Is lead toxicity from shooting guns a primary reason many Americans seem cognitively impaired ?
Is lead toxicity from shooting guns a primary reason many Americans seem cognitively impaired ?
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
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.
This is from the Texas GOP 2012 education platform.
"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."
They backtracked on critical thinking after the outrage it caused with this
- Munisteri told KVUE, "The platform plank is against a specific type of teaching called 'outcome-based education.'
"The reason why critical thinking is mentioned is some places try to disguise the program of outcome-based education and just re-label it as 'critical thinking.' "
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.
Religion is a major component I'm sure but overall parents probably don't want their ideals and norms challenged in their own house. This is probably why people (on the right) say that college liberalized their kids. No, college teaches you how to think and pursue answers to your own questions. Not our fault your ideals are based on tradition and ignorance.
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
Most Americans don't even own guns. A minority of Americans own lots of guns.
And like 9 out of 10 people who own guns go to the range less than a few times a year.
More than half of gun owners have never gone to a range beyond what might have been part of a state's pistol permitting process.
According to Gallup, 44% of American households have guns. This is survey based. If fact, the actual number is unknown. A good guess is somewhere between 1/2 and 2/3.
Gun ranges where I live (California) require employees to wear an exposure monitor for a week or so each year. I talked to a range officer about it, and he said that they had never had the monitors indicate anything that is remotely a problem. Nevertheless, careful gun owners are aware of the problem and ranges that I've been to post notices and have hand cleaning stuff ready at hand.
Before trump, I'd have agreed with this. After trump, it's now increasing at an incredible rate. It was like 32% owned a firearm. Latest pew from this year is 40%. Now with trump back in power, I'm betting you will see us hit 50% or nearly 50%.
And using those guns make them a little dumber every time.
Only takes a minority to go off the rails and spread conspiracy theories. Squeaky wheel and all that.
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.
This amounted to a total loss of 824,097,690 IQ points
What a useless figure compared to the 2.6 per capita given earlier
IQ is a useless data point anyway as even IQ point values have shifted over the past 100-ish years. An average IQ now used to be genius level IQ in the past and it mostly comes down to basic education and not starving.
Adding all the points together feels useless as a metric. But 2.6 per individual doesn't sound as drastic as I was expecting leaded gas to impact. Still bad, just not what I'd call a huge impact.
The lowering of emotional self-regulation and impulse control on the other hand swings wildly with just a few percents over a population with a much more dangerous extreme on the bell curve
No.
No that's kind of stupid.
The amount of lead exposure from shooting is not particularly high and would be concentrated in a very small number of people who are doing things like firing uncoated bullets A LOT ie. reloaders. Most Americans don't own guns and even the ones that do don't fire them indoors extremely regularly and most indoor ranges have soap intended for lead. The lead exposure we're talking about is pretty tiny especially considering lead effects cognition the most during brain DEVELOPMENT and the amount of leaded gas and lead paint are going to be much, much more significant. People who occupationally encounter lead in things like bullets, such as range workers, armorers, etc, monitor their lead exposure and if they are within safe levels the average guy who goes to an indoor range a handful of times a year certainly is. Also, shooting is expensive, most people aren't shooting thousands of rounds a year, so countries with mandatory service where every 18 year old learns to shoot a rifle, likely using thousands of rounds of rifle ammo for every boy as an early adult would still be a much more statistically significant thing, as anyone who has ever received military training has, simply due to cost, shot more rounds than a very large chunk of any population
haven't shot a gun in at least 20 years and I'm retarded as shit. so....
The damage has been done, probably 😂
Being self aware enough to think that probably means you're not all that bad.
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.
It's regular old religion, shit culture, and propaganda just like it always is.
Nailed it! Religion, shit culture and propaganda are all major sources of stupidity!
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
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."
The German population went through serious economic troubles. Wheelbarrows of cash to buy stuff. Economically troubled people get angry and revolt, and in democratic systems that means firstly voting for the extreme candidates, the ones with a good story. Anger shuts down critical thinking and they don't think about other consequences of their vote.
That's how many elections went in a lot of counties in the last few years too.
Yeah, I get that saying people are fuckin stupid is dismissive and over simplified in a lot of cases... But it's also still true and a factor, which adds to all the other factors you're talking about. Ultimately I think if people were more educated and intelligent, they could overcome a lot of irrationality.
Right, but that’s where the analogy breaks down “wheelbarrows of cash”. You can try to reference that situation, you can try to talk about desperate people just wanting to lash out but no one is pushing around “wheelbarrows of cash”. Whatever desperate situation people think they are in pales before the reality. The huge difference in severity means they are hardly comparable at all. By pretty much any stat, we should be doing ok: there have been many times we’ve had it worse, so why is this the moment?
This is where the last couple decades of hatred and divisiveness come in. Politicians bringing forth blame, scapegoats, stoking outrage at our problems. The hatred is always there. The violence is always there. Were conditions to a constant state of anger so that’s where too many turn for even a minor downturn
I got curious; looks like leaded fuel was first introduced in the 1920s.
Interesting. Though I can't say when Germany added it. I believe the 20s was when America started doing it, but according to a podcast I listened to recently, America was the first to start doing it. And also the effects of lead poisoning take decades to manifest.
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
Uneducated people are easier to control. Uneducated people are more likely to join the military or police. It's that simple. And if you haven't heard, Trump's handlers are going to try to abolish the Department of Education.
The vast majority of Americans don’t own/shoot guns. There’s 300 million guns because some people own multiple.
Source: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/the-demographics-of-gun-ownership/
Also, the British literally voted to have a worse economy. We don’t have a monopoly on headassery.
Also, the British literally voted to have a worse economy. We don’t have a monopoly on headassery.
Our Brexit vote narrowly won for the same reason that Trump won again - the weaponisation of our stupid people via social media by right-wing shitbags.
It’s not like these people are getting 75% of the vote and the opposition is fractured. Is’s mostly pluralities or, at best, 52%ish percent of the vote. And 20% of people in any country are just change voters no matter what the change is.
There’s not really mandates in the U.S. Trump won’t even be able to control the House. We got a Belgium situation where there’s no government.
I see where you are going, but you probably should focus less on the guns. Most Americans don't regularly shoot guns, even those that have them. A whole lot also don't own any. But lead is all over in shit like water pipes. Other heavy metals and chemicals are present in higher levels than allowed elsewhere. Also full metal jacket is much more common than it used to be which reduces the lead particles when shooting.
As far as lead water pipes go, they're not nearly as dangerous as they're made out to be. The lead quickly bonds to things in the water creating a layer of corrosion which means the lead doesn't really get in the water.
Don't get me wrong, they should still all be replaced.
Or, you know, the lead that we put into the air for decades burning leaded gasoline...
Even though we've (mostly) stopped doing that, the effects are cumulative, and there are still plenty of people alive who were around when that was still a thing.
Somebody else in the comments said something very similar, I’lll paraphrase what I responded which is that I hadn’t really thought of that, and I’m starting now to come around to the notion that maybe 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
This seems like reaching for the most esoteric and niche explanation to a fairly simple phenomenon.
America's school system sucks, and the anti-authoritarian nature of a culture formed by rejecting monarchy has been coopted to convince people that science and reason are authority figures you ought to fight back against.
The vast majority of Americans aren't gun owners, and the vast majority of gun owners don't shoot very often. You haven't provided evidence for Americans being incapable of critical thinking, but you want evidence for why guns aren't the source of american stupidity.
This is a very silly post. 😅
Well, I’m sure the exposure from going to the shooting range is a lot smaller than this, but lead poisoning from leaded gasoline apparently had a measurable impact on IQ levels.
I 100 percent agree that the big problem of the educational system, though! It is also interesting how self-fulfilling the adversity to government has been: it has made it so easy for men with bad intentions to tear down an at least functional democracy by promising to “fix” it.
That makes complete sense to me, that's a widespread systemic exposure; I'd kinda expect usage of leaded gasoline that to have that sort of impact
And yep, it sure is frustrating 🙃
Bro started off talking about how Americans are incapable of critical thinking and proceded to write the rest of the post.
I’m not sure why you think it’s esoteric or niche, there are something like 400 million guns in the US, with 1/3 of Americans directly owning at least one gun and 44% of us households having a gun owner. I think that’s pretty far from “the vast majority” not being gun owners https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx
Moreover, lead exposure is known to cause cognitive impairments. I do agree however that most gun owners don’t shoot very often.
But if you need me to cite evidence that millions of Americans seem incapable of critical thinking you are either trolling or just not paying attention.
Here’s an entire book on the subject in case that helps https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Critical-Thinking-Crisis-Education/dp/1735942200
Finally, I’m not sure how you could construe my question as wanting evidence that it isn’t guns causing the problem, I pretty clearly asked a question, provided some links to explain what I had read that led me to that question, and then welcomed contrary evidence, of which you cited none by the way.
A sample size of 1000 people isnt exactly huge to be fair.
I'd like to clarify- I wasn't intending to be hostile, though I can see how it came across that way, and I apologize, I did a kind of shitty job of conveying my idea in a way that would connect with you. I think in online spaces it can be really hard to break the habit of making your point in a way that will register with bystanders rather than the person you're ostensibly actually talking to. I did a great job at expressing my perspective in a way that would validate the confusion I think amercians are likely to experience reading this post (as reflected by the votes), but I did a kinda crap job of actually addressing you, sorry about that. I'll do my best to be a little effective in communicating what I meant and why I felt that way.
As an American, this feels like a cartoonishly out of touch representation of the issues my country faces (which to be fair, would be entirely understandable if you don't live here and don't have any first-hand experience with the US). We have plenty of them (issues, that is), and there's lots of discussion to be had on the impact of guns on society, and also from where I'm standing it seems like are far more probable explanations for people lacking critical thinking skills than that we all just shoot our rootin' tootin' guns all the time over here in yeehaw land, and so we all have lead poisoning from all the bullets we're shooting'. (Not trying to build a straw man of things you didn't say, my point is that it feels like an caricature, and not one that aligns with the experience I have actually living here)
To reach past "crappy educational system", "weaponized anti-authoritarianism and individualism", and even "lead from drinking water or gasoline", or any number of other likely causes, to instead land on a caricature of American life feels a bit silly to me. Thats an acute risk associated with an activity most people don't participate in, and that even the people who do participate in, don't very often.
The book you linked appears to be about how the American educational system is conceptually flawed and approaches education in a way unlikely to yield meaningful critical thinking skills- a point I think I'd likely agree with it on. But to be fair, a book also isn't actually a quantitative reflection of poor critical thinking skills. It wouldn't totally suprise me if America did struggle with critical thinking, there are lots of possible reasons we might- and at the same time, it's a little frustrating for someone foreign to my country to look from the outside and say "man, I wonder if they're all dumb cause they have lead poisoning from shooting guns all the time" while providing evidence for the link between shooting and lead exposure (makes complete sense) but no evidence for the premise that we're dumb; that part is just taken for granted.
It kinda feels like you're asking if the caricature of us all shooting guns all the time is the reason for the caricaturization of us all being dumb. And in doing so, overlook much more systemic far-reaching explanations for how a nation might end up in a state where critical thinking skills are lacking.
I'm not wading into looking for evidence because the nature of these things is that it takes a looooot of evidence to dispute an idea that can be thrown out with only a little. My mental health is horrible and I don't really have the energy for that at present 😅 I think lots of other folks have made valuable contributions to the discussion, but I didn't see anyone speaking to the fact that this feels like it's borne out of an outsiders perspective based mostly on an imaginary idea of what it's like to live here.
I don't expect my expressing that idea to change your mind, but I still think it has value for providing perspective and context to the things you're considering. If you don't actually know much about the US first-hand, it might not be apparent that folks in the US are unlikely to see that a realistic source of the problem you're describing given the actual experience of living here.
All I really hope to add to the conversation is that perspective. Its fine if you don't see it the same way that I do, to be totally honest sometimes there are instances where being immersed in or "too close" to something impairs your ability to see it clearly. Though I don't think this is one of those times.
Sorry this is all over the place, I'm pretty spent and didn't have it in me to edit further for clarity (or try to be succinct, as you can probably tell by the like 30 paragraphs where a couple of more carefully thought out ones might have sufficed.)
Critical thinking isn’t taught in schools anymore. That’s the main problem.
Most Americans don't shoot very often, even if they own a bunch of guns.
Part of it is that ammo is just expensive. A trip to the range can burn hundreds of dollars in ammo in just a few minutes.
It's a known risk, and there are guidelines to lessen or prevent lead exposure at the range, but I'd wager most shooters aren't aware.
For example:
Use jacketed or lead free bullets and primers.
Wash your face, arms and hands after using the range.
Change your clothes and shoes after using the range.
Wash your range clothes separately from your families.
Do not eat, drink, or smoke on the range.
Take the same precautions after cleaning your guns.
That being said, the folks at largest risk for this kind of exposure would be those who fire guns the most often, so that population would be the canary in the coal mine so to speak.
https://www.quora.com/How-often-do-police-officers-practice-at-ranges
"How often do police officers practice at ranges?
Most departments require re-qualification training once a year.
My department required shooting three times a year, once with our sidearm, once with our 12 gauge shotguns, and once with our AR 15 carbines.
As for my self, I go to the range 8 to 10 times a year. I am usually accompanied by 5 or 6 of my fellow officers. We are not for the fun, we are training by using the state required shooting plans and we add a little extra to it.
Most officers I know only go to range when required for re-qualification. Not because they don’t want to, shooting off a couple hundreds rounds is an expensive proposition."
Yeah... Might be a reason cops seem dumber than average, and they don't hire the brightest to begin with.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/story?id=95836
Thanks for being the first person in this thread to actually post some useful tips to get the lead out, so to speak.
Thanks for being the first person in this thread** to actually post some useful tips** to get the lead out, so to speak.
Sorry to contradict you here but, like I suggested in another comment, reading a book instead of playing with a gun is also a very efficient (and cheap) way to lessen lead exposure :p
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.
Is it possible? Yes
Could it at least in part explain some behaviour? Yes.
But the missing question really is how much, and the answer is probably infitessimally small even if Real.
For lead exposure there are far easier and more common ways to get exposed such as lead pipes (which the US has a lot of).
But also you'd have to establish that the underlying problem is brain damage, and that is probably not true and instead reflects cultural bias.
There are many other reasons to explain American culture and behaviour which does not default to brain damage (or at least provable brain damage).
I would look at social and cultural issues first: an extremely weak political system, a poor quality general education system, high levels of religion, poor quality general health care, high levels of inequality including shocking levels of poverty.
The problem with the US is the extremes - if you have money you have the best the world can offer; if you don't then the state provision is shockingly poor. But alot of the crazies are also rich, and that comes down to the culture and society.
Lead poisoning is the least likely explanation, and is almost wishful thinking to try and explain things as a disease rather than normal human nature.
COVID causes brain damage too. We largely don't mask anymore like even in doctor's offices, or worse hospitals. I think COVID has done a large amount of damage in a short time.
What a fucking retarded post
At first glance I thought this post was a bit facetious, but after thinking about it and reviewing some research around people manufacturing the bullets and how it affects them and understanding that detonating them in confined spaces probably is just as if not more problematic. And if you have a job that requires you to do it often, say a cop, does that create even more of an effect? Lead exposure causes a loss of impulse control as well as intelligence effects. Could that be one reason why cops are so much more violent than the average person? I'd love to see a study on lead content of blood in cops, especially ones who murder people they capture, but unfortunately, the NRA is probably too powerful to allow that to happen. And conservatives hate masks, so I doubt it would be easy to convince cops to wear them while practicing.
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
The brain follows the same patterns as muscles: use it or lose it. The general population in America is very much not educated at all. So their brains lose the ability to think rapidly.
Smartphones (and the Internet more generally) have led to a major decline in reading books among the American public. I think this plays such a huge role in the absolutely batshit crazy cultural shift we've seen.
The cognitive decline among older populations (50+) is absolutely appalling. It’s safe to say that the average 5th grader has better critical thinking skills than the average septuagenarian.
So… why the latter can vote but not the former is a mystery to me.
The first paragraph I agree with. The last sentence... That is some naivity. People do shit because it's been done before and that is all they need, they don't even question it. Have you really not noticed how strong and consistent a factor it is that people don't like change? It might take 100 years for public perception to align with what you're saying even if every single study for that 100 years agreed that older adults are severely cognitively compared.
very much not
Ew. 😅
I think there's a much higher chance of slow-poisoning with heavy metals and other chemicals by food than shooting guns. Food quality standards in the US are poor. As well as nutrition wise. Malnutrition has a big effect on people their brain. The brain needs loads of stuff to function properly, not just corn syrup and fats. And with the poor US food safety regulations and poor tap water there's more poison then nutricions coming into your body.
Edit: I fixed the "then" into "than" (dyslectic non-native English speaker, sorry)
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).
Religion is the cause. You are not allowed to think outside the cult. There are a lot of idiot Americans who don't own guns or are exposed to them, so the lead theory is not valid in that sense.
The dumbest and most religious ones usually own the most weapons though, so it's a persistent state of mutual amplification.
what could explain the incredibly high numbers of Americans who seem incapable of critical thinking
Garbage education system.
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.
It's really the idiocracy theory. Dumb people have more and more kids while smart people tend to have 0 to 2 kids. It's exponetially growing the amount of dumb people. Besides some people that had potential dumbed themselfs down by joining organized religion. very sad
It's not smart vs dumb though, it's educated vs uneducated. I seemingly small distinction but a critical one.
There's a distinct inverse correlation with the mean education level of a population and their birth rate (the better educated a group is the fewer babies they have) especially when you look at the women in that population.
Uneducated parents don't value education in their children and so on and so on. Educated parents very much do value education in their children and actively participate in the schooling.
These two factors together mean that there's a increasing number of people who do not value educating themselves or their children and also tend to identify with those politicians who present as uneducated (while actually being highly educated and highly intelligent but lacking in any empathy or morality). This is one factor in why populist parties are gaining traction again in western democracies.
Don't forget the gutting of the school system over the past 40 years. Now we're at "Let's abolish the Department of Education". It's so sick.
I figured copper jackets would greatly reduce lead exposure, which is all I used when I used to shoot.
If they're TMJ's which cover the base of the bullet, sure. Otherwise some of that exposed lead is getting vaporized during firing.
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?
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
Yeah idk. The more I read the comments and check out sources I think the question has at least some merit.
I’m taking in that cognitive impairments seem to really require cumulative exposure and the effects are delayed, but also anecdotes like this reddit post below make me think there is a nonzero number of Americans who are chronically exposed to elevated lead levels over a long period of time by frequent shooting (especially indoors) and not taking proper remedial measures.
Note that those results come from indoor range with incredibly bad air circulation (it specified that the ventilation system pushed the smoke back into your face). Outdoor shooting, and shooting a normal firing range with good (or even not actively bad) air circulation would probably yield significantly lower results.
Yeah but you oughta see the other guy
Probably not.
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.
Get a CO2 sensor, and you will see CO2 levels spike massively in occupied rooms with poor ventilation. Indoor CO2 levels can easily exceed 4x the normal outdoor level. Because of this, and critical thinking, I don’t believe for a second that a global rise in CO2 has any direct effect on our behavior. I could be convinced that increasing time spent indoors (and online) does, though
Typical CO2 concentrations:
- Outdoors (2024): ~430ppm
- Outdoors (2000): ~370ppm
- Indoors (depends on ventilation): 800ppm ~ 2000ppm+
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.)
Lead, namely in its poor infrastructure and in old recipes that have survived to the present day, was also cited for the peoples' issues in the Roman Empire, discussed in contexts as wide as the common medical deformities and the madness of emperors like Caligula (spoiler alert, he wasn't actually mad, just creatively spiteful, e.g. his declaring war on Poseidon was to humiliate undisciplined soldiers). So this is not lead's first rodeo. I would give the research more time.
Pretty sure it's much more prevalent than would be tied specifically to gun use as a catalyst, though...
Or maybe the thing that pretty much everyone was exposed to.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_meat_navigation
A link shouldn't be a riddle when many don't have tooltips anymore.Urgh, this philosophy is why the new wave of UX designers are making everything massive gross buttons and every modern app/game tries to look like an iPhone home screen.
If you don't have tooltips you can still see the link before clicking it: either right click on a desktop or hold touch on mobile.
"you're brain dead, you've got aalmost as much lead as a motherfuckin bullet in ya head."
I doubt it's the main cause, widespread cultural phenomena are normally mostly generated by social interactions (words) and reinforcement, and demagogues (or so they often over-claim).
Poison like that will impact a fairly small proportion and takes a long time to impact and spread. Seems unlikey to be anything major. Besides which many more sources of lead poisoning from paint and leaded petrol, and water pipes and stuff - not specifiic to US and not specific to guns.
Lead pipes corrode internally very quickly. This corrosion prevents any significant amount of lead from entering the water. They should still be replaced of course, but the danger is way overstated.
I built a machine that pics up discharged round from the end of the shooting range. They had to wear so much protective gear to run this machine and were under strict regulations from the government. I had no idea how dangerous shooting ranges were.
It's also in the American water and air, so probably a minor contributing factor.
Your misstaking lead toxicity with religion.
Kind of, low level lead exposure does lead to higher aggression as well. I have yet to search out the paper, but I will do verification when I'm not at work
Edit: Found it https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412022003658
Aggression is a side effect of lead exposure in both humans and mammalian species
lead pipes, leaded gasoline, lead paint, lead sweetener …
We're leaders! /s
lol no.
This guy leads!
Your joke is highly diverting me, thanks!
There’s also the risk of lead from hunted meat.
hunted meat
Makes it sound like yous are running about in the woods shooting at packets of mince
I may be mistaken, but there was talk years ago about regulating lead bullets. They were to switch to steel ones and it caused a whole story about ammunition becoming more expensive and started a run on lead bullets. If true, wile there would be this collected leads ammo, steel would be more prolific. But there could be some other contaminate in shooting, or some other reason. But i fear that this is more of a problem of the human condition then any outside factor
Then is not than.
Equating votes for a particular candidate to an incapability of critical thinking is probably where your hypothesis breaks down the most
Yes, this shit is so obvious. I have been calling this out for a decade now.
That's a very interesting hypothesis. For sure it affects it and there might be other chemicals that get combusted as well. Not sure if the quantity is the same as with leaded gasoline and I'm pretty sure the proportion of Americans that go to shooting ranges on a regular basis is pretty small. Interesting post regardless
That's a really interesting angle, I also wonder how much damage the lead in gasoline did before they banned it.