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

  • someguy3@lemmy.world
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    24 hours ago

    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.)

    • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The other commenter didnt say it’s suffocating us, just that CO2 levels are used by the body to figure out whether we are suffocating, and that the elevated levels might cause a subconscious reaction. We nearly doubled the CO2 compared to before industrialization.

      • someguy3@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        Seriously? I used the word suffocating to reference what he said about suffocating, however he danced around it. It’s called context. *I added quotation marks to match his quotation marks if that helps.

        • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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          23 hours ago

          First off, no need to be so condescending.

          Next, what do you mean by dancing around it? The original comment just said that we might have some adverse effects, not that it is suffocating us. The word suffocation was originally only mentioned to explain that our body is capable of noticing differences in CO2 concentration.

          • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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            23 hours ago

            Whatever their attitude, the poster is right. They added valuable information that disproved the OPs hypothesis.

            • silly goose meekah@lemmy.world
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              23 hours ago

              I still dont see how it disproves anything. Yeah, we have little amounts of co2 in our air, why should that mean that we can’t detect a change?

              • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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                22 hours ago

                Because it’s 0.3%. Our body is not sensitive enough to notice this. Causing climate change through the greenhouse effect, destroying the planet, absolutely. But it’s not suffocating anyone.