re not taking the adverse cognitive effects of lead exposure, whatever the source, seriously enough?
Edit: someone else in the comments made the connection between the high numbers of lead water pipes in Florida and the “Florida man” phenomenon. Maybe lead in the water is still way more significant of an issue than I thought
Also bear in mind that leaded gas was the norm til the mid 90s, so a lot of boomers and Gen X were exposed
was the norm
In the US, it was only banned from being sold in 1996, but it wasn’t the norm for long before that. The last model year that leaded gas was allowed for cars was 1974. Yes, all Boomers and most of Gen X would have had high exposure, but it would have been fading out by the time younger Gen Xers were born.
And yes there are some non-car applications of it that are still legal to this day, but the overall frequency of it would have dropped a ton well before the mid-90s. (Source, and actual graphs of the decline over time)
I think they are trying to phase out 100LL right now
They’re trying again. AvGas has always been more of a challenge, more resistant to change, but also a niche market segment. They were also trying twenty years ago when I did some flying, but progress has been glacial. Personally I always hoped we’d get new engines that could run on jet fuel, so avgas could just go away ( one of the things holding back general aviation is cost, and jet fuel is much cheaper). We should probably treat land near airports as contaminated, but there really aren’t many airports and the number continues to shrink
Holy shit. I gues lemmy is a pretty young place for you to say something so completely wrong and get so many upvotes for it. Most cars have been “unleaded gasoline only” since the mid to late 70"s.
Think about it. Do you think those cars from the 1990’s still on the road today have all had engine and fuel pump swaps on them to run unleaded? Heck no. Most all the cars you’re going to find from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s all still say “unleaded fuel only” by the gas gauge. Most gas stations in the 1980’s didn’t even offer leaded gasoline.
My aunt spent a long time working in education in the USA, much of it in leadership roles. When she incorporated lessons on critical thinking into the curriculum, it resulted in a lot of pushback from parents who did not appreciate their kids applying the lessons at home.
People who actively resist the use of critical thinking will seem cognitively impaired because they are, in fact intentionally impairing their cognition. My intuition here is to blame religious fundamentalism, but that’s not a well-researched position.
100%
“We are already providing all the answers you will ever need.” -religion
Organized religion is, fundamentally — at its very core — based on rejecting critical thought; to “just have faith” in the unknown/unknowable.
It is in no way surprising that it’s incompatible with advanced science/evidence-based civilization.
Yeah man. When that kid starts asking questions and challenging the family norms, that’s the teacher’s fault for making their life harder. It isn’t a sign that the parent needs to adapt.
Adapting IS a pain in the ass. Some parents don’t have the faculties to do it. Some do, but don’t after getting done with work. It is truely a generational trauma that the parent has to head off in themselves for it to carry to early aged kids.
Fundamentalism is certainly a contributing factor, but there are others. Conservatives have been working to cut back on education since the early 80’s. Removing critical thinking training was one of the objectives… Conservative policies are unpopular and are often supported with misrepresentations and outright lies. To succeed, they need a public without the knowledge or skills to realize their arguments are invalid. Unfortunately, they have gone a long way toward accomplishing that.
A lot of parental pushback comes from frustration over the Dunning-Kruger effect, where somebody who learns a little about a subject feels like an expert. This is often where kids are at. If you keep studying the same material you realize how much you don’t know, which tends to make you feel ignorant, but as you continue you get better at gauging what level you’re at. A lot of it is a matter of maturity. Some parents don’t mind that the kids are learning new things, they just aren’t very good at parenting it. Highly religious people are more likely to see outside information and analyticals skills as a threat, because yeah they are - for good reason lol.
haven’t shot a gun in at least 20 years and I’m retarded as shit. so…
The damage has been done, probably 😂
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The average ACT score in Florida among college-bound seniors is about 18. To be clear, that is only slightly higher than my cat can score by guessing. It’s an astonishing result. They are actually illiterate. And again, that’s the average for the state (nationally it’s around 22), and half of them do worse.
If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with an average person… well, you can’t. There’s nothing to discuss except sports, since everything else is way too complicated. So now imagine a standard deviation lower.
If you’ve ever tried to have a conversation with an average person… well, you can’t.
I grew up in Virginia Beach/Hampton roads, and moved to Tennessee in 09 at 18. I’ve never really wanted to admit that outloud, to be honest, but I feel like the only normal person in this state sometimes. I’ve been here for over 15 years and I have met a grand total of 7 people I could have a decent conversation with, one of which is an Episcopal priest from another state, and 2 I met specifically through left wing organizing, so a group with membership that’s already higher than likely to be biased to education and intelligence. I knew people back home that were smart. I don’t mean educated, or some High Potential/Sheldon Cooper shit, I mean they were rational, intelligent human beings capable of common sense and able to hold a conversation. And remember, I was a teenager when I left. At 17 my peers in Hampton Roads were more capable at humaning than are my peers here at 33.
That makes me deeply sad, and I feel like such an elitist shit saying it out loud.
The first time I traveled to America, my first thought after a day meeting southerners was “man, these people are dumb as rocks”. It was a major tourist destination so I met many Americans of normal intelligence from elsewhere, and the southerners were friendly, but man… the things they chose to talk about, and questions they chose to ask, really solidified how dangerous promoting religion over education is. A democracy can only survive when the average is informed, and conservatisms overall anti-intellectualism — its multi-decade attacks on education — is the #2 predictive variable destroying western democracies (the #1 being religion itself).
Let’s just say I’ve been expecting fascist dictatorship for America for over 2 decades, so Trump/MAGA was expected… Though, even with that expectation, I didn’t expect it to be this fucking stupid.
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I find this comment super compelling, especially in combination with some of the other good points in the comments here. thank you
To be clear, the “Floridaman” thing certainly benefits from the “sunshine state” bullshit, but yeah, the rest of your points are sound. 🤌🏽
Was the majority of the German voting public lead-poisoned in the 30s? I don’t think lead was even put in gas then. Those Germans almost certainly were not lead poisoned, and they put a monster into power.
I get wanting a good explanation, but in reality, it’s a simple but unsatisfying explanation. It applies to every country and every population in every era. People are fuckin’ stupid. Carlin said it best:
“Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”
I dislike this saying because it’s always been assumed, never proven, that intelligence follows a normal distribution. That is if it can even be mapped to a single, consistent, comparable number.
But your point is valid. Though I’d add that it’s not universally true. Fascists thrive on fear and ignorance. Give people access to a good education, which includes political education, and they are far more resilient to these tactics.
Which is why it’s especially nefarious that conservatives love to undermine, vilify, and defund education.
I dislike this saying because it’s always been assumed, never proven, that intelligence follows a normal distribution.
Okay, think of the median instead lol
Post reads like some violently uninformed person making a lot of… I don’t want to say racist cuz that’s not really right, but similar sentiments about Americans
Y’all are stupid cuz of your guns
Is about as stupid a thought as possible as you’re you’re claiming we are because of shooting guns and the fact that anyone in the comments is taking it seriously shows y’all have the exact same level of critical thinking skills as those you’re insulting
Yes, but not because of guns. While the adverse effects of leaded gasoline were known in the 60s and leaded gasoline got banned in most countries, the US only phased it out in 1996. Which means that millions of people alive today are exposed as a child. This has a huge impact on IQ:
The average lead-linked loss in cognitive ability was 2.6 IQ points per person as of 2015. This amounted to a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points, disproportionately endured by those born between 1951 and 1980.
I doubt that there are enough people shooting enough guns often enough for it to be more than just trace exposures, it likely must be something else.
Yes it’s actually a pretty ignorant idea. Lead exposure is more likely from car exhaust from leaded gas, which has been severely limited since the 80s.
Lead paint in every house probably didn’t help
Most old lead paint just gets painted over, further sealing it in. It doesn’t do anything to you unless you chew on peeling paint or release it into the air by sanding it.
I’ve been thinking long covid might also be a factor for it getting worse over the last few years.
This is a fascinating angle, I just looked at a couple of pubmed articles as a result of your comment and this one stuck out right away
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38829253/
“Long-COVID is characterized by persistent symptoms following COVID-19 infection, with cognitive impairment being a prominent feature. Symptoms include brain fog, difficulties with concentration, memory issues, and executive function deficits.”
At the end of the day hardly anything has just one cause, and you may be correct that long COVID has had a big impact on the critical thinking problem in America.
Great comment, receiving contributions like this is why I posted the question in the first place, thank you
iirc most spectacular form of neurotoxic damage really only shows years later if lead exposure happened during childhood which also means that little effect will be seen immediately after cleaning up lead but will show up 20 years later or so. that’s still leaded gasoline and maybe paint and water pipes to some degree
Oh that’s interesting, and I hadn’t really thought of that, so even if there is some percentage of the population suffering the cognitive impairments associated with the adverse effects of lead, it’s probably more likely that they were exposed many years or decades ago vs recently
As an outsider (most people in my country don’t shoot guns for fun, but we still have our fair share of morons) I think not educating oneself/not being educated may be a more important cause.
My personal opinion is that it’s more related to the way people spend (waste) their time. All of us, I mean. The way we (do not) educate ourselves, the way we do (not) value intelligence and knowledge.
- How many people shoot guns? vs How many don’t ever read a book (a difficult one, I mean, say one essay a year)? or How many students reach university level without having read a single book? FFS, if that doesn’t ring an alarm bell…
- How many people are (not) being taught how to have heated but articulated discussions, in the literal sense of debating against someone, having a dispute with someone, while still being able to not want to kill one another?
- How many people are willing to be told (and willing to admit that) they were wrong… when they were?
That lack of education and an overall cheerful ignorance of all facts that dare not fit their viewpoint, no matter which one it is, seems to me a much more likely cause to explain why more and more people around the world (not just Americans) ‘seem cognitively impaired’. And that’s because, well, they are. Sadly.
We don’t value knowledge anymore, we value money and success. Once again, suffice to ask people: how many essays did you read in the last 12 months? Or to look at kids, how many of them want to be, say, a doctor, a scientist of some sort or, even funnier, a writer? And how many want to become ‘an influencer’ on YT (or TikTok, or whatever) or to become some star singer or sport star?
Kids have not suddenly become allergic to smartness. They’re only the mirror of what our real values as a society are (not the ones we pretend to have). Which are not being smart, not even talented as a matter of fact. They are: easy money and success.
imho, this is the main cause of dumbification going on everywhere. Obviously, I may be wrong and maybe I should stop eating lead bars as a snack?
I didn’t mean to suggest that it was the only explanation, rather that it might help explain some of the phenomenon of the lack of critical thinking that seems so prevalent in america these days, while also sort of flying under the radar as I don’t really notice people talking about it.
There has always been an anti-intellectual portion of the population but it seems to be expanding rather than contracting over time, whatever the reasons.
That Atlantic article is pretty crazy, I didn’t realize the kids these days don’t read books basically at all in school anymore.
Here’s an archive link for anybody else who wants to check it out since its paywalled
I didn’t mean to suggest that it was the only explanation,
Neither would I, just wanted to… how do you say that in English… to compare two hypothesis and say that between the two, alas, I think the lack of education (which is closely linked to the anti-intellectualism you mention) may be a more important factor.
That Atlantic article is pretty crazy,
And frightening, and sad.
Here’s an archive link for anybody else who wants to check it out since its paywalled
Thx! I did not realize it was now paywalled (I read it a few months ago).
It definitely could be and I appreciate the contribution to the discussion
Some of us were around when leaded gasoline was the norm, and every municipality had a crime rate drop that corellates to their unleaded gas mandate.
Then there’s lead in candy which was a problem until the FDA shut that down.
There still is lead in fuel, and so kids who play in urban playgrounds are supposed to wash their hands before eating anything.
So if our people have detectable elevated lead levels (it has a plenty-long bio half life), I’d question automotive exhaust and industry before worrying about guns at the range. Unless someone is squeezing off a hundred rounds a day.
what could explain the incredibly high numbers of Americans who seem incapable of critical thinking
Garbage education system.
You’d have to shoot thousands of rounds in an unventilated room to get even close to one day of leaded gasoline exposure
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.
Iirc indoor ranges need ventilation systems because, you know, all the combustion. I don’t know if the residue on, say, counters, etc, is enough of a buildup to be significant but I would be surprised if airborne particulate was particularly high.
I saw something that yes the lead levels were high. Ventilation only does so much. It’s that old math problem: you replace half, you replace half, etc, it never gets to zero. And in this case you’re adding more.
Yeah some of the replies have good points about lead damage being cumulative and showing up later, so maybe the workers in those studies I mentioned showed impairment because they were chronically exposed over some lengthy period and the impairments they measured were because of the cumulative exposure?
That also makes me think again though that, like you said, going to the indoor range a few times per year and not taking proper measures to clean oneself could cause some cumulative effect over time?
I mean check out this post where this person’s lead level was over 15 and decreased to 8 after a month of no shooting. Idk but reaching a blood lead level of 15 can’t be good right? Especially if you’re exposed repeatedly over a long period of time?
