One vivid memory I have is of Bob declaring to everyone at some gathering, that all of the bluster over lead exposure was overwrought. He went on to declare that he played with lead all the time as a child, and it never did anything to him. Everyone glanced around at each other, almost laughing, but not saying a word.
Now we all know that the halls of the EPA are little more than a commie-pinko echo-chamber where anti-American troglodytes go to espouse new ways of screwing America by destroying industry. Yet, I found this article interesting, though I am aware that it has been argued that a lot of the lead stuff with Rome is either questionable, or overstated.
Of greatest interest however, is that lead exposure degrades amygdala function in the same fashion as just destroying amygdalar neurons.
If you stop and think about it, there was a shift in the 1920’s toward some new model of American cognition, much more open to leftism, and fomenting big government to avoid confronting problems at the individual level. Perhaps the industrial revolution fostered r in many ways, not just through a dopamine surge produced from free resource availability.
When conditions of r, and free resource availability take over, I have no doubt that the dopamine surge produced by the free resource availability triggers a low-grade addict-like cognitive shift in the populace. I have no doubt this low level addict-like cognitive shift is actually the onset of a biologically-programmed r-selected reproductive strategy designed to selfishly exploit a resource glut with lots of selfish consumption, danger/conflict/responsibility avoidance, and promiscuous sexual activity.
But I do wonder if lead has been adding to the mix, coincidentally, going back to the time of the Romans. A culture succeeds, production increases, and lead products proliferate, contaminating the population and destroying amygdalae. That everything from lead cups in Rome during the empire’s collapse, to leaded gas in New York City circa 1967, would have preferentially exposed the city-dwellers, does make you wonder. Are cities rabbit warrens for more reasons than just freer resource availability?
I do see something different in the millennials today, and wonder if the commies at the EPA have done more to hurt liberalism by reducing lead exposure recently, than anyone else has done, short of those who have set the economy to collapse.
Today’s youth have an edge. They turn their backs on metrosexualism, with thick beards and rougher, less polished styles. They seem to scoff at SJWs and social norms more, even if they still do so quietly under their breaths. They see guns as tools of self defense, and have made MMA overtake other sports. And more and more, I suspect they are seeing the errors of supporting people like the boy king in the White House who seems so overwhelmed by reality. They have a weariness and cynicism which seems poised to reject all of the stupid think the liberal crowd is trying to stuff down their throats – if only they can be given a push.
It will be interesting if there is yet one more reason that as the collapse unfolds, the younger generations of today will unhesitatingly step forward to grasp the reins, and reject all of the politically correct ideas they have been indoctrinated with, in favor of the cold hard light of reality.
It is possible there are many reasons for the rapid ascension of the Conservative Policy Mood of late, and a forthcoming Conservative President in the White House. We shall see.
i enjoy your work although I am not sure I agree with all of it. I would be interested in seeing your take on the current election in the UK considering that they seem like a precursor to our own fate in the USA.
I don’t think the UK is nearly as K-selected as America used to be. Most of their wolves came here, leaving their homeland much more … rabbity.
Unless the UK pushes back hard against the virus of multiculturalism & islam, they’re doomed to subjugation.
I still blame industrial schooling, a la John Taylor Gatto. We can’t imagine that subjecting entire generations of children to Pavlovian conditioning to bells, structure, and authority won’t leave a mark.
Have a conversation about politics with any 18-year-old home schooled kid. It’s an eye-opening experience.
Now subject a home schooled kid and a public schooled kid to stresses and ask them to come up with a solution. They will fall back on what they find comfortable. The public schooled kid will try to solve the problem with authority, central planning, structure, and public largesse (by design, having never been exposed to economics or statistics). The home schooled kid will try to solve the problem with research, personal initiative, and by asking his parents for advice.
Now there’s a fascinating research opportunity. Perhaps Heritage or Hillsdale might be interested in testing your hypothesis.
I’m not so sure that the newer generations are showing a true K shift vs. reacting to a K shift within the culture itself. To me, it seems more like an extended adolescent rebellion against their base digital culture in aesthetics only, by appearing more analog, while remaining wholly digital culturally. Until we see a shift that includes a move away from the smart-phone and social media based communications towards a more traditional in-group relations, whether with one another or within their social interactions; or a ascetic approach to personal or group development, it strikes me as nothing more than a trend to appear different while remaining interchangeable to r cultural norms that have mostly defined popular culture.
As far as MMA, while I think its popularity does possibly signify a K shift overall, it could also be seen in the eyes of the r based segment, as an entertainment that pits 2 K opponents against each other and reinforces self perceived r dominance. The Romans also had the Gladiators. Maybe its popularity or the need to provide such entertainment is fueled by the impending shift towards K as a means to assure the r segment of our populace that the K shift isn’t real or at the least to distract them from all of the other pointers of a K shift within the culture.
Interesting observation. Maybe it is just me, but I feel as if everyone is sensing something coming. I think it may be heightened by a combination of having witnessed Sept 11th, which was very K-stimulating, and seeing stuff that is just bizarre today. I think seeing a world that is so strange that you feel as if you could be hallucinating is very discomfiting. Today, from marriage denigration, to attacks on family, to the elimination of the vaguest sense of fiscal responsibility, to the dominance and celebration of evil and cowardice, the world is unrecognizable. I have to believe that perpetual psychological unbalancing is putting K’s on edge. Introduce the environmental variable of resource shortage, and I think that will trigger something that is building every day.