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
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.
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.
9 out of 10 go to the range
More than half have never gone to the range
Math isn’t checking out here buddy.
Less than a few times a year also includes zero… so all of the 50% are part of the 90%
…never gone to a range beyond what might have been part of a state’s pistol permitting process.
If you can, read the whole sentence. If you can’t, please get checked for lead poisoning.
Yeah, but I read something on reddit that says Americans all have guns and love shooting them. So they must all have brain damage
I can’t remember where I read it, but I’ve heard that Americans all have guns and love shooting them, so they must have brain damage
I appreciate you all for the anecdotes and source materials, some well researched things to ponder!
Here’s my take on it:
I can’t remember where I read it, but I’ve heard that Americans all have guns and love shooting them, so they must have brain damage.
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%.
I mean increasing numbers of Americans are being threatened by the government
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
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.
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
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.
Plus, Gen-X and Boomers were exposed to a lot of lead.
Gasoline types used to be “Regular or Unleaded” and Regular, I think, and required a"special" engine.
Leaded (“regular”) gas will destroy a catalytic converter. A car without a cat could usually run leaded or unleaded. Some may knock running unleaded if they’re super old or broken in some way. I believe leaded was usually cheaper.
I wouldn’t try running leaded in a modern engine even if you removed the cats. God knows what else it would screw up.
Don’t forget the deliberate effort by Republicans to nerf the public education system
Nerf is too nice a way to say it. They want to abolish the Department of Education. Their goal is that only the children of the rich will get anything close to a good education.
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.
