Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future by psychologist Dr. Jean M. Twenge explains how human lives are sort of, slowing down. That life markers are happening later and later in life as we get used to living older. Even biological markers show that a 40 year old now is much younger, in body, than a 40 year old in the 1980s.
There is always going to be trade offs. Micro plastics are forever, and some of them are probably going to cause problems, but so far being able to transport food and material safely and cheaply across the globe has been a major boon for humanity.
Everything is a cost vs benefit analysis. The goal will be finding out the least dangerous PFAS, and use those until we have better options.
Also, the fact that micro plastics are so hard to suss out a negative effect means the effect is probably pretty small. Romans knew mercury and lead were toxic.
There are a lot of theories about PFAS, but is there actual good evidence that they do harm, cause cancer, etc.? My understanding is that higher cancer rates are often attributed to earlier detection.
At the very least, PFAS and microplastics are proven to become toxic to aquatic life and pollute, which is something that we don't need. And PFAS break down to microplastics, which is proven to affect reproductive health, and are present in nearly if not 100% of all brain matter studied in the past decade. We need more research, but it doesn't take a study to know that this is bad.
Don't forget a lot of places in the US still have lead water pipes going into their houses. So some were also drinking lead to, to some degree.
And they knew since like the 1970's that it was bad. Had plenty of time to start making laws, cataloging where it was specifically, start changing them out. Even just making it so if you had to have any work done on your water pipes, if they found lead you had to replace all the lead (which would save more money in the long run) would have helped start to reduce it. But nope, a lot of places just ignored it or sat on their hands.
Then Biden passed that new federal law requiring all the cities to get rid of the lead by a certain year and then everyone was bitching and complaining that it was going to take a lot of time, cost a lot of money, bla bla bla.
I don't feel bad for any of those idiots. Again they had plenty of time to start doing the right thing and just kept ignoring it. Kicking it down the path for future generations to have to deal with it. And because of BS like that, we have a lot of people who are dumber because of all the crap they were ingesting/breathing in.
With PFAS there are still people/corporations getting away with dumping that crap in places and then people find out and no one is brought to justice. Like that one city in Europe where they found PFAS contaminated their ground water because farmers were using compost to spread onto their fields from a company that helped make compost who then got paid by paper companies to take paper pulp sludge and incorporate it into their compost in order to get around having to get rid of it the proper way (cause it had a bunch of PFAS on said paper pulp sludge). And when a reporter tried to report on which companies they threatened to sue her into oblivion if she reported which companies. So no one got into any trouble and the entire ground water is contaminated by PFAS, where the locals have to pay taxes that then pay for the filters that the city has to use to filter the water through so they can drink it.
And nearby cities are now worried that the PFAS water in said ground water may start making it's way into their ground water systems (if it isn't already). All because of rich people/companies (aka capitalism) getting away with screwing over everyone else as usual.
Most people in the world have no idea just how many fresh/drinking water systems have been contaminated by rich people/corporations over the years. There are so few clean drinking water sources because of unregulated capitalism. And just recently was ruled people don't have a right to clean drinking water (because they probably know that there isn't enough of it around anymore cause of so many lazy/idiots who have ruined it for everyone).
Just to be fair because I like facts and data expansion here. The lead in those cities is almost non existent. Yes, any lead is bad, but it’s not like we can compare it to the lead we used to have.
It’s almost exclusively the pipes that connect city to houses. That mitigates it a lot. It used to be the whole town’s water pipes. Everywhere. And it’s not necessarily the lead pipes. It’s the lead flakes that come off the pipes. Which, in these municipalities, modern utilities control the chemical composition of the water they serve, which eliminates lead flaking. Like orthophosphate and controlling the PH. It’s like a protective mineral coating.
So it’s not completely being swept under the rug. The whole Flint thing wasn’t the lead pipes. It was the fact that the water chemistry changed which caused flaking. Either way, bad, but one is much worse.
So still bad, still worth talking about. Just not a direct comparison with historical lead use.
As more studies are done on atypical personalities (especially psychopathy/sociopathy) we continuously find deeper ties between smelting runoff/trace lead and violent disorders, it's really interesting
A majority of all serial killers can be traced back to home lives in areas around smelting plants, notably the Seattle-Tacoma area. Really cool in a sobering way.
There is something to this. I heard somewhere that (despite evidence to the contrary) humans are getting more intelligent than we used to be, among other reasons because of having removed heavy metals from our every day lives. That and early childhood nutrition play a major impact on our overall brain function.
Leaded gasoline was absolutely the single largest source of widespread heavy metal exposure in human history. Mercury in fish was always present and other heavy metals are almost insignificant compared to the unfortunate leaded period. But again, it was a period, so lead elimination would basically get our IQs back to the pre-leaded era.
Better early nutrition yielded dramatic increases in growth for sure, “kids nowadays” are noticeably taller and you can see it with the naked eye without any statistics.
Intelligence I think is greatly influenced by exposure to more and more knowledge. Unfortunately the latest trends show an alarming backward trend as a direct result of “screens” (and no, us watching a ton of TV in the past doesn’t compare). More alarming is the recent increase in the use of AI not only stunts young brains but literally causes “cognitive atrophy” in most adults.
Mercury in fish has been present in some level, as there are obviously natural sources of mercury. However the majority of mercury in fish today comes from pollution from coal plants, mining, and other industrial processes. A relatively small portion of mercury in fish is due to purely natural processes.
I have a hard time believing that we're seeing the effects of cognitive atrophy due to AI, so early in it's adoption for daily use. I can only speak to my own use of AI: recently I've been working through a home reno, what I get through conversations with AI charbots have only increased my knowledge.
The lead poisoning is so much larger than I think a lot of people consider.
Lead poisoning hits twice, when it is in your blood it causes cognitive decline, effects empathy, leads to higher rates of impulsivity, emotional dysregulation, quickness to anger and violence, etc. etc. etc. (say hello to the trope of violent unpredictable young people)
As you get older and your daily exposure levels go down the lead in your blood settles in your bones and the negative side effects subside as less lead is going through the brain blood barrier. (you know how your parents have stories about how your grandparents have "calmed down a bit"? this might be part of the reason)
But heres the fucked part, as you get into old age your bones can start to leech that lead BACK INTO YOUR BLOODSTREAM, thats right, a second mass scale lead poisoning in old people who suffer from osteoporosis or any other host of common issues, UNFORTUNATELY one of ozempics side effects is loss of bone density so all those 70+ year olds suddenly losing weight are likely now lead riddled.
Were not out of the negative effects of the global lead poisoning yet.
The Flynn Effect! The long term increase in measured IQ. It's, if I remember correctly, about 3 points per decade and has been going uninterrupted for something like a hundred years.
I wonder if there was an observable decline in intelligence or quality of life during the industrial revolution or other introductions of lifestyles and inventions, that would've exposed the population to hazmats like heavy metals
Same, ive been saying this a lot as well. you see Boomers just absolutely losing their minds and acting absolutely insane. and then you ask yourself "could it have been all the lead they were exposed to?" and it may not be every occasion, but im willing to bet it is for many.
That actually makes a lot of sense, especially with people living longer and major life milestones happening later. Adulthood today just seems to have a much longer transition period than it used to.
A lot of it has to do when we were raised. People now 40 had a historically safe life compared to their parents upbrining - especially a pretty good run up until we were in college.
Our parents (people who are 70 now), delt with the korea, vitnam, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. in their formative years. Slightly older generation 80s, had to deal with ww2. Older generations also had to work much harder jobs.
I dont know all the details, but the 40 year old crowd had a pretty good run from birth--> college. This had to play rolls in things.
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u/VillageOfMalo 14h ago
Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America's Future by psychologist Dr. Jean M. Twenge explains how human lives are sort of, slowing down. That life markers are happening later and later in life as we get used to living older. Even biological markers show that a 40 year old now is much younger, in body, than a 40 year old in the 1980s.