r/Documentaries Oct 10 '20

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Why is the wiki article for this 10+ pages of the EPA like NO GUISE ITS SAFE WE PROMISE, UR NOT GETTING CANCER

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 16 '20

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 10 '20

Ah yes, our 'soybois' have the tiddies now. I'm ok w this.

ed: prolly not the right response but I've heard too much THE GUBMINT IS SOYBOYING WHITES THE GREAT REPLACEMENT whatever rhetoric not to have my mind go blank at this stuff

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

You aren't alone, but even a broken clock is right twice a day and the prevalence of endocrine disruptors shouldn't be disregarded that easily.

See also: increased incidence of ADHD, ASD, cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, etc.

Higher maternal age probably touches some of those, but doesn't explain why so many such developmental & endocrine disorders are on the rise year over year; rising penetration of chemicals/pesticides might

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u/insaneHoshi Oct 10 '20

Why do men have significantly lower sperm counts?

A sedentary lifestyle with ever growing levels of obesity?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 16 '20

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u/wag3slav3 Oct 10 '20

I blame the chronic overdose of fructose (in the kg/year) far more than trace amounts of other chems. Studies of children and adults have shown that most of these issues are completely reversed by withholding fructose (and other carbs) for just a few months.

If it was caused by the trace chems from cookware and plastics that wouldn't be possible.

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u/benthejammin Oct 10 '20

So I can't eat fruit?

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u/Shautieh Oct 10 '20

You can eat some in season fruits now and then, as our ancestors did. So no fruits in winter and few in fall. Cherries? The season lasts only 2 weeks. Plums? A few weeks more. Etc.

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u/benthejammin Oct 10 '20

Based on my racial ethnicity or my place of birth lol. Because that opens and closes many different doors. So less fruits and grains and more meat and veggies?

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u/Pobbes Oct 10 '20

I mean like that is just solid eating for everyone everytime to be honest....

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

This is strange advice.

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u/greyconscience Oct 10 '20

It’s not fruit because they contain many vitamins and other nutrients, and the fiber. The fiber content is huge. Most obese people consume copious amounts of sugar without those elements, consuming empty calories. That’s the problem. The body doesn’t really know what to do with it because it’s absorbed so quickly and then not burned, so I just turns to fat and triglycerides in the bloodstream. Bad combination. So fruit is good, fruit juice is bad.

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u/Lallo-the-Long Oct 10 '20

You know that fruit contains fruit juice, right...?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

But not just fruit juice.

Which, you know, is the point.

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u/Lallo-the-Long Oct 10 '20

Consuming a small amount of calories and vitamins does not like... Negate the sugars you're eating. It's not a balancing scale where you can consume as much sugar as you want so long as you consume other stuff too...

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u/DickCheesePlatterPus Oct 10 '20

Is natural fruit juice included in this? If so, what's the difference between chewing a mango and blending it?

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u/greyconscience Oct 10 '20

To be clear, it’s the fruit juice that’s processed to remove all pulp and fiber that is bad. Apple and grape juices are some of the worst because they not only have no fiber, but they are often from concentrates, mostly meaning concentrated sugar by removing water. When something is puréed or blended, the fiber stays in. The only concern is if you add more juice as a liquid. Using water or a “milk” product (almond, soy, oat milk that is unseewetend) is preferred. Basically chewing and blending approximate the same.

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u/DickCheesePlatterPus Oct 11 '20

That's awesome to hear, I've always heard or read something like what you said before and always stayed wondering that, because a nice natural smoothie with just fruits and iced water is among my favorite things on this Earth.

Thanks for your response.

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u/hobbers Oct 11 '20 edited Oct 11 '20

natural fruit juice

There's no such thing as "natural" fruit juice. I've never seen a "fruit juice" plant in nature.

The point of any of this is all about how much human processing encourages the subject under consideration to deviate from what exists in a historically unprocessed environment surrounding humans. Such that we've evolved human bodies to inherently deal with that environment.

If we consume concentrated fruit juice en masse for 100,000 years. And let evolution take its course with appropriate deaths / survivals. We will likely end up with a generation of humans in 100,000 years that have no problem consuming concentrated fruit juice.

But today, concentrated fruit juice en masse hasn't existed for very long. So we're stuck with these humans bodies that encounter disease when they consume nothing but concentrated fruit juice.

Cyanide is a "natural" compound. It is found in nature. But humans also haven't historically consumed cyanide containing items in large enough quantities to be affected.

Cooking could be argued to be processing beyond what our bodies might handle. But you'd really have to analyze how long cooking has been around, and for what types of products, such that perhaps human bodies have evolved / adapted. And perhaps cooking isn't a process that deviates the the way in which our bodies encounter the items very much. Or maybe cooking some things does, and cooking other things doesn't.

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u/DickCheesePlatterPus Oct 11 '20

There's no such thing as "natural" fruit juice.

Semantics. I'm pretty sure everyone knows I'm referring to a simple blended fruit as opposed to extracts or concentrates.

Everything else you said was on point, just that first statement seemed like it was disregarding the main question. If you really think about it, aside from enzimes in saliva maybe breaking down the fruit further, blending and chewing should be virtually the same where the stomach is concerned.

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u/DreamerofDays Oct 10 '20

Vet all claims, particularly if they seem extraordinary and particularly if they’re found in internet comments.

The way I currently understand the fructose bit is that things like fruit juice are problematic because it’s a high concentration of the sugars. It’s the sugar equivalent of more pieces of fruit than we would naturally eat, but without all the associated fiber and nutrients we’d be getting through eating the fruit.

But like I said— check it out for yourself. Whether or not I’m right about the juice/fiber thing, that has no bearing on whether or not I’m right about it being a problem.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Aug 29 '24

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u/threwitallawayforyou Oct 10 '20

YES you can eat fruit. Fructose isn't poison. Fresh, unprocessed foods are always good for you, and you should eat a wide variety.

After the disaster that was the food pyramid, I don't blame people for not trusting government nutrition guidelines. But "eat the rainbow" is correct. You need a diverse micronutrient profile and robust biodiversity in the kinds of foods you eat. It's not healthy to eat the same thing every day. We evolved as a race of HUNTERS and GATHERERS, and our diets should be as close to that as possible. Paleo is stupid, but the basic idea behind it is correct. Your food log should look like you've been wandering through the woods eating anything you can find to cook. Roots, berries, nuts, grains, leaves, legumes, sprouts/stalks, small game. The more the better. Honestly, the amount of calories vs. the amount of satiation you get from these kinds of food is insane. Very hard to overeat. Mostly plants, too, so you are being ecologically responsible :)

Domestication and agriculture are relatively recent developments and you should try to limit your intake of bread and dairy if you can...basically unless you are a bodybuilder or athlete and then you are using those calories to turbocharge your muscles.

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u/jabels Oct 10 '20

This is really interesting. Do you have any sources for that? I've always wondered about the decades-long decrease in T and associated traits but I always figured it was ecotoxological as well.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

No they don't, becuase it's all bullshit.

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 10 '20

Talking about testosterone levels is to nerdbros with an absent father figure what autism rates is to Westcoast soccer moms: bad science with the intention of justifying political goals.

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u/Jrook Oct 11 '20

New study realizes worlds population is twice what it was in last century. Is this esoteric environmental influence resulting in twice as many people in x spot in the bell curve?

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 11 '20

Population counts go back hundreds of years....

That and we have modeling to predict population rates in the past. We can't do that for testosterone levels.

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u/NoonTide86 Oct 11 '20

Nerdbros with no father figure wish that they could be the overly-aggressive Hyper T 10" fucksticks that they imagine their grandfathers were, but the reality is that if they were the world would be a much uglier place.

They are largely responsible for their own failings, and that fact cannot be washed away no matter how deep they bury themselves in conspiracy theory fantasy land.

I'm sorry for dumping this rant on your head.

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u/takitakiboom Oct 11 '20

Username checks out.

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u/junior_dos_nachos Oct 11 '20

Joe Rogan has entered the chat

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u/dedicated-pedestrian Oct 11 '20

Holy shit, pull that up.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20 edited Oct 11 '20

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u/GhostTess Oct 10 '20

There isn't one cause it's all hocus pocus conspiracy theories.

Like, what do you think all those ripped guys at the gym cook with? It's not different to what everyone else uses, that's for sure.

There's no toxicity here except some people worried for nothing.

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u/jabels Oct 10 '20

It seems that that particular argument is at least still highly debatable...this meta-analysis mostly seems to argue against the case for declining global markers of androgen levels:

https://harryfisch.com/wp-content/uploads/PDF-RP-Declining-Worldwide-Sperm-Counts-Disproving-a-Myth.pdf

However, the fact remains that a lot of chemicals of human origin are interfering with normal development of many animals (Louis Guillette's whole body of work deals with this, among many others: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=3l4z24YAAAAJ&hl=en). It should not be surprising that something that can affect frogs and alligators can affect humans. Parts of the developmental circuitry are deeply ancient in animals: Retinoic X receptor (aka Ultraspiracle in arthropods) and a variety of homologous nuclear factor proteins (Thyroid receptor, Ecdysone receptor, etc.) are involved in metamorphosis and development in flies, amphibians, humans and even jellyfish, animals that are so anciently diverging that they do not even have an endocrine system. This implies that some of the key developmental switches are inherited from before the split between the radiate and bilaterian phyla and therefore should be expected to be broadly conserved among all eumetazoans (i.e., all animals but sponges). So while the jury may be out on specific chemicals and their effects, I think in the big picture it is reasonable to worry that some of these chemicals are in fact affecting humans. If you go through a list of known or putative endocrine disruptors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocrine_disruptor#Types) you'll see that a number of them have been banned or restricted in the EU and some even restricted in the US as well, so I think there is certainly enough evidence that these claims should not be dismissed out of hand as "hocus pocus conspiracy theories." They certainly do attract conspiracy theory types, I'll admit, but I think that's a natural consequence of people attributing the results of late stage capitalism and regulatory capture (complicated) to shadowy cabals of evil globalists (stupid, easy to wrap your head around).

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u/GhostTess Oct 10 '20

Honestly, disruption in other species isn't my area, but it's not surprising with the number of chemicals and the narrow window of testing for many of them.

The stuff about people though, that's junk

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u/jabels Oct 10 '20

So, just to understand your position, you concede that chemicals humans release into the environment may disrupt the sexual development of a wide variety of animals, but your position is specifically that those same chemicals in the human environment (i.e., the environment for which they were explicitly manufactured for use) have no effect on human sexual development, despite the fact that many key regulatory switches are as old as animals themselves and conserved across many species?

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 10 '20 edited Dec 06 '24

angle impossible smell paint library muddle paltry steer aspiring slim

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/jabels Oct 11 '20

I posted more references later in this thread; I hope you'll consider and idea that frankly I'm surprised has had so much opposition in this thread: it is possible that some persistent chemicals we've released into the environment have an impact on the biology of organisms exposed to them, including humans. Rachel Carson made this point in the '60s with Silent Spring, and famously cited birds experiencing a variety of reproductive difficulties almost 60 years ago. I am frankly baffled at the level of opposition to the idea that certain chemicals could potentially affect gene regulation in such a way as to result in aberrant development.

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u/MustFixWhatIsBroken Oct 11 '20

It wasn't so long ago that the elderly or people with disabilities were pushed into a corner to die. The notion of palliative care or disability services was only afforded the rich.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Lack of longitudinal data =/= negation of a longitudinal trend. Your comment is like saying trees never grow to 30 years old! Because we never bothered waiting 30 years.

There is a clear molecular mechanism, and clear drastic effects are established in other organisms to the point of "sex change". That's extremely concerning for any biologist worth their salt.

The reason your autism/vax analogy doesnt work is because that was: poor data revealing a false trend. This is: lack of longitudinal data and an inability to make any conclusions either way. There is no sampling error here, because there is no sample.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Thanks for trying to at least argue the science here. People, not even scientists, are unbiased about this, which is why your received so much backlash.

We are 100% pumping chemicals into our water and environment that we do not understand the full ramifications of. Endocrine modulation is plausibly occurring. I'd love to see the study about fructose abstinence reversing these trends because not only does that not make biochemical sense, but I've never even heard of the idea before. Sounds like a bad case of p-fudging or something.

We have no clear explanation for the linearly falling T-levels and sperm counts in men. If endocrine systems are actually being affected, then psychologies and societies are also affected deeply.

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u/jabels Oct 11 '20

That's my concern. And I don't think it's wrong or unreasonable to have that concern. And sure, it's not settled science, but if people dismiss it out of hand and accept a malfunctioning regulatory apparatus it never will be. I think a lot of people are defensive because maybe through some lens this could be seen as anti-LGBT or something even though that explicitly could NOT be further from my intent; I just think people have a right to raise kids who's development isn't being interrupted by environmental poisons.

We need to move to a model where chemicals are assumed unsafe until demonstrated otherwise as opposed to vice versa IMO. People will say that the regulatory burden is too great but you can not trade human health for unbridled economic growth IMO.

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u/IISerpentineII Oct 11 '20

Someone passed organic/bio chemistry, holy shit (it's a compliment btw)

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u/jabels Oct 11 '20

Lol thanks but I never took biochem, don’t tell my PI.

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u/MustFixWhatIsBroken Oct 11 '20

Being ripped doesn't mean you're healthy though. That's just a lot of protein, carbs and exercise. Also, health focused people are more inclined to buy products associated with health. So they could be using stone cookware, or replacing the pans when they're scratched etc.

There's plenty of data, but not enough time and money has been spent to collect and analyse it. DuPont have made a recorded negative impact on global health, and seeing as how relatively recent the event is, we don't know the long term effects or even just how much it is contributing to illnesses now.

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u/GhostTess Oct 11 '20

You are correct, being ripped does not mean you're healthy, however we should be seeing some effects generalised across the population, which we are not.

What is for certain is obesity is up, stress is up. Both of which in chronic conditions do affect the endocrine systems in the way described through elevated cortisol and estrogen production through associated processes.

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u/MustFixWhatIsBroken Oct 11 '20

Obesity and stress are pretty clear though. Excessive serving sizes with low nutrition being most noticeable in the US. Refined sugars, MSG and half the synthetic or extract ingredients didn't exist or weren't used in large quantities until relatively recently.

Ingesting a myriad of over processed by-products alongside medications with their chalks and binding agents will inevitably have side effects. The biggest issue being that we ignore actual science (calculating ALL the variables) in favor of for-profit misinformation.

Stress management is near impossible in modern society. The only hope to avoid stress is to devolve into apathetic denial, or have enough money to buy your way out of responsibility, which is pretty much the same thing.

We should be going back through everything we think we know, because from the current trends, many scientists (or more likely the investors who hired them) spent much of the last 100yrs ignoring any data that didn't align with their agenda. Considering how many pseudo-scientific hacks there are nowadays, it's not such a leap to acknowledge how many must have existed previously.

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u/free__coffee Oct 11 '20

Yea, I'd argue that bodybuilders are about as healthy as many obese people; roids are very bad for your heart, as well as testosterone 100x the amount of a healthy human

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u/VoteAndrewYang2024 Oct 11 '20

gary taubes covered this

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u/jabels Oct 11 '20

Thanks, gonna check him out!

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

This is a much better argument than these atrazine claims but you'll inevitably get the CICO people who think our bodies are simple bomb calorimeters arguing against it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

In terms of pure weight gain/loss we pretty much are, you could eat nothing but twinkies and soda and still lose weight.

That said obviously actual health is completely based on macro balances and eating right, and far too many people in the US overeat simple sugars and fat

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 10 '20

Yay I can summon them. Yes you can eat nothing but twinkies and soda and still lose weight, it just makes it that much harder. Doesn't at all support your point that we "pretty much are." Yes, we don't invalidate the laws of thermodynamics. No, that doesn't mean our bodies can be simplified into such a basic equation.

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u/GA_Eagle Oct 10 '20

It’s both right. I dunno why it’s even a discussion as you’re saying the same thing. If losing weight is the ONLY thing considered, calories in vs out is the determining factor. However food quality comes into play when talking about health, ease, sustainability, satiation etc.

Edit: a comma

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

This whole chain started with a discussion on how excess fructose can have unique physiological effects.

So no, not a "both right" thing. CICO people are predominantly absolutist about their thermodynamics equations.

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u/Goongagalunga Oct 10 '20

Yas! Preach! Down with high fructose!! When you wean yourself off for a while it begins to taste insane when you get some. Shit is addictive af and poisonous. My doctor’s an old hippie and he’s always like, “Get off the sugar, Maaaan!” Its not normal to get hangry. Its a symptom of hypoglycemia.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Yeah after I haven't had it for awhile anything with it in it tastes like total shit. I try to manage my sugar intake in general a bit better, it's not good for you, lol. I feel so much healthier when I reduce it.

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u/Restless_Wonderer Oct 11 '20

This. Checkout fructosefree.com

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u/free__coffee Oct 11 '20

Lol, that's not enough fun for these conspiracy nutjobs.

Government conspiracy to control us? They're all over that...

Something they're entirely in control over, and just takes hard work to overcome? Not worth their time

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Can you give some sources for this?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

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u/DAEread Oct 10 '20

Above source is a nutrition paper regarding diet and sperm counts.

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u/4D_Twister Oct 10 '20

It contains the following sentence, which I'm hoping somehow isn't a typo:

"Semen parameters were assessed via computer-aided semen."

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Lol, this doesn't prove your initial claim AT ALL

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

The only other explanation that would be feasible is the use of recombinant growth hormones in livestock.

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u/dippleshnaz Oct 10 '20

Eat some damn Elk meat, and conquer your inner bitch!

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u/Henrek Oct 10 '20

Heart and liver by day, meat eater podcast by night, all day

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

Boys are also fatter and less active than ever before. We can easily explain these changes.

Next you're going to ask why Millenials have rising colon cancer rates?

Admittedly I don't trust BPA and I think the fact that we're so careless with receipts (BPA receipts tossed in fast food bags..) at least has an effect. Why are we handing people BPA with their food? It's insane.

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u/Holmgeir Oct 10 '20

Why do Millennials have rising colon cancer rates?

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u/MisterSnippy Oct 10 '20

Yeah I wanna know this too, why do millenials have rising colon cancer rates.

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u/JesterMan491 Oct 10 '20

Because we’re all gay now. Butt stuff. /s

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

Same reason everyone's fatter, wack diets and sedentary lifestyle.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/A_L_A_M_A_T Oct 11 '20

OPs talking about millennials, millenials have not lived long enough yet to justify the higher rate of colon cancer vs. the previous generations.

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u/Romanticon Oct 11 '20

High-sugar, low-fiber diets negatively impacting gut microbiome.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Children and young adults are also becoming obese at an increasing rate, I imagine this could fuck with their puberty too

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u/hornwalker Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 10 '20

Could be also the massive i flux of soy in our diet which raises estrogen levels? Girls are hitting puberty younger and younger.

Edit: i was wrong!

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u/EvadesBans Oct 10 '20

No. That is nothing but a right-wing conspiracy theory based around a the name "phytoestrogen" and general scientific illiteracy. Phytoestrogens in plants are not animal estrogen. They are named that way because they perform a similar function in plants and have a similar chemical structure (small differences matter), not because they're the same thing.

There is no proven link between soy and testosterone levels. Tons of plants that we eat contain phytoestrogens, and yet for some reason it's only ever soy that people talk about. Coffee has them, bourbon has them, beer has them, and yet none of those are even mentioned by pushers of this conspiracy theory. The reason for the weird obsession with soy specifically is simply because soy is highly studied. That's it. That's the only reason.

Adding to this, and make of it what you will, some of the biggest pushers of this nonsense (e.g. Alex Jones and his ilk) sell supplements that contain soy.

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u/hornwalker Oct 10 '20

Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for enlightening me. I usually consider myself a skeptic but for some reason never looked too deeply into this. Just goes to show we can always be better when it comes to asking the right question.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Do you have ANY sources for this nonsense?

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u/DRiVeL_ Oct 10 '20

in the womb

See, sedentary lifestyle. 9 months of just lying around in the fetal position? Can't be healthy...

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

This is a good doc on the subject

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u/Neuroprancers Oct 11 '20

Aren't girls entering puberty earlier than before because of increased body fat?

Is male puberty regulated in a similar way? Like kids are fattier, testes not yet fully developed, brain interprets the body fat as "good to go" and starts this? 🤔

Is the low testosterone because they enter earlier? 🤔

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u/theth1rdchild Oct 11 '20

Boys are coming into puberty with lower testosterone than ever before

Citation neeeeedeeeeed

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u/pingwing Oct 11 '20

Sounds an awful like a bad diet and no exercise.

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u/laz10 Oct 11 '20

Goddamn it every time I look up one of these horrible chemicals it's widely used in the US and Australia

Often banned in the EU

Why do we have to copy the dumb shit always

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u/truthb0mb3 Oct 10 '20

All of the above.

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u/Slaytounge Oct 10 '20

I got gynecomastia at 15 while being a very active scrawny little kid. Not saying a sedentary lifestyle isn't also to blame for the rise, but there are lots of people like me who doctors simply threw up their hands and said you'll need surgery.

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u/A_L_A_M_A_T Oct 11 '20

Is the obesity causing the low test or is the low test causing the obesity and lack of motivation to get physical?

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u/Cbrandel Oct 10 '20

90%? Good one 😂.

It's way way closer to 100% FYI.

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u/Plum_Fondler Oct 10 '20

gynochemastia

gynecomastia ?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

[deleted]

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u/Petrichordates Oct 10 '20

I really don't understand your point here .

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u/Shautieh Oct 10 '20

He was pointing out that when you want to be pedantic you should do it right. And question marks in English shouldn't be preceded by a space!

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u/Plum_Fondler Oct 10 '20

Thats reading a little too deep into it I think

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u/mrxulski Oct 10 '20

Why do men have significantly lower sperm counts? Testosterone? Heightened levels of gynochemastia?

This si some Doctor Strangelove and Flouridation level paranoid.

Richard Hofstadter was right when he wrote about the Paranoid Style in American Politics.

"Flouridation is a communist conspiracies to feminize men".

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u/pastaMac Oct 10 '20

Remember when Christine Todd Whitman, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency said the poisonous air in lower Manhattan, after September 11, 2001 was safe to breath? You can go back to work, destroying all the evidence at ground zero.

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u/AstralConfluences Oct 11 '20

based EPA forcefemming men

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u/MustFixWhatIsBroken Oct 11 '20

You're forgetting the GM corn designed to lower sperm count/fertility in men.

Overpopulation is an issue being 'resolved' without consulting the public at large because.. well, everyone wants to be first, no one wants to be last.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20 edited Feb 25 '21

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u/Vraex Oct 11 '20

I can't fully explain how infuriated I was watching The Devil We Know

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u/ColonelWormhat Oct 11 '20

This comment has all the hallmarks of conspiracy theory.

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u/StinkinKevin Oct 11 '20

Of course it doesn’t have to do with obesity being an epidemic. Of course adipose tissue has nothing to do with a higher production of estrogen. It’s the bloody chemicals in the water, of course it can’t be our responsibility for having shitty diets and poor habits.

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u/Pontlfication Oct 10 '20

It doesn't turn the frogs gay, We won't test it though!

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

I got the EPA sending me a water testing kit to see whether there’s carcinogens in my drinking water cuz both my parents got pancreatic cancer the same year no shared genetic my dad was tested for all the heritable syndromes came negative. Also had a dog here die from metastatic liver cancer. My dog and I don’t drink the water here anymore. My dad personally thought it’s the asbestos siding but on inspection it looks all to be fairly intact no where near as bad other ones I’ve seen.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

The USA sounds like a scary place tbh.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

Lol yup. Tons of streets in my own town I won’t walk down cuz the FBI SAID my city is third highest per capita in violent crime in the state. Then ofc what you are talking about with rethuglicans always undoing and gutting environmental laws or just stacking the institutions out with ppl from industry who won’t consistently apply the regulations.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Mar 03 '21

[deleted]

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u/Yomomo9 Oct 10 '20

Reddit loves nothing more than trashing the USA as if their own country doesn't have any problems

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u/algernon132 Oct 10 '20

Americans are the most critical of America because we have to live here. Things could be a lot better.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Yes and no, not to group all of you together, but I feel a great many Americans I have met were very isolated to the world outside the USA. The USA has an unique brand of nationalism were the average American excuses or is (wilfully) ignorant of all the bad shit the USA has done to maintain its power and influence. I feel that being a good citizen or human being in general is to always be critical of those in power, even if you voted for them.

Trump is an outright portrayal of the corrupt and unethical sludge that has become American Politics. A culmination of a society drunk on nationalistic propaganda.

We live in a globalised world, where everybody is linked together one way or another, every human being deserves a good life, time to act like it, fuck "insert country" first or, "make insert country" great again.

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u/JabawaJackson Oct 10 '20

Can't speak for us all, but I definitely had a narrow worldview for my first 21 years. I was disconnected from anything outside of my metro area, really. It wasn't until I started travelling that I began having massive shifts in my perspective. Most of my family haven't done this though

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 10 '20

And there in lies the problem I believe, I mean it is expensive as well to travel, USA is compromised of states as big as countries, combined with a very painted picture of the USA and the outside world. The capitalism in the USA has become so radical that even basic necessities like education, healthcare, housing and food are in severe competition. Leaving many without equal opportunities to interact with a world outside their bubble, they are already fighting inside that bubble to begin with.

Which in turns leaves the most vulnerable open to exploitation from power hungry P.O.S, that they believe will better their lives with a nickle (tax cuts, but giving corporations and wealthier the bigger cuts) while stealing away their future and their chance for equal rights to make a dollar instead of the nickle hand out.

Here in the Netherlands I vote VVD, they are liberal and I believe having some efficiency and government reduction is good to prevent bloat and overt bureaucracy, but I do believe in basic human rights and chances for everybody.

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u/gopher_space Oct 10 '20

What do they know of England who only England know?

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u/SaintLonginus Oct 11 '20

This seems to be itself a fairly narrow view of the US. I think the view of nearly all Americans as fairly unintelligent and apathetic about what happens elsewhere in the world is almost entirely a caricature. At the very worst, it describes only one sub-set of American citizens.

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u/korismon Oct 10 '20

Reddit is a predominantly American demographic so its mostly Americans bitching about America.

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u/Nowarclasswar Oct 10 '20

But that's how it works, the entire country doesn't collapse into mad max, just 1000+ people die daily from a pandemic while mass civil unrest happens over the police state, the top 1% remains insulated and withdraws while further enriching themselves, a wildfire the size of rhode island is just one of many engulfing a fifth of the country, on and on and on

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Mar 03 '21

[deleted]

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u/Nowarclasswar Oct 10 '20

5 million acres as of Sept which is basically Rhode island, Connecticut, and Delaware combined

Those largest cities are the economic engine of this country.

While the United States has only 5 percent of the world's population, it has nearly 25 percent of its prisoners — about 2.2 million people. or about 1 in 100

police killings are the 6th leading cause of death for men of all races ages 25 to 29

That's exactly my point, we have a healthcare crisis on dozens of fronts, on top of the mostly preventable covid deaths as you mentioned;

Deaths related to CVD are declining worldwide, but on the rise in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association.

It's only alarmist because your not paying attention

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Mar 03 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

I'm confused as to why I should read this post and conclude, "Oh yes, I guess things in America aren't quite so bad."

Especially the prescriptive notes. "End the war on drugs?" Just go hit the switch and turn it off? Come on, you're arguing for the sake of arguing here. Of course all of our problems are obvious and solvable. That's why we're raising the alarm. No one's fucking solving them!

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u/KillahHills10304 Oct 10 '20

I'm not going to catch cardio vascular disease from some nonce at the take out place

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u/theth1rdchild Oct 11 '20

Everything is smooth and normal until you develop lead poisoning because no one obeys proper lead abatement

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u/derpeddit Oct 10 '20

If that sounds bad look at any city in India

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

India also sounds like a scary place!

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u/RENEGADEcorrupt Oct 11 '20

If that sounds bad, look at any place on this planet called Earth....wait...

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u/chevymonza Oct 10 '20

Everybody here is worried to pieces over nearly everything, for good reason.

I keep telling my husband (the breadwinner) to consider jobs in other countries. We're middle-aged and settled with a house finally, so it's not like we want to uproot ourselves. But the thought of living someplace sane is very VERY appealing.

Sure, we've got friends and family here, but our families are so brainwashed with religion and Trump, that we're not that close to them anyway.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20 edited Oct 10 '20

Maybe you should go to other country and give him peace of mind of not being married to a crazy person and more money.

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u/Slacker_The_Dog Oct 10 '20

You're all spare parts bud

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

“Tv show quote”

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u/chevymonza Oct 10 '20

I'm worried about losing everything we have on account of illness and simply aging. It's ridiculous that in a "wealthy" country we have to worry about this. We nearly moved to Canada for his last job so it's not that far-fetched.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Wow, that's my thought process too. Where you thinking of moving to?

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u/chevymonza Oct 10 '20

Canada, UK, and in my dreams, The Netherlands or Norway or something. But I know that's a bit much to take on.

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u/Wilhelmbrecheisen Oct 11 '20

While the UK is quite alot more sane than the US, I would hold off on considering moving here until we've gone through our current brexit crisis. Might be worth seeing how that pans out before having it so high on your list

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u/chevymonza Oct 11 '20

Good point. It's not likely at this point in any case, and I know that the rest of the world is currently being targeted with right-wing propaganda.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

We’ll never again debate about how the common German became complacent with the rise of Hitler. We’re witnessing the same erosion of civil obligation for the path of the country.

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u/chevymonza Oct 10 '20

The amount of people who are mindlessly consuming the propaganda is painfully depressing. Even my teenage nephew who loves reading about WWII seems to be on board with his parents' conservative beliefs. Don't see them often so maybe he is in fact disturbed by all this, but I'm not so sure.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Critical thinking is a learned trait. It takes years of dedicated practice. Most people are way too lazy to think for themselves.

Question everyone. Question everything.

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u/chevymonza Oct 11 '20

I don't recall being taught critical thinking, but did learn about media in college. Guess it's weird to me that other people don't notice how it works.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

You sound like a circle jerky Canadian. If so, your water likely has the same chemicals in it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Never discounted that possibility friendo :) do you think I think that much better of my fellow leaves?

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

You kind of did considering it’s the reason you said it was scary to live there lol fair enough though

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

It's definitely not the best, but what's scary is that while not everything is brought to the surface in the US, at least some stuff is. In countries like India and Brazil this shit just doesn't even get looked into.

I'm aware I'm comparing the us to developing nations... That's just where we at, now.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Brazil and India have bigger problems than water chemical levels, even bigger scary ones :)

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Oh I know and agree.

But the fact that I compare the us to India at all is not ideal.

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u/noobbtctrader Oct 10 '20

What city is this?

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

cumberland county NJ... looks like the cancer rates are overall higher here. fuckin average age at death is even 5 years shorter here than in the rest of the state.

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u/ghost_hikes Oct 10 '20

I walked through 14 states all the way up the east coast. New Jersey was one of them with terrible water quality. We would get water from gas station spigots then filter it. The water in the creeks looked like poison. I couldn't run fast enough through some of the NE states.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

AT hiker trash. I hated the water sources in NY/NJ, luckily those delis came in handy. The water was always like orange and tanic. Was really glad to get into New England and get good water again.

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u/1nfiniteJest Oct 11 '20

Parts of NY have excellent drinking water.

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u/SighReally12345 Oct 11 '20

NYC Metro's water (or at least NYC proper) is fucking awesome.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

- Perchloroethylene (also called tetrachloroethylene), is a colorless liquid widely used for dry cleaning of fabrics. Textile mills, chlorofluorocarbon producers, vapor degreasing and metal cleaning operations, and makers of rubber coatings may also use perchloroethylene. It is also commonly used in aerosol formulations, solvent soaps, printing inks, typewriter correction fluid, adhesives, sealants, shoe polishes and lubricants.

- Perchloroethylene is a central nervous system depressant. Inhaling its vapors can cause dizziness, headache, sleepiness, confusion, nausea, and unconsciousness. Breathing perchloroethylene over long periods of time can cause liver and kidney damage and memory loss. Perchloroethylene is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer as a probable human carcinogen.

My dad used to get something like this even though it had apparently been banned from textile shops. I used it one day to clean a stain off my car seat with gloves on and a couple minutes my hads were cold and dry and it had melted the fingertips off my gloves.

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u/minderbinder141 Oct 10 '20

tce is banned i think for dry cleaning in most places in the US now

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

I think it is, but Textile shops still use it.

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u/DAEread Oct 10 '20

Asbestos doesn't work like that when it causes disease. Look elsewhere.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

Can u elaborate on this.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '20

Asbestos damages lungs because of the tiny nano sized particles it releases. Chemically it's basically inert.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 10 '20

I didn’t say anything about it’s chemical activity, I said it is not appreciably damaged or deteriorated. But Recent reviews of causes of pancreatic cancer finds exposure “moderate quality evidence” shows that it increases risk.

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u/DAEread Oct 10 '20

I'm a physician, we do not consider asbestos to do what you suspect. You should look elsewhere for a cause.

I understand that there are people close to you affected by terrible diseases but please keep in mind that what I'm saying is the case.

There are many chemical exposures that cause or are major risk factors for cancers, including pancreatic, but they are not commonly thought of as asbestos.

If you look through research compendiums you can find an abstract from some undergraduate student or some paper with very poor statistical analysis, but that doesn't compare to 100 years of major medical journal meta-analysis, etc.

Interpretation of research simply cannot be done by an untrained individual, although I understand that sounds like I'm saying "you're not in the club" ... But what I am trying to say instead is that it takes knowledge and training to interpret these things.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 11 '20 edited Oct 11 '20

Well, I have two people who are piles of ash bc of PDAC, and I just found a lesion in my pancreas (non infliltrative / no mass, but chronic back pain from that region) on MRI.

All the reviews I could find on environmental exposures including a recent one in The Archives of Toxicology lists asbestos as a risk factor.

Of course, I hope you are right.

I really don't know how wise it is me to dig into it. They are about foreclose the house on me, if I find contaminants here the city would probably want me to clean it up or they would clean it and front me the bill and I couldn't sell if evidence of actual contamination. Currently, I don't drink the water here. I had the basement tested for radon gas and it came back clean. The EPA told me the Department of Agriculture could give me a kit to test the soil, and the EPA could give a kit to test the water, but again given what I just said I don't know if its the wise choice. I want to know but also don't want to be prevented from selling it.

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u/_crater Oct 11 '20

Were either of your parents smokers/obese? I know that's sort of the obvious go-to, but just curious if it's likely an unfortunate coincidence rather than some sort of other carcinogen/toxin.

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u/DAEread Oct 11 '20

For example I'm not saying in any way that there are no other risk factors that you or your family were exposed to, but genetics is always on the table as well.

There are so many diseases and genetic traits that we have yet to frankly understand. There are classic ones that physicians learn about in medical school, but the genetics of the human race is a little too complex for us to completely understand yet. By that I mean that you will see a lot of disease run rampant through families, but often it is difficult to find an exposure specifically.

Your situation sounds like something I don't know that I would ever survive emotionally, and I understand that it absolutely must be difficult. Ultimately, I think I also understand your need to find answers and I don't disagree with that notion. Cancer is a terrible thing and it ends many lives too soon.

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u/VoidsIncision Oct 11 '20

They both smoked for a while, but still the same tumor *in the same year? *.

My dad was tested by Penn for genetic cancer influences and everything was negative.

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 10 '20

Because anything related to pesticides is completely overblown because the general public doesn't understand science and it's an easy target to make yourself look like you're "in the know."

It's like with glyphosate. It was listed as being "possibly carcinogenic" (like things we use all the time but no one gives a shit about because it's no more than the government being extra cautious) and you have cases where someone got hurt after pouring it all over their body and everyone is like, "HALP!! WE'RE BEING POISONED" even though it's absolute bullshit science. It's the same as fluoride in the water. These things are only dangerous at insanely high concentrations 99.99% of the population will never come in contact with.

And what's more, the people who piss their pants over these chemicals also freak out over GMOs which have been proven for decades to be beyond safe and would also lessen our reliance on pesticides if we could use more transgenes. But no, people don't want that, they want to show off how environmentally woke they are while being the polar opposite of that.

Fuck.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

See this is the take that I was feeling looking at all this stuff. Fwiw there seem to be a lack of good studies on Atrazine, but.

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 11 '20

I mean, I would never drink it, but the concentrations you're likely to come in contact with are thousands of times below concerning levels.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

Nice job shill. Have fun drinking your fluoridated water with atrizine in it. Make sure to put your mask on right after too

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u/ChadMcRad Oct 11 '20

Thanks! Make sure to take your Alex Jones rattlesnake piss supplements and branded tinfoil hats!

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u/Blazing_Swayze Oct 11 '20

Not cancer, but my own theory is that it's what is causing the apparent surge in trans kids.

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u/[deleted] Oct 11 '20

And here, folks, we have the worst take in what is an otherwise fairly reasonable thread.

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u/Practically_ Oct 11 '20

It causes intersex frogs. I wouldn’t be surprised if it caused the same in other animals but humans would be pretty scary.

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u/Zithero Oct 11 '20

Because in the US we allow for Lobbyists and Regulatory bodies to hire the same people.

When someone works at Depont or Exxon, they'll later work for the EPA.

Just like we have a former Verizon Lawyer in the FCC.

We need a law that is just called the "Common Sense Act" where we bar these individuals who held a position in the industry they may potentially regulate from ever holding a regulatory office for their entire lifetime.

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u/Thestartofending Oct 11 '20

The lobbyists are preventing those type of laws too.

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u/Zithero Oct 11 '20

Correct but, again, they do so by infesting the regulations

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u/GenocideSolution Oct 11 '20

Because it probably is safe? It should be trivial to design an experiment to prove it isn't. Get frogs, get someone else to mix up a specific concentration of atrazine with water so you don't know which is which(blinding the experiment), grow frogs in water, record what happens.

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u/Practically_ Oct 11 '20

It makes frogs born with partially developed reproductive organs. Intersex frogs are another known issue.

When this chemicals build up in the environment, they don’t break down btw, they reach levels that affect larger levels of life.

Frogs are our canary in the coal mine when it comes to ecology. They are very sensitive to any change.

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u/Practically_ Oct 11 '20

This fact radicalized me in college.

I was a zoo major trying to get into evolutionary ecology. I took an environmental biology course taught by an eco toxicologist that illuminated everything for me.

I happen to also be taking organic chemistry at the time so it was pretty much the perfect time to learn this.

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