> Endocrine-disrupting chemicals from plastics and petrochemical pollution are found in a wide array of consumer goods – including pesticides, construction materials, furniture, children’s toys, fabrics and cosmetics. Most remain unregulated despite scientists’ warnings about potential negative effects on human health.
Nick Bostrom talks about the “black ball” we may someday pull from the urn of all possible technology: something so destructive and so difficult to control that it wipes us out. We haven’t found any yet but perhaps we can guess what they would look like.
Maybe it won’t be something like AI or nukes after all. Those things have too many eyes on them. Microplastics and PFAS ended up everywhere (including our blood) and we still barely understand how bad they are.
The issue is that we live among these profit-maximizing entities who don’t get sick and don’t really care about us unless they have to (and they try really hard not to have to) and if they can make a dollar poisoning a well, they’ll dig new ones just to poison them.
Some might say polluting the planet with microplastics before we fully understood their effects was jumping the gun. Now, once they are everywhere, it seems a bit late to suggest “caution”.
Less than a year earlier on average. Largely due to better nutritional standards. Yet the comments are filled with people freaked me out about microplatics, PFAS, and birth control.
There has certainly been a change in the onset of young female Menstruation.
I remember the early 70's at school and most girls started their periods around 15-16 years old.
During my post graduate training as a play therapist in 2002 the entire class were shocked to here that girls as young as eight were now starting their periods and puberty was starting earlier.
In fact, girls in general were developing physically and psycholically much quicker than over 30 years ago.
There are no clear answers as to why this is happening.
Maybe its to do with external forces such as; diet, environmental changes, chemicals in our clothing, food and water.
Maybe nature has a hand in this but I can see no reason why nature would want an eight year old to menstrate.
“If someone is showing signs of puberty before age eight they should talk to their doctor about it, and if they haven’t had a period by age 15 they should also talk to their doctor about it,” she said."
Are you sure that MOST started at 15-16? Because the article also says:
"They found that women born in the oldest bracket, between 1950-1969, got their period at 12.5 years old on average, compared to 11.9 years old for the youngest group, born between 2000-2005."
Neither of these two pieces from the article support your anecdotal notes.
> Maybe its to do with external forces such as; diet, environmental changes, chemicals in our clothing, food and water.
There are alot of factors to be sure. Some plastics are know to disturb hormome balance. Men have gotten fewer sperms too.
Just like those fringe tinfoil hats that said corps gonna spy on us if we give them the means and power to do that, I'll guess I'm going to wake up one day to find out and these environmentalist crackpots blabbering about "natural" food and materials have been right all along.
I mean, processed food is just ordinary food from a big kitchen.
Don't forget the birth control pill. We don't have a great way to remove its residue from the water supply last I read, so that's being constantly mixed in as more and more women try to avoid pregnancy.
I find it odd that it hasn't been mentioned in these comments, since its an obvious contender in the problem space, given that a women's cycle is almost entirely based on their hormones, and the pill affects their hormones.
How many women have been on the pill and for how long? It's a compounding effect on itself as it's not recycled out of drinking water sufficiently, and level have been increasing, especially considering how little is required to mess with female cycles.
It's often said women start with a fixed amount of eggs, that they shed in their fertile years window. Does that mean an earlier first period also causes them to enter menopause earlier? I wonder if that explains partially the fertility problems people face delaying having children.
> Even if it is detrimental to humanity as a whole.
Please stop that unfounded B.S. The Philippines had a thriving trans/gender neutral culture until the Christians showed up and imposed their binary preferences.
Also I wouldn't call the family structured societies healthy (as someone coming from a very "family healthy" society). They just makes sense for a certain time and for other times, a social change might be more appropriate.
So let me understand. You think that wide spread endocrine disruption is not detrimental to humanity, or did you just cling on the trans issue because it goes against your political views ?
I do not understand why exploring the reasons for the prevalence of people identifying as trans has to affect their identity.
> Even if it is detrimental to humanity as a whole.
You make this argument, and while the burden of proof is on you, you refute the answer with "because it goes against your political views".
These "trans issues" have existed for thousands of years[1] and yet humanity is still thriving.
And even assuming that your argument was founded and right, trans issues would be close to the bottom of the list of priorities compared to other detrimental behavior expressed by humanity. Wars, actively destroying our own planet and environment, discrimination, over-consumption.
I've written a response but unfortunately it doesn't fit in a comment. I think this is reasonable since your linked article doesn't either. Hopefully you'll consider this:
> It is known that the brains of males and females are different. Evidence further suggests that brain anatomy and neuronal signaling pathways are more closely aligned with a person’s perceived gender identity.
It's not only the trans phenomenon, everything you mentioned there is politically radioactive. Are you really allowed to worry about environmental endocrine disruptors if hormonal contraceptives are a substantial contributor to that problem?
Every age has its taboos and its sacred cows and all our "enlightened" society has managed to do is obscure that immutable fact.
We don’t even need to go that deep. Microplastics are everywhere. BPA is everywhere. PFAS is everywhere. These aren’t “sacred cows” to anyone but chemical company shareholders but it turns out to be a lot easier to make a mess than clean it up.
Exposure to microplastics, forever chemicals and pesticides is a frequent topic of open conversation and criticism. Those remain politically intransigent because of competing economic interests.
By comparison, it's hard to even approach a discussion about environmental pollution if it intersects with some issue regular people find personally important like birth control.
I don’t think any discussions about the effects of hormonal birth control pollution are being suppressed. What I do see are a lot of websites with an ax to grind against any form of contraception saying that it is being “suppressed”.
> politically intransigent because of competing economic interests
Maybe we shouldn’t just blow past this point. It is not an acceptable state of the world that the welfare of our children is even considered against the wealth extraction for a few multinational companies. Politicians that take kickbacks to allow companies to poison their water supplies is something that should never happen in a functional democracy.
Unfortunately it seems to be multiple confounding factors including diet, pollution, lifestyle.. And pollution is the hairy one. From the immense amount of microplastic on clothing or food, to multiple relatively unstudied sources with unknown effects like tire or brake pad powder (non exhaust car emissions)
You ignoring everything and clinging on those two words is exactly what is causing our problems.
Did I claim that trans did not exist in the past ?
No, I did not. The prevalence however does NOT suggest that in the past all these people have been oppressed.
Is it that controversial to imagine that exposure to endocrine disruptors while in the womb could cause someone to identify as trans later, after more exposure to pollutants ?
Does that take anything away from the identity of trans people ? Does that make me "transphobic" ?
Nick Bostrom talks about the “black ball” we may someday pull from the urn of all possible technology: something so destructive and so difficult to control that it wipes us out. We haven’t found any yet but perhaps we can guess what they would look like.
Maybe it won’t be something like AI or nukes after all. Those things have too many eyes on them. Microplastics and PFAS ended up everywhere (including our blood) and we still barely understand how bad they are.
The issue is that we live among these profit-maximizing entities who don’t get sick and don’t really care about us unless they have to (and they try really hard not to have to) and if they can make a dollar poisoning a well, they’ll dig new ones just to poison them.