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

  • ShittyBeatlesFCPres@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    For those that don’t know, Belgium is the world’s most successful failed state. There’s enough chocolate and beer around so no one cares but they suck at forming governments. I think they beat Iraq’s record at just not forming a government.

    • Jayjader@jlai.lu
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      10 hours ago

      Don’t joke too flippantly about it to their face, though.

      I did once and the dude sat me down and very patiently explained to me all of the ways people still suffered because of that period, like how his friend had to suddenly pay his cancer treatment out of pocket for months and months and would have ended up homeless if not for being able to crash on this guy’s couch.