Falling sperm counts 'threaten human survival', expert warns:
Falling sperm counts and changes to sexual development are "threatening human survival" and leading to a fertility crisis, a leading epidemiologist has warned.
Writing in a new book, Shanna Swan, an environmental and reproductive epidemiologist at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.
"The current state of reproductive affairs can't continue much longer without threatening human survival," she writes in Count Down.
It comes after a study she co-authored in 2017 found that sperm counts in the west had plummeted by 59% between 1973 and 2011, making headlines globally.
Now, Swan says, following current projections, sperm counts are set to reach zero in 2045. "That's a little concerning, to say the least," she told Axios.
In the book, Swan and co-author Stacey Colino explore how modern life is threatening sperm counts, changing male and female reproductive development and endangering human life.
It points to lifestyle and chemical exposures that are changing and threatening human sexual development and fertility. Such is the gravity of the threats they pose, she argues, that humans could become an endangered species.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:04AM (1 child)
Fuck it, I'll bang the bitch twice then.
(Score: 5, Touché) by leon_the_cat on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:57AM
You'll bang the bitch 1.694 times.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Orion Blastar on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:20AM (2 children)
fertilize the egg using dna from another egg and eliminate men. If any man appears, death by Snu snu.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pTamok on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:06AM
Whoever moderated that as 'Flamebait' didn't get the Futurama reference. They probably would not understand A Modest Proposal either.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:54PM
DNA from female lacks all important Y chromosome and 12 essential vitamins and minerals*. Fertilizing an XX egg with more XX dna cannot result in getting any XY. Thus no more Snu snu.
Lacking in Snu snu,, the only other short term consideration would be whether the zero sperm count affects the taste.
*Honeycomb's big, yeah, yeah yeah! It's not small, no, no, no!
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 2, Touché) by fustakrakich on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:21AM (4 children)
So what's up on the far side?
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday April 01 2021, @04:02PM (3 children)
The people saying it's some kind of trend in the west use a graph whose trend line can be reversed by removing a single outlier country from the analysis to arrive at that conclusion.
This lady makes a small fortune selling books and talks about how toxins are causing dropping sperm counts, but here's a spoiler: it's not a distinct crisis from the obesity crisis. Overall our serum heavy metal toxin levels and atmospheric particulate pollution levels are lower than they were a generation ago.
It's been a consistent winner heuristic for me that any time someone talks about non-specific "toxins" they're full of shit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:56PM (2 children)
Look at the west on a macro level and there are a *huge* number of negative macro level things happening: lowered testosterone, increasing obesity, lowered sperm count, lowered IQ, increased mental illness, and on, and on.
Many, if not all, of these issues are being compounded by environmental factors. The internet in particular is something that has just radically reshaped our species in a period of 30 years. But at the same time, we have also increased our consumption of an endless variety of engineered substances such as, for instance, plastics. The problem is that so many things are changing so incredibly rapidly that it's near impossible to determine what, if anything, is having a causal factor. But to suggest nothing is having a causal factor entails the same sort of blind faith to assume that everything is bad for you.
Even on the obesity crisis, I'd wager it's merely a symptom of something much more fundamental and worrisome - the disappearance of self control. I noticed I was getting a bit heavier around the waistline that I was comfortable with, so I engaged in the ultra-sophisticated, cutting edge, new age diet of... "eat less." I cut my consumption down to one fairly modest meal a day, and the weight just disappeared. The only thing required was a bit of self control. Obviously nobody wants to become obese, yet the fact people let this happen to themselves is indicative of the decline of self control and self discipline.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @07:08AM
This article speculates plastics are the culprit: https://www.gq.com/story/sperm-count-zero [gq.com]
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday April 02 2021, @09:39AM
It's not just self control. What we eat affects how hungry we become and thus how much self control we have. (Example: diet drinks often increase weight instead of removing it.) American diets are also high in sugar, high in fat, highly processed, and filled with chemicals. For instance, try to find bread at the supermarket that isn't sugared up. It's basically impossible. (And if you can, good for you. You're the exception.) Buying meat from the supermarket? It's usually colored red so you don't notice it going gray because it sat there for a while. And very few people have time to make things from scratch.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:24AM (3 children)
My father's sperm count has already reached zero, since he's dead. My brother's is also zero, since he had himself cut. (Vasectomy, not castration, though with his wife, hard to tell.) And my sister's count is also zero, since, um, she has no balls! So what is the point, here? A trend towards zero does not necessarily reach zero, it only approaches it. And Unless you are a Hassidic Jew all worried about the Palestinians having a higher fertility rate than you, or an American White Superassist, who is promoting white motherhood, because those Catholic Hispanics are really, really, out producing you in terms of kiddlings, this is a blatantly racist meme. Go fuch yourself up your own ass for great insemination, racist assholes!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:41AM (1 child)
Oh, look, how cute! Little Bobby Woketard has internalized all the talking points! He actually thinks he has something to add to a conversation!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:45AM
Little Bobby Woketard has a higher sperm-count than you, cuck-boy! You will be hiring him in the near future to father your children, since you are unable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:45AM
Where you aware that the world doesn’t revolve around your family?
(Score: 5, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:31AM (60 children)
Good.
We're over populated and running out of resources, land, water, etc.. We could use a good population reduction that doesn't involve war, famine, or disease.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:03AM (56 children)
Nah, it's mostly a western problem. Developing nations are having no problems whatsoever with fertility rates. So all of the people that want to wax and wane poetic about the environment, climate, and social issues will be wiped out of the gene pool within a hundred years while the people who either don't care or believe that whatever happens is God's will, will have inherited the Earth - so to speak.
As an aside this is also why the "declining world population" is somewhat disingenuous. It's true, but only to a degree. A large number of groups continue to have well above replacement fertility rates. And so what you will see is a brief decline as the west dies off without replacing themselves, followed by a return to rapidly increasing rates as the rest of the world's population grows and then begins to outpace the declines of the west.
This is also why "responsible fertility" is an oxymoron. If you care about things like the sustainability of our systems, the best decision you could ever make would be to have as many kids as you possibly could to ensure they can carry your views and values onto the next generations.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:05AM (17 children)
The rest of the world also has declining fertility rates too. Something wrong with the narrative, bro.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:47AM (16 children)
There's a difference between declining and disappearing. Much of the world is maintaining very healthy levels of fertility.
You can see some data here [wikipedia.org]. So for instance, low income countries have an average fertility rate of 4.5 children/woman. But the more interesting thing is that even *within* nations this pattern is holding true. For instance this [statista.com] graph shows the relative fertility rate within the US based on income. People in households earning less than $10k/year are having about 50% more children than those in households earning more than $200k per year.
And so it turns both poverty and fertility into a sort of zombie virus. Because those kids born into $200k year households just 'keep waiting until they're ready' only to one morning find their loved one is having those tell tale hot flashes. This sort of mechanic is a very new thing because it relies on social systems that didn't exist until the ~1960s. People in those intro to Idiocracy demonstrated this all in a pretty amusing and accurate way.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:01AM (13 children)
There is poetic justice in all of this. Those who are the most "woke" are going extinct, and the non-woke will inherit the earth. Survival of the fittest, and all that, right?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @03:03PM (2 children)
- VHS
- Windows
- Starbucks
- Slashdot
...
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday April 02 2021, @10:17PM (1 child)
VHS won because Sony insisted that movie studios pay a royalty to Sony for the privilege of distributing on Beta.
Meanwhile the owner of the VHS patents did not.
This encouraged a practice of releasing on VHS first, and releasing later on Beta only if the VHS version sold well enough to indicate it would be profitable.
This induced to public to realize that the newer movies were available on VHS only, and so they had better get a VHS recorder.
Beta was a technically better technology, and lost.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 06 2021, @12:59AM
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday April 01 2021, @03:45PM (8 children)
And what will they inherit? This planet is become a hellish prison world at breakneck speed. There are worse things than death, you know. If you really think 11 billion people on an overheating resource-poor whirling madhouse is a good time, by all means, fight and thrash and howl to survive. Me, I've had so many brushes with the Reaper she's probably going to make me stand in line with a bunch of cats when my time finally comes, and I'm not worried.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 01 2021, @04:22PM (1 child)
There won't be 11 billion when the wokies have extincted themselves. ;^)
But, don't worry, M̶r̶.̶ ̶R̶o̶o̶s̶e̶v̶e̶l̶t̶ Elon Musk is going to save us all!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHdXQAQHjd8 [youtube.com]
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:20PM
Runaway's conflict in a nutshell:
Sane people: Stop being a dick and oppressing people!
Runaway: get genocided bitch ;^)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:16PM (5 children)
Don't you get it? What's happening?
In modern times we created, relative to past times, a utopia. There was no war between developed nations, everybody was able to receive an education, crime was plummeting, there were jobs available for just about everybody who wanted to one, starvation became a thing of the past, food was clean and readily available, even the poor had amenities kings of times past would have killed for. Can you imagine people of times past hearing about things such as an *obesity epidemic*? I'm sure they'd weep plenty of tears for our woes.
Yet? Something was somehow missing.
I think we, humans, are geared for adversity. When there is no adversity, we simply will create it. So now with no particularly clear trigger, we have a nation trending towards Civil War and a global society that's just getting kind of cray cray. I think it's just the result of massive numbers of people looking for some sort of meaning in their life. This is why a Star Trek universe will never exist. Replicators where never have want of anything? Holodecks where you can be anybody, go anywhere, do anything, do anybody? I'm sure the endless self indulgence would be awesome for a year or two. After that? Congrats, every fetish, every fantasy, every dream fulfilled. Now? It'd be a mixture of a culture engaging in mass suicide, and those living in reality deciding to engage in a revolution against some spurious reason just to have something to live for.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:17PM
Nope, utopia never arrived and the culture/race wars haven't stopped. Seriously, do you even reality bro?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday April 02 2021, @01:08AM (3 children)
Oh not this bullshit again.
If you want to wallow in your animal nature fine. Me, I intend to make use of this ridiculously big neocortex nature gave us and the technology and culture we've built to transcend my origins as, let's face it, a hairless ape in surgical scrubs. This idea that we *need* bloody, violent conflict and the kind of preventable death rate you'd expect out of a disaster movie or we'll "go soft" is one of the most damaging tropes I've ever come across, and if there were ever an actual case of "toxic masculinity" (because I NEVER see other women saying this!) then this is it.
You aren't some kind of special ubermensch or some paragon of "dark enlightenment" because you have a taste for blood and carnage and are creepy enough to admit it. All the challenge you're looking for can be found by challenging your mind and constantly learning, plus doing a bit of exercise. There is no need for widespread spilling of blood, and your characterization of a safe, decent life as "endless self-indulgence" is somewhere between ridiculous and repellent.
If you don't like civilization, by all means, go somewhere that suits your...ahem, opinionated worldview. Like Somalia.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @05:55AM (1 child)
You miss the point. I am not expressing an ideal. I am expressing an observation. It is not possible for humanity to "go soft" because we invariably trend towards conflict, even when there's no extrinsic reason for it whatsoever. The "woke" tend to somewhat proudly acknowledge themselves as 'beta cucks' (so to speak), yet they're trending towards becoming no less dangerous than the militarized fascists of times past - self deprecation of their own masculinity notwithstanding.
Heh, even look at the history of the Bavarian Soviet Republic [wikipedia.org] which we seem to be gradually working towards replaying. As part of a German Civil War (at the tail end of WW1) a group of loonies took over Bavaria, and it's like they were being led by our very own Aristarchus:
Of course the playful absurdity of it all belies the brutal nature with which they got there, as well as the brutality that would follow.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:02PM
Simply not true. The vast majority of conflicts are driven by the greedy fuckers using fear and anger to manipulate their followers. Trying to justify your fucked up worldview as "just observations" shows that you're even more twisted or more stupid than your original post led us to believe.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 05 2021, @02:01PM
OTOH, consider that it *might* be one of the themes running through culture. It doesn't need to be true for everyone to have an effect on the general culture. And he did say "relative to times past", so it's not THAT wrong. (If you think it is, read some real history. You need to go back to before the beginning of agriculture to find people with as much free time. And then it was mixed with times of privation. There are/were islands where this was less true, but they had some other means of population control...like protein deprivation.)
That said, there are certainly people around today suffering severely from starvation or oppression. But society at large isn't. In Rome the slaves out-numbered the free citizens, and if a free citizen went into debt, parts of his body could be sold off to pay the debt.
Personally, I tend to attribute current bad actions to people being self-centered, selfish, and unconcerned about what happens to others, but the might not be a full explanation.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:03PM
And except, the children of the non-woke wake up. Where do you think all those dirty hippies came from, in the '60s? Children of conservative Repbulicans! (Of course, this was back before conservativism was a congenital birth defect. Might be different now.)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:19PM
Nobody is maintaining those "very healthy" levels of fertility. Look at individual countries - they are all in the midst of substantial declines in fertility.
The graph in question doesn't tell you how many people that is (less than $10k per year is a pretty small number) or their age - younger, more fertile people earn less, remember?
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Friday April 02 2021, @09:44AM
Ummm... not exactly. Digging into the articles a little, they confuse birth rates (which can be consciously chosen) with actual ability to have children (measuring only the biological factors). And looking at your comments, I think you're confusing those as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:25AM (4 children)
The ones with the highest environmental footprint. All good then.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Nuke on Thursday April 01 2021, @12:25PM (3 children)
That would be India and China. Have you seen the shit they discard? Nearly all the plastic in the sea, plus other crap, comes out of their rivers, and the men spend half their lives sitting on shitty little 2-stroke motorbikes with the engines ticking over. They will create as big an environmental footprint as they can possibly afford at the time, while westerners beat themselves up about how best to recycle a paper label from a bottle.
(Score: 2, Touché) by crafoo on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:08PM (1 child)
Stop it. Words are magic to Progressive Death Cult members. Your words have no meaning to them.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:24PM
Hope you're not religious, all that hate in your soul will be sending you to the naughty place.
The one-dimensional analysis of the situation resulting in your Progressive Death Cult label just shows how totally stupid you are. My guess is that you would support rolling back environmental regulations and you hate the concept of Carbon Taxes more than Obama.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 05 2021, @02:08PM
Where did the plastic come from? Yeah, when you send garbage to them for recycling, they tend to throw away anything that isn't valuable, but in that case they didn't originate it.
Also, are you considering on a per country basis or on a per capita basis. On a per capita basis even then they are much lower in polluting.
Not to worry, though. There's not too much evidence that this will take humanity below the replacement rate for very long. It's one of the less likely self-generated extinction events.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @11:00AM (31 children)
"If you care about things like the sustainability of our systems, the best decision you could ever make would be to have as many kids as you possibly could to ensure they can carry your views and values onto the next generations."
If everyone did this we would be even more overpopulated.
No, I think the best decision would be to have no kids and figure out ways to convince those that have too many children to have fewer children (good luck, many of them speak limited or no English and they speak various languages depending on location. The Republican's biggest mistake is their English only mentality though I'm starting to notice there is some somewhat conservative leaning Spanish Youtube channels arising ... about time).
It's poor people that tend to have more children. It's not wealth that results in people having fewer children it's that poor people tend to make poor decisions and having too many children is a poor decision. Plus they also depend on their poor governments to help support them (hence they have poor governments). Their governments also made poor decisions as well creating overpopulation and poverty. Not always true though, Russia is socialist and they don't have a huge population problem (I wonder how this can be applied to China and their huge population growth at one time. But if you look at all the poor socialist countries/continents like Africa, India, much of south America except maybe Chili and maybe Argentina, etc... which aren't as socialist I suppose?).
It's also interesting to note that the welfare system, as it started gaining prominence, has also created more single parents in the UK as well (among whites). This has resulted in increased crime and more poverty. Even in the U.S. it's created more single parents among various demographics.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @11:22AM
(same poster)
Thanks to the Internet my mom doesn't even watch that much stuff in English anymore. Most of the entertainment media she consumes is now in her native language (Arabic). She and my dad have always attended the Arabic church sessions (I sometimes attended the Arabic sessions with them but prefer English) and my mom studied the Bible in Arabic but because cable TV is in English she didn't really consume Arabic entertainment. My dad mostly consumes English entertainment and the only reason my parents still have cable is because my dad likes to watch his sports. My mom is 100 percent proficient in both English and Arabic (I'm proficient in English of course and relatively fluid in Spanish and Arabic ... I can comfortably communicate in the other two languages if I have to but English is my preference) but now, because of the Internet, she consumes entertainment media in Arabic. This is also partly why many people are cutting cable, people like my mom that prefer content in their native language and cable doesn't offer any such thing.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday April 01 2021, @03:09PM (29 children)
Also the Republican states will have to write new voter laws.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:19AM (28 children)
It's funny how the democrats claim that voter suppression is to help the 'minority' vote. If the people they are really helping are really minorities shouldn't their vote be mostly outweighed by the majority vote and have little impact? Then they turn around and claim that their beliefs are the majority.
They should, instead, be claiming that they want to help the majority vote get their votes out because voter suppression helps suppress the majority. They want to ensure that elections reflect the majority vote.
The whole FPTP system sucks anyways. I'm in favor of a proportional representation system. That would help the true minorities. Not the minorities as defined by some arbitrary committee.
But, yes, we need better voter integrity. Someone did some investigation on voting that showed some possible problems (they weren't claiming there was long term voter fraud) and, apparently their account (CrowderBits) got temporarily suspended from Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4J_y6Z3S5aY&t=26s [youtube.com]
They didn't claim the election was rigged, just showed some possible problems that might need to be looked at.
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01, @09:28AM (#1132081) writes
"In a nutshell, society is no longer imposing its views and values on people.
That is all a phenomenal change from a liberal point of view. Yet at the same time it's paradoxically catastrophic for the perseverance of liberal views and values. Because those adopting liberal views and values are trending towards extinction level fertility rates, while those maintaining more conservative and/or religious values are reproducing at a very healthy rate - if not excessively."
Liberals act like they are the ones that don't want to impose their views and values on others. That's hilarious. Look at any socialist country. Even in the U.S. the only conservative media T.V. outlet is Fox (yes there are some A.M., radio stations. It was Bill Clinton that allowed more media mergers so as to create less media competition ... to impose certain a narrower range of views on others?), anyone that dares question the election process may get banned from social media, cable won't carry other conservative media outlets, and the liberals want to ban anything they disagree with from the Internet. Because, like most socialist countries, the liberals are against free speech. Always have been. They don't want to actually have to defend their position against criticism. They try to impose their views on/in taxpayer funded schools while having criticisms removed.
Not saying the conservatives are perfect either. I do think humans are an environmental disaster and we need to stop proliferating so much. I don't think the liberals or the conservatives really have a good answer to how we can be less of an environmental burden but I do believe in having an EPA that does what it needs to do to protect the environment (while I think the EPA is technically unconstitutional I think the constitution needs to be updated). So many things George Bush Sr. did that I disagree with (war with Iraq and Halliburton, the patriot act that the democrats later abused, waterboarding, Guantanamo Bay ... so, no, the republicans don't get a free pass either but I want people to have access to a wide array of views even ones you or I disagree with. To be transparent I do tend to lean more conservative overall).
As far as fascism is concerned the Nazi party is the Nazi socialist party. Like most socialists the liberals want to rewrite history (reminds me of most socialist countries like China) and claim that the conservatives are the ones that are fascist and racist. I want history to be told how it actually happened not how the liberals want you to think it happened. The republicans freed the slaves, the republicans gave African American's the right to vote, and the Republicans had the first African American congressman. There was never any party switch, it has always been (and still is) the democratic party that's racist. That has always been part of their core agenda from Marxism and Mussolini.
The following video goes into more detail about how the history actually happened, and now how the democratic party is trying to rewrite it (like socialists do in all countries).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8rkxLBCn80 [youtube.com]
It's no wonder liberals want opposing views and criticisms censored. It's much easier to get people to believe a lie if they have no access to the truth and if you repeat the same lie over and over and over people are more likely to believe it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @10:16PM (27 children)
ftfy.
To anybody else reading this is mostly a "I'm a rational guy, I hate the guy you hate!!" piece with a few things that sound like facts but aren't, like the above bit that leaves out a critical bit of context to make that statement true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @04:40PM (26 children)
The context is that socialists like to rewrite history and that's what they are doing again, as per usual. It's to be expected and it's what we see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @04:51PM (25 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @04:58PM (24 children)
That's what happened. It's the democrats/socialists (marxism) that wanted to keep them enslaved.
It's why the democrats like to censor anything they disagree with. Question the elections? You are responsible for the riots at the capital and must be censored and punished. Let's block payment processors to your platform, prevent you from being carried on cable, etc...
That's the socialist agenda. Deny access to truth, censor dissent. That's how history is rewritten. Socialists are the one that have had a history of doing that and they're trying to do it again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @07:07PM (2 children)
Gaslight
Obstruct
Project
I see you are busy with gaslighting at the moment, just accuse others of your own misdeeds, keep them off the track!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 03 2021, @07:13PM
Because you don't have any real arguments to make ...
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday April 05 2021, @02:16PM
That's not necessarily true. The person you are arguing with may believe that the name is the thing. I've met a few such. Or they may believe what they were taught in school is what really happened despite knowing "history is written by the victors".
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @08:26AM (20 children)
> It's the democrats/socialists (marxism) that wanted to keep them enslaved.
it's republicans/bigots that wanted to keep monuments to slaveholders up. This is how I know you were informed in meme-form, memes work because they leave out important context. I think you knew that, though, since you used the term 'republican' in an uncharacteristically specific way.
> That's the socialist agenda. Deny access to truth, censor dissent.
you guys acted up and were shown the door. It will happen *every*single*time*, not because you're the victims, but because you're the criminals and no-one you need help from wants to harbor you.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @03:20PM (9 children)
You are the one leaving out context, as per usual. The republicans had to work within the political system that existed at the time but they continued to work towards equality and freeing the slaves while it was the democrats/socialists (fascists) that were trying to maintain racism and slavery.
Then the democrats try to associate fascism with being a republican and they act like they are the better ones. It's the opposite.
The republican party has evolved since then but that's not to say we shouldn't appreciate the republicans that went out of their way to free the slaves and give blacks the right to vote while acknowledging it was the democratic party that responsible for fighting in favor of racism, bigotry, fascism, and not the other way around.
The problem is that the democrats try to rewrite history which is to be expected from socialists. That's what Hitler did.
"not because you're the victims"
It's the democrats that keep claiming they are victims of racism all the while being racist and having been racist all along.
" but because you're the criminals"
Edward Snowden and Julian Assanage were not criminals.
"When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime , you are being ruled by criminals." - Edward Snowden
The criminals are those in power. The banks, the mainstream media, the politicians, etc... they are the criminals. The ruling class are criminals. What they are doing is or at least should be criminal.
and I'm very disappointed in Trump for not pardoning Snowden and Assange (though neither of them did anything wrong to be pardoned for but still ...). Biden is way too much of a criminal to ever parden Snowden and Assange. If he does I would give him credit but I know for a fact he won't because he's a criminal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @09:16PM (8 children)
The republicans of that era would not be republicans today. That's how far they 'evolved' and why you're trying to tone that detail down.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @11:59PM (7 children)
That's just the democrats/socialists trying to rewrite history again, as per usual, this time by arbitrarily asserting, for no reason whatsoever, that there is some ideological switch on someone else.
Let's not forget that it was Biden that didn't want his son to enter a multi-race school because he thought of it as a racial jungle. Then the democrats just randomly proclaim, out of nowhere, that the republicans are suddenly the racist party. It's so dishonest and you keep repeating the same lie over and over hoping that people will believe it. Your whole premise is based on an outright lie.
What I meant is that the republicans today don't own slaves as in they have embraced the non-racist society that they have created and, sure, maybe some of them did own slaves back then which doesn't make it right but that doesn't change the fact that, historically (and currently) it was (and is) the republicans that are non-racist and the democrats are racist. It was also the democrats that passed the Jim Crow laws. Nothing's changed just because you have arbitrarily declared that it has. There is no basis to your arbitrary declaration, you simply made it up out of nowhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @01:49AM (3 children)
The democratic party is and has always been the racist party.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @03:04AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @04:27AM (1 child)
because you don't have any real arguments to make, as per usual.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @08:32PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @02:13AM (2 children)
Nah, you lot are pretty open about it. Now if you disagree with what some of your buddies are saying you'd defy expectations by speaking up now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @05:08AM (1 child)
Like I said, because you don't have any real arguments to make. Just blanket, baseless, assertions, name calling, arbitrarily calling anyone you disagree with racist for no reason, taking others out of context, exaggerating the mistakes of others while covering up your own.
Trump barely slipped and CNN had their medical analyst spend a whole bunch of time talking about how he could be having neurological problems.
Biden slams Trump for using the term Partisan Lynching and it turns out Biden used the same term in the past (to his credit Biden later apologized for using the term).
Biden can hardly put two words together and when he falls up the stairs CNN ignores it and when asked they say falling every once in a while is normal.
Trump was way more open with respect to answering questions and the border issue than Biden is but the media was much harder on Trump.
The dishonest, one sided, bias is very obvious. While Trump does have his flaws he was obviously held to higher standards by the media than Biden is. They continuously harp on everything he ever said and take everything out of context as much as they can, he detested white supremacy several times and the media kept trying to claim that he didn't do enough to detest it, all the while downplaying and overlooking any of Biden's screw ups.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @05:49AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @03:30PM (9 children)
"because you're the criminals and no-one you need help from wants to harbor you. "
You are implicitly admitting that information distribution should be left into the hands of a few. Media and culture shouldn't be organically driven it should be a few entities that control the flow of information. Because if you let the masses control the flow of information they will disagree with you since you can't actually defend your position. You must censor those you disagree with. You are against free speech and you even admit it. You are against free speech because your position can't be defended in the face of dissent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 04 2021, @09:20PM (8 children)
I'm directly stating that you can't shit in someone else's bed and expect their voluntary cooperation. It isn't a problem of 'too few people', it's a problem of you guys fucking up THAT BAD.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @12:24AM (7 children)
Who gets to decide who is the one messing up? The few. So, yes, it is a problem of a few people getting to decide the narrative by simply silencing those they disagree with. You are very against free speech, your very own words imply it. You are against it because you know very well that your message is indefensible in the face of criticism and dissent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @02:09AM (6 children)
The ones providing the services. You're basically just describing the 'Invisible Hand" working exactly as it should.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @04:21AM (1 child)
The banks receive a government service in the form of FDIC insurance. If they want that service they shouldn't be allowed to discriminate with respect to whom I can send payments to. That includes any payment processors they work with.
Cable companies and ISPs receive their right of way monopolies from the government.
Broadcasters receive their broadcasting monopolies from the government.
Public schools are funded by the government.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @06:02AM
Cable companies and ISPs are not doing the 'censorship'. They enjoy a legal protection for that.... hehe... that Trump tried to dismantle because feelz. Bringing them up is either a sign of ignorance or willful deception.
Broadcasters are not performing said censorship, either. Your gripe is really with the advertisers who didn't want their brands associated with right wing nutjobbery. Oh but study a bit before you attempt to make that case... you'll end up cornering yourself against other principles you hold dear.
Public schools are also not performing said censorship, though I agree through just your one post alone that their terrible quality has led to your particular mis-education on what freedom of speech actually is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @04:32AM (3 children)
"You're basically just describing the 'Invisible Hand" working exactly as it should."
That assumes sufficient competition. Unfortunately, thanks to many mergers and acquisitions, there is much less competition. As stated, some of that is due to the democrats and, also, some of that is due to the republicans. Yes, some of that is due to Trump and his policy against net neutrality. I am a strong believer in net neutrality and trump messed up here and he was part of the problem with respect to reducing competition and allowing many of these mergers and acquisitions. This came back to bite him, he thought it was a great idea when he was in power then when he lost power he realized it can be used against him and the republicans suddenly changed their viewpoints on this. The republicans aren't perfect either and I don't side with them on everything. Competition is important. Net neutrality is important. The republicans dropped the ball here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @06:10AM (2 children)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @11:01AM (1 child)
I have no problems criticizing the Republicans where I think they are wrong. Both parties have problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 05 2021, @03:15PM
If you guys actually did do internal criticism you wouldn't have the collective reputation of pre-teens coming up with convoluted stories to avoid getting grounded.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @04:11PM
> have as many kids as you possibly could to ensure they can carry your views and values onto the next generations.
I don't think this works the way you think it does. My general observation is that kids frequently/often develop views and values 180 degrees opposite to their parents.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 01 2021, @01:44PM (1 child)
Do you have any reason to believe this just affects humans?
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Monday April 05 2021, @06:12AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:59PM
You really eliminated all the best ways.
I suppose starvation by poverty doesn't actually count as famine, technically. There would be enough food amongst the wealthy.
Mass death by radiation, but not as a result of war, might also work as population reduction
tragedystrategy.Suppose an asteroid can manage to bring to Earth surface some new micro organism that is fatal to humans. Does that count as disease?
Mass sterilizations or executions for wrong think wouldn't count as war, merely government policy.
The server will be down for replacement of vacuum tubes, belts, worn parts and lubrication of gears and bearings.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by mendax on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:38AM (1 child)
Perhaps the movie Children of Men [imdb.com] will become a reality.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:59AM
Great movie, has maybe a few of the best made shots in movie history (the car-attack scene, note it is just one shot), but it never really explained the infertillity among humans. I hardly believe such rate (close to 0) of infertillity would be reached in the current environment.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Frosty Piss on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:43AM (1 child)
A foreign substance is introduced into our precious bodily fluids without the knowledge of the individual. Certainly without any choice. I first became aware of it during the physical act of love. A profound sense of fatigue, a feeling of emptiness followed. Luckily I was able to interpret these feelings correctly. Loss of essence.
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:10PM
It's telling that your contribution to this discussion is just a wholesale quote of a piece of pop media without comment or analysis. You are well conditioned and groomed. Are you proud?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @06:54AM (23 children)
As a father of two boys growing up in "the west", I'm worried and I'd really like to have grandchildren.
But as a scientist I have to say... really? I'm sure that out of the ~4 billion men around today, there will be at least a thousand with good enough sperm counts to keep humanity going forward.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:07AM (2 children)
Same here... the point that I noticed first was: "Now, Swan says, following current projections, sperm counts are set to reach zero in 2045."... "current projections" is a fancy way of saying, "we extrapolated until we reached interesting point x (here 0)". There are more flaws in her reasoning: "warns that the impending fertility crisis poses a global threat comparable to that of the climate crisis.". The climate crisis is a SLOW global event, where a lot of feedback is happening and recovery is most likely slow as well. The "fertillity crisis" she talks about is mostly in the west, can be worked around (start storing sperm and eggs, not really rocket science) and will most likely recover quicker than a full-fledged climate change.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:39AM (1 child)
Reminds me of this xkcd. [xkcd.com]
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @01:52PM
Or this quote [twainquotes.com] from Mark Twain.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:27AM (11 children)
In my opinion there's a relatively clear motivation behind the article (which I suspect will start becoming increasingly common). Changes in fertility rates are not uniform. We're seeing the ongoing collapse of fertility rates among households with high income, high education, low religiosity, and generally liberal values. We're seeing healthy to high fertility rates among households with low income, low education, high religiosity, and generally conservative values. Obviously I'm speaking of fertility and not sperm rates, but it seems probable that the same correlation holds there. It's hard to keep those fertility rates high if you have collapsing sperm counts.
As you mentioned, Earth and humanity as a whole, will be 100% fine. But unless fertility rates dramatically change within the next ~30 years, the ideological landscape of the Earth is going to look radically different within about ~60 years. Education and various values tend to be shared between generations. Humans will not become an endangered species, but humans with liberal views and values very possibly might.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:37AM (1 child)
Holy fuck, what an idiotic statement. Did you get dropped on your head or something?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:06AM
Maybe you were dropped. While "sperm count" doesn't directly translate into "fertility rate", GP has things pretty much figured out. Woketards will be the first people to go extinct. The rest of the world will continue producing new people to replace the woketards.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:18AM (6 children)
Stephen Pinker actually ran the numbers, and wrote "enlightment now" to explain them.
as I see it, progress generates liberal views and values, which in turn lead to further progress.
you just have to look at China today. while the government is getting more and more repressive, and a large part of the population is happy with that, there's a lot of noise there BECAUSE there's also a larger and larger proportion of the population who want more freedom, simply because there's a larger proportion of the population doing well enough to think about these things. and also because there are people willing and able to talk about the repression. while the uighur situation is a form of genocide, I think the cultural revolution (which we only heard about much later) generated quantitatively more misery. the fact that we can hear about the uighur situation while it's happening is a big deal.
eastern european countries (communist block) were also getting more and more repressive in the 80s, with the cold war discussions getting more and more angry on all sides (hence you get songs like "99 luftbalons"). all to spectacularly (and violently) get rid of the communist leaders in the early 90s. the full story is more complicated, there's still a lot of corruption in those countries, and related issues. but the governments were getting nastier, and they were toppled (to many people's surprise, including the CIA).
so now you say "poor religious people will dominate". that's irrelevant. they already aspire to being rich and providing better education to their kids. which in turn will lead to enlightened values.
yes, if our lifestyle is leading to decreased fertility (not just reproduction rates) we should be made aware of it, and then we can make informed choices. but the claims here are taken to extremes just to generate buzz and citations (also see above comment on extrapolation, which brings to mind the relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/605/). [xkcd.com]
and yes, it is possible that humanity will find a new and refined form of tyranny that will keep most people poor and stupid for the benefit of a few, for a long time. and we should fight against that. but making sure "good people" reproduce at a good enough rate doesn't sound like a solution (it actually just sounds like a way to reinforce the "us" vs "them" mentality). if you really care about this, you should care about good ideas reproducing, not people.
by the way. people should have kids because they want to have kids, not because they want the world to not be inherited by other people's kids.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:20AM (4 children)
Citations needed. And, "citations" doesn't mean analysis and speculation from some liberal think tank. Conservative think tanks are out as well, I think.
I don't think that there is any leader in China who is charismatic enough to spark another cultural revolution. But The Party almost certainly has the means to do so. The Party speaks, and the people jump. Unless you foresee the collapse of the communist party?
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:25PM
Can't speak for the original poster, but that is indeed a possible outcome. It's interesting how they've already abandoned the principles from which they've derived their name. And immense resources are squandered fighting their own people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:15PM (2 children)
Once again Runaway shows off what an ignorant moran he is. How could anyone say so little in this many words?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:21PM (1 child)
You seem to be beating him at your own contest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @10:14PM
No, you said less in fewer words! We have a new winner! But, at this rate, soon there will be no words on SoylentNews, at all.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:28AM
I think we can look to the UK as a testbed for your hypothesis. The fundamental idea of accepting large numbers of Islamic immigrants into the UK was that while there may be some discomfort at first, the next generation would end up living and growing up in the UK, receiving a UK education, and generally come to merge into the UK as just another citizen - similar to how Protestant and Catholics divides in the US are something most people no longer even know existed, let alone how incredibly vitriolic it was at one time.
But this is not happening. It's turned out that first and second generation Islamic children are ending up more [telegraph.co.uk] radicalized than their parents or grandparents were! One can only speculate why this is, but I think some reasons are fairly self evident. Liberal societies today are increasingly adopting notions of multiculturalism, but such a notion embraces defacto identity based segregation. And the internet is enabling people to arbitrarily immerse themselves in whatever sort of culture they might want. In a nutshell, society is no longer imposing its views and values on people.
That is all a phenomenal change from a liberal point of view. Yet at the same time it's paradoxically catastrophic for the perseverance of liberal views and values. Because those adopting liberal views and values are trending towards extinction level fertility rates, while those maintaining more conservative and/or religious values are reproducing at a very healthy rate - if not excessively.
Because of this, I do not agree with you about kids. They're a monumental time and money sink that effectively signals the end your independence and freedom as an adult. And for women it is effectively the end of their careers. The births themselves will require extended leaves and then you actually need to take care of your children as well. Even extended leave is really nowhere near sufficient. I think telling people to have kids only if and when they want to have kids will yield extinction level fertility rates.
In times past the lack of birth control and the fact that you could monetize your kids (since most people owned land that could be worked for profit) were major drivers in reproduction. Today people need to understand that who has children and the values of those children will do more to shape the future of tomorrow than literally any other thing you could do today. Even things like responses to climate change will be largely driven by fertility. This isn't an "us vs them" thing, but rather respecting the fact that people should be free to choose their own future. And simply believing that everybody will somehow naturally be drawn to adopting the values as "we have" is little more than arrogance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @10:08AM
Could it be masturbation with todays ready access to porn and many boys too timid to mess around with girls?
I get the idea one will find the missing sperm wadded up on countless wads of toilet paper, disintegrating in the sewage system.
Well, thats where mine is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @02:16PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @07:41AM (7 children)
Except this affects not just man. The fertility issues are affecting women too. The difference it's more difficult to count on individual bases, unlike sperm counts.
If you actually read the fucking article, you would see this. You would also realize the problem that is most likely to blame - sea of plastics. We already know plastics are hormone disruptors. Animal experiments (also, see the fucking article) are also backing this as a cause. The question is what do we do with the sea of plastics.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:04AM (1 child)
> We already know plastics are hormone disruptors
As is caffeine. Fertility rate is correlated with the increased availability of instant coffee. Ban coffee and you will see fertility return.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @11:45AM
Caffeine has thousands of years of history of human use, and has had demonstrably little effect on human fertility. Plastics have been around for about a century, and have had exponential growth in use in recent decades.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:06AM (1 child)
I might also add that plastic pollution is more prevalent in developing countries where there is lots of plastic waste, so I don't know if evidence supports your hypothesis.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 01 2021, @11:31AM
There is delay. You don't get sperm counts from a newborn. But the effects start in the embryo and result in problems 20 years down the road. 30 years ago, plastic pollution wasn't a huge problem in the developing world. Today, it is, but effects will only be seen in another 20 years. In the western nations, plastic has been pervasive for more than a generation and you have your signal. And finally, pollution is not really garbage on the street. It is food packaging. It is your house furniture. It is your clothes. You put sausage in plastic, that plastic will leak crap into the sausage. And then you eat it.
There are experiment done on animals. Exposure to plastic hormone disruptions in mice in fetal development cause an issue that took 3 GENERATIONS to fix. And this was only for sperm count and one time exposure. For continual exposure, few generations and you actually do reach close to 0 in large fraction. Human exposure is on exponential factor, sadly.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/opinion/sunday/endocrine-disruptors-sperm.html [nytimes.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 01 2021, @08:10AM (2 children)
Assuming this research is actually measuring anything in the first place! Sea of plastics and hormone disruptors doesn't explain anything unless enough of it is getting into your body to be relevant.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 01 2021, @09:26AM
I would point at herbicides and pesticides before pointing at plastic - but don't rule plastics out. Virtually all of the food we eat comes wrapped in plastic. Cooking is done with plastic utensils more and more, and we use plastic plates and cutlery to eat with. Not to mention your bottled water.
'Muricans are certainly consuming a lot of plastic.
Check your cooking pots and pans. The ones with nonstick surfaces. Notice that some of the nonsticky stuff is missing? Where do you think that surface has gone? Some has gone down the drain when you wash those pots and pans - the rest was mixed into the food you ate. Mmmmm, yummy!
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 02 2021, @01:22PM
I have been assured by my woke acquaintances that women can produce sperm, just as men can get pregnant.
To suggest anything else (even as ironic humor) means you're a right-wing, Nazi, KKK, neanderthal.
Please immediately turn yourself in to the happy fun reeducation camp for lobotomy.