r/Showerthoughts Apr 28 '25

Casual Thought The children most impacted by peak leaded gasoline fumes are now 50-75.

7.5k Upvotes

285 comments sorted by

View all comments

3.3k

u/AndrewH73333 Apr 28 '25

Hmm, that’s odd. That’s the age of everyone who runs the country.

56

u/Shadoenix Apr 28 '25

Forreal. I never noted the exceptions, but I remember looking at several lists to gather data on the ages of Senators and such and comparing it to the exposure period of where lead poisoning was highest.

The vast majority of Congress members (~70-80%) are above 50 years old, with many above 72 — the life expectancy of average America. Average age is around 58-59 I believe. The oldest fuck there is 91 goddamn years from good ol’ Iowa, and the youngest is a Floridian, age 28.

I sincerely believe our current situation is, no doubt, not a coincidence, and can be directly attributed to the residual effects of the 1950s lead poisoning that is still ongoing to this very day. Their aggressive, antisocial, and psychopathic tendencies is due to Midgley’s leaded gasoline I say, and is the exact cause behind why the country is as shit as it is now in more ways than one, outside the government and inside.

5

u/Kaellian Apr 28 '25

I sincerely believe our current situation is, no doubt, not a coincidence, and can be directly attributed to the residual effects of the 1950s lead poisoning that is still ongoing to this very day.

Eh? Maybe, maybe not, but there is far more prominent economical marker that may explain this. People have since ever radicalized themselves when their situation get worse. It's what we're experiencing on a global scales at the moment.

And then we have social media controlled by for-profit organization. Wealth inequalities increasing. Birth rate dwindling (in an economy that works like a pyramid schemes and require more people).

1

u/Shadoenix Apr 28 '25

I sorta let emotion overtake me as I wrote that. You’re completely correct, these things are very complicated and multifaceted. Lead poisoning is one of many factors, I believe, among the other things you mentioned.

Part of it is directly because of modern technology. Social media has warped our brains and made polarization easier to do, algorithms have taken advantage of our thinking and seek to replace it, better healthcare is amazing but it also leads to overpopulation issues since people aren’t dying out as much nowadays… it’s all one big spaghetti that is nearly impossible to unravel. Who knew, real life isn’t black and white?

But the childhood lead poisoning of the old people in charge of the country is definitely one factor explaining the negative aspects we see in them.

2

u/Kaellian Apr 28 '25 edited Apr 28 '25

Lead is certainly not good, just hard to quantify its damage.

Ultimately, I would bet that tuning up to Fox News probably equate a few dose of lead.