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Chemical Pollution Is Destroying Masculinity
myrdos2 writes "A host of common chemicals is feminizing males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people. Many have been identified as 'endocrine disruptors' or gender-benders because they interfere with hormones. Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys, which may offer a clue to the mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminized genitals. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone. And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years."
On behalf of my fellow males I'd like to say:
...shit
They are impurifying our precious bodily fluids!
Woah, little fella, your mom was exposed to PCB's wasn't she!
Got Code?
IT still an almost male-only field. It is simply the most manly of jobs.
...baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises...
- Well, dear, there was all that pollution in mom's neighborhood and...
Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.
retarded
Aliens have began the process of converting the majority of the human population to females for their future breeding programmes.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Finally an excuse for my weak body, small penis and my interest for tea. And sadly my limited interest for breasts.
Y-The Last Man
Go read it before they turn it into a horrible movie.
Y: The Last Man is a comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, about the only man to survive the mysterious simultaneous death of every male mammal on Earth. The series was published in sixty issues by Vertigo, and collected in a series of 10 paperback volumes. The series' covers were primarily by J. G. Jones and Massimo Carnevale.
If this trend continues, I might actually be able to find a girlfriend!
So will the religious right now be against pollution? I guess not, the religious right are also against science.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
That explains my anon.
-Anon
The choice of playing with dolls, tea sets or cars is CULTURAL and not genetic. This have been proved in numerous scientific researches.
-- dnl
By Women to subjugate men and stop us breaking through the glass ceiling and having successful careers. I for one think it is awful that Women can not only discriminate against men but can also actively poison us without society doing anything, this just goes to show the level of control that women have at all levels of society and their near total control of politics and the news.
Brought to you by the same people at FoxNews who claimed the rest of the Media was biased.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Not only is it destroying our masculinity, but it's making my nails really dirty and I've just had them done :(
Summation 2
Xenoestrogens. Look it up.
I've read a number of articles in the last few years regarding a widespread decline in men's testosterone levels in industrialized nations.
The difference in men over the last 30+ years isn't just a cultural shift, it's likely physiological as well.
...will solve the problem. Wait a few generations and this trend will fix itself.
This is probably a more likely way in which the world may end than any of the ten possibilities that where mentioned on the last science story.
Wouldn't we rather live in a world of more women than men? As opposed to more men than women? Think about it.
If we had more men than women, wouldn't there be more aggression?
welcome our forthcoming female overlords.
Oh wait ...
If it was ever to be the case where polygamy became the norm because of the lack of males, nothing would change!
Womens selection criteria would still be the same except that now men who had previously been unaviable are avialable.
If anything this reduces your chances.
So children of man (movie) wouldnt be an unbelievable scenario after all.
I played with old electrical transformer as a kid, practically bathing in PCBs. It didn't hurt me any. People see me comin', and it's "Lock up your wives, your daughters and your good silver, Joe's a-comin!"
I'm the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest, rootin-est, tootin-est, sharp-damned-shootin-est man you ever had the bad luck to meet! I can drink longer, fight harder, shout louder and piss further than any other man in the Yukon, and anyone who doesn't believe me can step outside!
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. - Mark Twain
Too many people on this rock anyways. Imagine the disparity in China, which is, by and large, and enormous polluted sewer.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
I didn't see this in the list...
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/12/07/2046233
There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
So china is self correcting? (more pollution to offset the social pressures for male children?)
Now we know how the world will really end.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I see no comparisons of polluted to non-polluted areas. Also, there is no attempt whatsoever to identify the cause of the incomplete observations. This looks like an environazi scare piece.
check your sources.
it's the independent. they're a notorious tabloid/shitrag.
Now that is just plain weird. The subject, too.
...named Oprah?
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Interesting that the fall in sperm count goes along with the increasing availability of porn - as the 'spilling of seed' increases the number of sperm left per, um, 'dose' goes down. Now that we have the internet I suspect the figure will slip below double digits within a decade.
So THIS is the way the world ends.
The monsters need something to eat.
In other words, I'm pleased to say I'm not part of the problem. And the great news is, it sounds like he'll have less competition when it's time to reproduce!
How can a boy though with one Y-chromosome become a girl? Does the chromosome change??
and twice at that :D
So will the religious right now be against pollution? I guess not, the religious right are also against science.
Actually, the 'religious right' is ahead of the game on this issue. Because of oral contraceptive, since the 1960s, we have been disgorging ever-increasing amounts of female hormones into the drinking water supply.
A section of the article which the submitter chose not to quote says it all:
Female hormones - largely from the contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment - are partly responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found also to be discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals.
Should be enough for anybody.
Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per milliliter of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years
Ahem... I blame internet porn!
So what are the odds that this research was funded by some fundamentalist religious group ? No one just randomly sets out on random research, someone has to pay the bill, which usually (always) means there's something to be gained from the results. Today's world is anything but altruistic.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
What this really means is that us old guys have bigger dicks than you nelly boys. Now get off my lawn, pansy.
On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough. Seth
I became fully aware of this problem in the past year, after the birth of my son. I think that the guilt for children contamination is shared by:
- the chemical companies
- the "green" anti-chemical organizations
- the governments and other regulation boards.
In a nutshell, my wife an myself gradually outlawed most of the creams that are needed to avoid nappy rush, most washing gels, and we even changed the bottles once in order to reduce exposition to bad chemicals (BPA).
Unfortunately, every step in this direction was unnecessarily difficult. The problem is that information comes from 2 sources: chemical companies and the "green" organizations. Both sources tend to be extreme in conclusions, and the government (even in "socialist" France) does not play its moderating role.
On one hand, plastics and cosmetics producers would have me use their products even if they are outright toxic. OTOH, the "green" organizations would have me re-build my house in a very expensive way. At some point I started to suspect that environmentalist propaganda is used to promote some luxury products, such as linoleum flooring (5-10 times more expensive than PVC).
Yes you're right the monogamy is much better if all the first tier attractive males become taken then women will reduce their selection criteria and select second tier etc.
This is the realization that church leaders (read religious nerds) came up with when they outlawed polygamy. If someone like them was ever gonna get some the attractive males had to be unavailable first.
The Handmaid's Tale
One of my favorite works of fiction, oh no wait, least favorite. :(
What I don't see answered, and am curious about: since the study says that more girls are born to women exposed the the chemicals in question, and since it is the father that either gives or fails to give a Y chromosome, what is causing the higher rate?
Is something happening to prevent Y choromosome sperm from impregnating eggs, or causing the death of XY-eggs? Or are XY-eggs failing to express (resulting in "girls" that are genetically "boys"... which would be a problem I would think with reproduction)?
no u
Whether it's 150 million sperm or 60 million sperm per milliliter, isn't that still a hell of a lot of sperm? Or will we suddenly have to worry about (or celebrate) a reduction in children conceived?
This reminds me very much of a Polish movie called Seksmisja (sex mission). No it's not porn, but it is what I think as close a movie as one can find to this post.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088083/
It goes deeper than that though - "attractive" meant "the guy who could kill or maim his rivals".
Look at animal species that are polygamous - even the "docile" herbivores engage in violence as the males compete for females. In species that engage in pair-bonding, violence is much less common.
Monogamy (enforced by law/church) was a way of reducing societal violence.
If there's any argument that could get red-blooded, meat-eating, women-banging Republican men interested in environmentalism, it's the thought that pollution will turn their sons into gay little girlie men with small dicks.
Next, we need to convince them professional sports and country music lowers sperm count.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
...soon there'll be two women for every man.
For the unlucky ones, the poor men (us) must learn to cope with this as best we can.
Take that feminism!
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
I'm a 56 year old geezer. When I was a kid, I never saw a man with boobs. Never.
I thought it was a sign of my aging that women my age looked masculine, and young men look feminine. I've been chasing women twenty years my junior for that reason.
I also noticed that people's heads are larger than they used to be. And there seem to be a lot more homosexuals and lesbians, although that may be that they've just come out of the closet.
What I want to know is if we're going to do anything about it?
Free Martian Whores!
I actually saw a show exactly about this a few weeks back:
http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/2008/disappearingmale/
It is certainly alarming!
It's not the pollution that is the problem, its the nutcases that are out there in the green movement. The green movement has linked itself to a wide range of radical liberal issues that include an assault on christianity as one of its planks. For that, I think it reasonable for a cynical mind to question whether the environmental motives of the green movement are really just about the environment, or are part of an anti-american agenda.
Still, for all of that, you see the pattern of the Republicans (except for W), being the party that actually gets major environmental legislation passed. Let's see:
EPA - founded by Nixon
Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Nixon, then, extended by Bush Sr...
Bush Jr - creates largest protected eco area around the Hawaiian islands.
What environmental legislation did Clinton sign?
This is my sig.
It's rare, but you can get things like Swyer syndrome, where an apparently normal girl gets to be around sixteen and has never had a period or other signs of puberty. Examination reveals the girl has no functional ovaries and actually has a Y chromosome.
(This has other implications, so far as I can see. When something's more complicated to make, that means there are more ways for it to go wrong...)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
This might explain why nerds can't get laid. Damn pollution.
This report is made by a campaigning NGO and is not a peer reviewed paper.
From the Independent article "[...]the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers[...]". That's because CHEM Trust [chemtrust.org.uk] chose to release it now.
Yes, it references peer reviewed papers but the way they are using the data is not responsible science. Some of the links between chemicals and reproductive effects is "suggested". (See the press release.)
Don't get me wrong, these effects scare the ____ out of me but it isn't helpful to use bad science.
Disclosure: I'm a chemistry undergrad.
Wasn't this the end of the world panic 5-10 years ago?
Reading this reminded me of Rex Nebular for some reason...
combine that with planet of the apes:
Wait a minute... Statue of Liberty... that was our planet! You maniacs!
My mind is making some weird connections today ;)
Anyone think it's nature saying that there are too many people, so less males make less people and we would be better off in many areas with a smaller population?
Of course it would probably work out better that way with more males and less females, but limiting either side lowers population eventually...
I took one look at the article before I questioned the source. Then I looked at the top of the page and see "Why is religious belief seen as a private eccentricity?" This is one of those religious "news" sites used to promote homophobia, fud, and fear of all things that aren't godly. Go read the rest of the articles on "the independent" and see if you can tell when you started riding in their think tank. Garbage news article posted by garbage poster who doesn't take any time to verify any information. Thanks for linking us OUTRAGEOUS article, you btard.
I'm failing to see the downside here. More women means that, while you might not have sex more, they'll just be in competition with each other for your affections. Think about it, I'll call it the "Swedish Problem" wherein the entire country is filled with hot blondes, so no matter what, you're getting a hot blonde, so it's a matter of which chick will be better in the sack and will do more. (or maybe it's easier to filter out the hot PHBs) That, or we'll get a lot more lesbo porn.
Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia, and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls as boys...
Well, that explains Russia's booming mail-order bride industry.
Since the above linky only works for .ca
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4502118/The_Disappearing_Male-CBC_Doc_Zone_(11-06-2008)_[HDTV_(XviD)]_Ek
Anyone think it's a coincidence that the next story down on the front /. page is "This Is the Way The World Ends"?
This story could be included in the other one about How The World Might End. . . as the poem goes. . .this is the way the world will end, this is the way the world will end, not with a bang, but a whimper.
Lesbians FTW!
Will it?
This, and many other phenomena occurring due to overpopulation/pollution/etc. didn't make it into the previous story "This Is The Way The World Ends". The ones that did make it were for the most part enormous explosions and such (alien invasion? come on.) Those things are highly unlikely but spectacular. The truth will be spectacular only in retrospect, if there is anyone left to retrospect.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
Well not totally sonless, but many more girls are being born into rural areas than two generations ago.
I come from a long line of farmers, though my fathers side got out in the '50s my mothers side all still own/run farms. We're not talking little hobby farms either.
I spent a lot of time on those farms in my childhood and one thing I always remember was the massive sheds full of drums of toxic chemicals for use in various sheep and cattle dips, pesticides and vaccines. We're talking industrial scale with thousands of litres a year being used. Not to mention the big piles of petrochemcal fertilizers, lime and other bits and pieces laying around in the open.
Now the interesting thing, 90% of my cousins on my mothers side are female. And I have a LOT of cousins. In fact both of my mothers brothers had four girls and only one boy EACH (8 girls to 2 boys). Now two data points does not mean much, but the thing is this is now extremely common out there and most of the families that I know of in the district now have families where daughters vastly outnumber sons. It's widely known and occasionally discussed, and it's only become so since my mothers generation. In her fathers generation it was a roughly even split. The general consensus is it's the toxic chemicals that gained popularity in the 50's that farmers are regularly exposed to (read drenched in).
I remember when I was about 13 helping to dip sheep for the first time (kills all the bugs in the wool, basically the sheep get a high pressure shower with some sort of chemical concoction). Well for that whole week anytime I was anywhere near the spray, when I got even a whiff of the overspray if I was lucky it'd just be burning eyes, if I got a good dose I'd be running for the toilet, it was literally that toxic. The men operating the machine were drenched in it.
When dealing with animals I think your dealing more with -amory than -agamy as the latter deals with long term relationships where the prior deals mostly with the act of mating.
I think with humans though competition gets fiercer because we have something called foresight. We can predict that when a female enters the monamorous relationship she is removed from our potentials therefore getting to her first and beating out the other guys becomes more important than if relationships can shift at a whim.
Polygamy is here, today. Depending on your culture or country, it might be officially sanctioned (muslims if n=4, or mormons)
As Zordak pointed out, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't do polygamy anymore. Are you thinking of the FLDS church, which formed when the mainstream LDS dropped polygamy?
Reminds me of the ending of a popular movie... "Physics? Gentlemen, the World is threatened by chemistry!" :) The resemblance is frightening...
Ezekiel 23:20
Indeed. No wife on Earth, and virgins promised in heaven leads to ...
main() {1;}
Yep.
:).
1) The "Don't mate with my female(s)" instinct is wired pretty strongly in most males, many would be willing to kill even if they themselves would be killed in the end.
That's a minus to society- two or more people become nonproductive. At the other end you might even have tribal warfare.
2) You end with many young males without females, and not all of them are going to be spending their time on Slashdot.
If you allow polygamy even if the ratio goes 2:1 it means the "studs" will get all the females
The young males might blow themselves or other stuff/people up, or try to sneak a few attempts with someone else's harem, in which case see 1).
Wars will not be about actually slaughtering people, but hurting their feelings. Nice thing about that is that it doesn't damage the infrastructure so much.
I piss off bigots.
1. The chemicals cause a much higher rate of miscarriage for boys than girls, leading to the imbalance.
2. The chemicals cause some boys to develop as girls, XY but with all the girl parts instead of boy parts.
3. There's something wrong with the studies.
I stole this Sig
While this is a problem that needs to be addressed, there are 2 upsides.
First, since it is a sort of assault on masculinity, the problem will actually be addressed once adequately publicized.
The second is that we don't exactly have a population shortage these days. A reduced birthrate is good for us right now. It's the one way to reduce the population without a huge disaster and mass suffering.
Will men with a lot of Testosterone or DHT be affected by this?
"And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys. It also follows hard on the heels..."
Mmmm, I'd love a new pair of shoes. What?
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
It says that men are really the weaker sex, I think this is false. I think generally both sex's are equal, just that the males organs are more sensitive to disruption.
... How do we fix it? I think personally we have to start living smarter, and less eating McDonalds, and drinking shit. Furthermore one of the biggest staples of what we eat(soy) is highly saturated in phytoestrogens.
This has huge implications though... I've noticed girls posting on forums talking about how they are more interested in androgynous guys, and how they don't like the macho guys.
I'm wondering if both species are taking a hit and becoming more androgynous.. not just males. Like the business woman who wants to be a man, or the man that plays with dolls and wants to be a woman.
The next question
So... what next?
Most people aren't thought about after they're gone. "I wonder where Rob got the plutonium" is better than most get.
Monogamy (enforced by law/church) was a way of reducing societal violence.
Exactly. It's worked so well, we haven't seen crimes of passion for generations.
Oh wait.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
The tenor of this comments thread makes it crystal clear why so many male Slashdot readers aren't getting any -- a large percentage of them are jaw-droppingly sexist assholes. Who would have guessed?
Will these feminizing chemicals mean women who were already women end up with larger... tracks of land?
I drank what? -- Socrates
About one in a thousand births have physical sexual ambiguity. (Some inter-sex advocacy groups claim five in a thousand.) Sometimes the Y chromosome isnt expressed, or expressed late. Sometimes there are extras X's and Y's.
When you consider the whole US or world popoulation this means enough people for a whole medical sub-specialty, considering the importance of sexin human affairs.
I'm amazed it took Slashdot (or anyone) twelve years to report on it. The very first report I wrote in high school - in 1996, as a freshman - was about the feminizing effects of environmental dioxins, and there was a meta-analysis showing the decline of global sperm counts even then. (And enough other data to fill several pages.) I've been warning people ever since, but it's nice to see the media finally catching up.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
10 kegs of beer, a continuous tape of louie louie, and a regulation 2 story pantie raid ladder.
lose != loose
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That doesn't add up. The guys at the top of the church who make the rules are the ones who always had scads of wives. When religion ruled the social order those guys were a meal ticket and a ticket to heaven all in one. And for the "lesser" males, well, they could still find work as eunuchs.
It's rare, but you can get things like Swyer syndrome, where an apparently normal girl gets to be around sixteen and has never had a period or other signs of puberty. Examination reveals the girl has no functional ovaries and actually has a Y chromosome.
This came up in the... Barcelona Olympics? I forget exactly, but there was a woman runner and during the course of testing, they discovered she's genetically male. They decided to let her run in the women's races, despite that. I read about it in my Child Developmental Psych textbook (which is at home, alas). It would make a great anecdote for that wikipedia article you cited.
-l
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Limbaugh now has to admit that America is turning into a nation of girly-men... and we have conservatives to blame for it.
Cuz nothing says conservative more than toxic waste.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Before, it was just American women.
I remember 60 minutes doing a piece on the gender bending of animals in the everglades over 10 years ago. They reported that it was a big warning sign that this is happening right now to humans.
How long did it take for the government to take action on the hazards of cigarettes?
Thanks to salesmen, cheats, liars and lobbyists humans are the slowest animals on earth. CC
"Pollution causes Gayness!"*
* Who cares if it's true, that's the only way to get most guys to care about the environment.
Example: Muslim religion does not prohibit polygamy. A man can have up to four wives.
Model: After Chernobyl, my penis is falling off.
Moe: And penis is Russian for...?
Well since it is men brought unto us this global environmental catastrophe (and all the other ones too) in the first place, perhaps it is Just that males are being punished for it, (and the other catastrophes too).
Perhaps the world will be a better place when the females are running things.
Finally this article explains where this so called "Emo" trend came from. All these boys are dressing in girls clothes and being sad because of pollution.
Imagine how many effects aren't obvious.
Terry Collins: Persuasive Communication about Matters of Great Urgency: Endocrine Disruption: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es800079k
Shanna Swan: Decrease in Anogenital Distance among Male Infants with Prenatal Phthalate Exposure http://www.ehponline.org/members/2005/8100/8100.html
My understanding is that *endocrine disruptors* are the chemical pollutants responsible for these gender shifts. EDs cause shifts in cellular development, which is particularly important because it is a very fragile process. For example, the fundamental difference (from a molecular perspective) between testosterone and estrogen is very subtle. Therefore minor mistakes can cause drastic changes depending upon the timing and dose of exposure. You don't want things to disrupt *how* your maleness cells develop. What scientists are beginning to find is that babies (in the womb) who have exposure to EDs during development are showing significant differences in the finalized male genitals.
Today two types of endocrine disruptors: Bisphenol A and Phthalates are ubiquitous in our lives, namely in vinyl, PVC, and polycarbonate (plastics 3 and 7). Regulatory committees struggle to monitor the impact of these chemicals because of their ubiquitous application and the tiny size of what constitutes an *exposure* (something like 4 parts per trillion). Supposedly there have been lots of discussions in the scientific community about EDs since these findings started to come out in the mid 90s. However, its been a lot more talk than it has research and action.
But I can't sell everybody short. There was a big Nalgene bottle recall last year for this exact reason. The state of California has banned EDs from pesticides. Companies like BornFree make baby products without EDs. It feels like its coming, awareness just isn't there yet.
These two are not mutually exclusive.
God invented Mexican food first, after that, the Big Bang was pretty much inevitable!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
And what do you think dolls and tea sets are made of? Plastics, of course. All those guys that used to say the future was in plastics were right. I, for one, welcome our new plastic fembot overlords.
Look at phytoestrogens instead. The most common sources are soy products and flaxseed meal (which has about twice as much as soy does).
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/04phytoestrogens.htm
http://www.soyonlineservice.co.nz/articles/phyto1.htm
Anecdote: flaxseed meal is increasingly used in pet food. When I was feeding my kennel a diet with a significant amount of flaxseed meal, I had a marked increase of certain types of birth defects (mainly some degree of failure of midline closure) AND a 50% miss rate on breedings. Since I've gone to a flax-free diet, the birth defects have gone away, and my conception rate is back to the species norm of 85-90%.
(Credential: I have almost 40 years professional experience in dogs.)
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
They are sapping our Precious Bodily Fluids. Luckily, there is an answer:
"I do not deny myself women, Mandrake, but I do withhold my essence from them...."
I'm the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest, rootin-est, tootin-est, sharp-damned-shootin-est man you ever had the bad luck to meet! I can drink longer, fight harder, shout louder and piss further than any other man in the Yukon, and anyone who doesn't believe me can step outside!
I'm just a typical Slashdotter and I'm diddling your daughter and your wife. Curiously, they both really, really like it in the butt, although momma is much better at oral. I taught her that thing she does with her tongue you enjoy so much, BTW.
So what's you point exactly, Fun Guy?
You all made fun of me for eating all that hippy organic food my mom feed me when I was a youngin, but look who is swinging the big bat now!
The schoolyard bullies and varsity jocks of the future will come from the families of all the vegan, organic food eating, peace loving, people who're having kids today. I just love the irony...
The acronyms are both valid, but in the context of the Rotterdam study, PCBs are PolyClorinated Biphenyls (a type of chlorinated hydrocarbon), not Printed Circuit Boards. For the record, PCBs (the former) have been banned in the states for nearly 30 years.
Snoo snoo! :D :( :D :( :D :(
http://www.hulu.com/watch/4476/futurama-death-by-snoo-snoo
-- NeilO
The choice of playing with dolls, tea sets or cars is CULTURAL and not genetic. This have been proved in numerous scientific researches.
I just wanted to point out something to all the folks about the point above -- yes, gender roles are cultural.
However, you have to consider, gender roles were cultural long time ago, just as they are now now. So the question is, are more boys now choosing to affiliate themselves with the cultural role that they see female characters portraying, instead of the cultural roles they see their own gender portraying, compared with the number that chose to affiliate themselves a few decades ago?
And if so, is it because our culture has changed, or is it because our boys have changed? The culture-specifics of gender roles are unimportant. What is important is that there are separate roles.
Yes, but 4 is the limit.
Mother Nature will yet have her revenge for the insult and injury of gross overpopulation, eh? The World Wars Project didn't pan out as well as expected, but maybe this one will.
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Whether n = 1, 2, or 20, *marriage* to n females is misery in most cases. The solution is pretty obvious: do away with marriage. This is happening in Scandinavia and coincidentally, worldwide, people are happiest in Scandinavia. Happier then our God-fearin' marriage addicted U.S. of A. Marriage is a dull institution that flattens womens' potential as human beings, and for men, well, aside from the obvious "it sucks" I can't say it any better than this well researched and insightful piece... based on 2000 in depth interviews: http://www.martynemko.com/articles/men-as-beasts-burden_id1228
This rules! in 10 years, the U.S will have to change the marriage laws to allow Gay marriage, and 3 girls per straight guy.
I don't think any straight male on earth will complain.
That's what I'm thinking about. Right now. Holy shit.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Talk about old news! The whole Endocrine Disrupter hoax was debunked several years ago. But of course, facts have never mattered to the anti-Industrial-Age robots of the Left, now have they?
They're probably figuring that with an anti-business democratic socialist about to take the highest office in the US, they proabably have a chance getting this retread of a hoax to fly....
In times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
I always love it when stories like this come out. Whenever a study on gender or what have you comes out, you get 50 people trying to be comedians and 1 person trying to state an interesting observation or point. I can, however, take some small comfort by curling up in the corner in the fetal position and repeating to myself, "It's not digg, yet..." Thank you for nothing. :P
Ahem... I blame internet porn!
Yeah, right. The male population in frogs and alligators in north america has decreased due to them watching to much internet porn. And not because US petrochem and modern lifestyle shit puts PCBs in *everything* and amphibious animals are very sensitive to enviromental damages. ...
How the f*ck does something like this get modded +5 insightfull? RTFA and do some googleing, for heavens sake.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
This is quite good news! I was concerned about the population problem,but I should have known that nature, which is loaded with feed-back loops, would correct the problem!
These emo twats growing up with barney and then the rise of talentless ass clowns like Fallout Boy and My Chemical Romance had everything to do with it. I thought we had established this years ago?
It's not the pollution that is the problem, its the nutcases that are out there in the green movement. The green movement has linked itself to a wide range of radical liberal issues that include an assault on christianity as one of its planks. For that, I think it reasonable for a cynical mind to question whether the environmental motives of the green movement are really just about the environment, or are part of an anti-american agenda.
There's just so much wrong here I don't know where to start.
First, are you suggesting that feminization problems (a) don't exist, or (b) are somehow *caused by* the green movement instead of oestrogenic chemicals whose effects have been documented for decades?
Second -- ignoring the delusion that the Left is all about destroying faith and America -- are you somehow saying that "assaulting Christianity" means that one can't like to have clean air and water for real? Are you somehow saying that wanting to be free from pollution arises not out of self-interest in being healthy but from "hating America?"
Third, what exactly is pro-America and pro-Christianity about ignoring our stewardship duties? God did not give us this world to make into our personal pigpen, for us to roll in our feces in a celebration of consumption over the health of ourselves, our neighbors, and our children. Saying that being anti-pollution and wanting to reign in industrial greed is anti-God means that you have forgotten that one cannot serve both God and Mammon. Guess which one you're actually advocating service to?
Many of us in the environmental movement are Christians, and we are passionate about the environment *because* of what Jesus taught us about our duties to least amongst us (who suffer the worst brunt of pollution) and because we believe that creation was not given to us to freely desecrate in the assumption that our generation is the last one that matters.
Fourth, who actually loves our country? People who want to whiz all over it in the hopes that God will end it all before the check is due or people who want to preserve our country and its people for generation and generation to come? A virulently "Me Generation" attitude or one that looks to help their fellow Americans? People who demand the *best* of their country or those that demand the *least* of it?
Still, for all of that, you see the pattern of the Republicans (except for W), being the party that actually gets major environmental legislation passed. Let's see:
EPA - founded by Nixon
Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Nixon, then, extended by Bush Sr...
Bush Jr - creates largest protected eco area around the Hawaiian islands.
Dear Lord, you have drank deeply of the Kool-Aid. Not surprising given the dreck above this that you're so far into delusional partisan land that not only do you declare environmentalists to all be evil destroyers of everything Good in life and yet their loyal opposition is the one who actually does all the good work (which isn't good when THEY want it done).
Nixon was president during one of the strongest eras of liberal politics in the nation, pre Goldwater revolution. People were predicting the death of the Republican party. He had a strong and powerful veto-proof Democratic majority Congress writing all of these laws. He had no choice but to sign them, especially with overwhelming public support behind them.
And if you honestly think that W. has been more in favor environmental regulation than an opponent, you are frankly delusional. Anyone remember early in his Presidency the move to rollback Clinton era limits to arsenic in the drinking water from mining run-off? How about deciding that mercury wasn't a pollutant under the Clean Air Act? Refusing to sign Kyoto and dragging his heels on climate change all while pushing us to drill and consume as much oil as possible? ("We need an energy plan that encourages consumption," remember?) The EPA dragging its heels on coming up with a
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
I played with old electrical transformer as a kid, practically bathing in PCBs. It didn't hurt me any. People see me comin', and it's "Lock up your wives, your daughters and your good silver, Joe's a-comin!"
I'm the roughest, toughest, meanest, leanest, rootin-est, tootin-est, sharp-damned-shootin-est man you ever had the bad luck to meet! I can drink longer, fight harder, shout louder and piss further than any other man in the Yukon, and anyone who doesn't believe me can step outside!
Somebody's compensating for something. *Nudge, nudge, wink, wink*
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Now we know how the world will really end.
I'm pretty sure that's not what Thomas Friedman meant when he wrote the book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded."
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Those alarmed by this story should realize there are no peer-reviewed science papers showing this is happening to humans.
Really? I thought you were thinking of this one
No sig for you! Come back one year!
Will these feminizing chemicals mean women who were already women end up with larger... tracks of land?
Can't say if this results in larger breasts *after* everyone is normally supposed to finish growing, but it certainly results in them before that point.
Early puberty for girls has been a cause of concern in recent decades as people have started to notice. Girls starting to develop breasts at age 2 and pubic hair at 4 are not unheard of now in poorer communities (which are likely to suffer from all of the potential risk factors: unhealthy diet & weight gain, low birth weight, exposure to pollutants, hormones in cheaper food, minority racial backgrounds, exposure to a hypersexualized culture, etc.).
Also, we don't have evidence that early physical sexualization has coincided with any earlier mental and emotional maturation. So, the old, "If there's grass on the field" half-joke has become a bit sicker in recent times.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Does this explain emo?
This is modded funny, but only because it's true. I saw that in my own children when they were little.
My wife and I had the same pool of toys for the kids when they were little (under age 2 or so). See if you can guess the gender of the kid who:
Look, we didn't encourage any of this behavior, so we were surprised as anyone. And a lot of this happened before the kids even had gender awareness (18mos or so). How could they take cues from society about what their gender was supposed to do before they even knew their own gender?
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
As the human race slowly dies out, at least we will go out with more style...
I haven't seen anyone comment yet about an interesting angle to this story - what the author considers to be the main source of the problem: "Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be developing eggs in their testes; in some stretches all male roaches have been found to be changing sex in this way. Female hormones - largely from the contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment - are partly responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found also to be discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals. Feminising effects have now been discovered in a host of freshwater fish species as far away as Japan and Benin, in Africa, and in sea fish in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, Osaka Bay in Japan and Puget Sound on the US west coast."
China shouldn't have a male birth any time in the near future if this is really the case.
On the other hand, I've been noticing more girls playing with "boys'" toys and in "boys'" activities.
One example, I've been seeing more girls playing laser tag - mixed teams, girls vs boys and girls vs girls.
Another example, I'm a member of a local robotics club that mentors several FIRST and FIRST Lego League teams. While I don't know the official statistics, I definitely see an increasing number of girls on the teams.
Also, from listening to the kids, I hear more and more girls talking about building electronics kits and even model railroads.
I suppose this could be a social reaction to increasing numbers of girls and/or "feminisation" pf boys (IE, the sons we don't have).
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
5 is right out?
Semi-automatic amateur armchair Australian philosopher; conjecture ready at any moment...
I also heard a story about our water sources being saturated with female hormones from birth control pills. The hormones do not break down, and were apparently found in arctic samples.
RTFM is not a radio station.
There's a difference between crimes of passion and having to battle your competitors (possibly to the death), don't you think?
Just add testosterone to the water. Instant manliness.
Soy is in everything. I did a walk-around my local grocery store a couple of years back and found that about 70-80% of all products contained soy in some fashion or other.
If you want your population to be more manageable, knocking the fight out of them through the feed is a pretty straight-forward way to do it. The hard sell on soy into every sector of the food industry has been pretty astonishing. It should be mentioned that Monsanto played an enormous role in establishing this trend, with their premier roundup-ready crop being soy.
From Aspartame, to GM crops, to the soy scam, to, (the most recent thing in the news), the 1000's of suiciding farmers in India, Monsanto almost qualifies for the mantle of, "Evil Bond Villain".
-FL
Does that mean I can sue them for kicking me out for being a faggot?
Control the Men. Control the society.
Finally! Some great news! Fewer people (reduced sperm counts) and more chicks (w00t)!
Technically, those are all elements, not chemicals, the way you are using them.
Except methane. I missed that one on first reading. Rest of the post still stands.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
this is the best news i've read in a long time, less boys all the better! less masculine, more caring and nurturing boys who don't just like trucks and wrestling, also all the better!
I'm glad there's some informed conversation in the comments here, the lack of historical comparisons in the article made it next to useless.
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
What I want to know is what can one do to try to curb any of the affects of this? What lifestyle changes can I make to keep my masculinity?
It all started with the fluoridation of the water supply ;-)
Isn't "battling your sexual competitor to the death" the very definition of a crime of passion?
Jim wants Jill. Mike is dating Jill. Jill cheats on Mike with Jim. Mike finds out. Mike kills Jim, or Jim kills Mike, etc. etc.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
God and in the Big-Bang: Oh God, Oh God, OH GOD!... BANG! - No problem believing in that!
They were right - the revolution did not get televised. It was posted on YouTube instead. All in 120 characters. SLOOSH!
Yes, but in humans it's unusual and disruptive; thus it is a crime. For a lot of animals it's not only normal, but rather it's the only way to secure a mate.
The 'default' body plan for mammals is female. Left to itself, an embryo will develop (mostly) female unless specific steps are taken at specific times. Developing a male means (a) suppressing female development paths, and (b) initiating male development paths. (And yes, those are two separate steps. Sometimes (a) doesn't happen even though (b) does, and you get hermaphrodism.
It's rare, but you can get things like Swyer syndrome, where an apparently normal girl gets to be around sixteen and has never had a period or other signs of puberty. Examination reveals the girl has no functional ovaries and actually has a Y chromosome.
(This has other implications, so far as I can see. When something's more complicated to make, that means there are more ways for it to go wrong...)
Actually, it's a little different. Since the masculine parts by and in large develop from the same parts as the feminine parts, they are dimorphic... you get one or you get the other. The ovaries and testes are like that. They develop from a common precedent in the body. The same with the labial-scrotal folds, and the clitoral-penile protrusion.
However, there are female parts that are not directly competitive against male counter parts, those would be the Müllerian ducts. A man can have a uterus. Usually, it's not found until they have to go in and do some exploratory surgery or something like that for an appendix, or whatever. Basically, the guy goes in to get his appendix taken out, and is met in post-op with the news "oh, btw, we found a uterus, and removed it for you. It's perfectly normal, don't freak out."
"Hermaphotism" doesn't actually occur, it requires the existence of male and female gonads at the same time. Ok, correction, you can end up with a chimeric individual who develops one testis through one gene line, and an ovary through the other gene line. This is by far even more unlikely than any form of intersexuality.
The most common result of pronounced intersexuality is when the doctor pulls the baby out of the vagina, looks at it, and says, "oh dear... this baby has a very shallow vagina, slightly fused labial-scrotal folds, a urethra that exits at the bases of the penis? which could also just be a really big clitoris..."
Either way, you're _NOT_ going to end up with a penis and a vagina on the same individual without surgical intervention...
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
Thurly thith nathty thtuff can't be true, you thilly boy.
Table-ized A.I.
??
Surely, if this man can do it 15 times a day and never sleep
Wha?
AC, you talkin' 'bout postin' to /. 15 times day?
Yeah, the babes are really impressed....
.
- aqk
F U
I am a man born way before her time.
-- thinkyhead software and media
I clicked on a link from the site to one of their references and my virus checker went crazy. This site is fake.
Captain Planet? He will take down the chemical polluting bad guys!
The [human] race would be in deeper trouble without females than without males.
Not sure why a 150-year-old myth is still around.
My penis isn't going to fall off, is it?
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet." General James Mattis
Sadly, when I returned some expired birth control to the pharmacy, they looked at me like I was a hero. Apparently most people just flush it or toss it in the trash.
Actually, I have noticed that guys tend to be less, um, tough or manly in my generation. What's a good way to tell your boyfriend to toughen up? I wish I knew. My bf is 10 times more needy and emotional than I am. It's mentally exhausting.
as a future amazonian woman, I shall take this opportunity to submit my formal offer to begin taking applications.. applications can be sent to gypsylatrell at gmail dot com hehe
I remembered when I could run faster, jump higher, get free (wo)men, shoot more ammunition, all the mods. All I needed were the codes...
You are wasting your entire day when one ride to work or a drive-through diner and a single trip to the bathroom at arrival will accomplish. And when you need to remember that reproduction fails inheritance when you have no security. Environmental disorder is causing all this, and it is bad that your psyche can't control the effects of it any longer. Man exitted the animal kingdom with abilities of self-control, and greater than the plant-kingdom without seasonal inflections to growth and sustenance.
MOTHERS who were exposed to PCBs, not children.
Here is some info along with Biology info for you horn dogs on the marvel that is the human body. Higher amounts of female chemicals does not mean there will be more women because one in countries like Russia the male to female birth ratio gives no indication of the future male to female ratio since the women tend to more likely have an abortion if the baby is a girl and not if a boy. Russia is not the only country that has this problem India and China have it too so look at the male to female ratio after the age 5 it then shows that there are more men than there are women. In fact since India and china have such huge populations and so many of their citizens are relocating to other countries that according world census there is an increasing trend of more man than women on less you count people older than 50 than the US has way more women then men, HA. If one of those countries improved their male to female ratios than the one would offset the other and if both did yes in that case there would be more women in the world then men.
The second reason and this one brings up the marvel of the human body is that males and females both have testosterone and estrogen, males having more testosterone and females more estrogen. When men have an overabundance of estrogen they produce more testosterone this does not mean they will act feministic just more hormonal think teenager hormonal. This explains why grownups today act so hormonal and is a disturbing notion to look forward to considering if grownups are more hormonal than how much more hormonal will be teenagers. This also explains why male baldness is more common since more estrogen means more testosterone and more testosterone means baldness. I know this because I am balding and is why I am posting this as an anonymous coward for what I am about to say, it is better to accept having an overabundance of estrogen and be balding then to have the cure since the solution can have unexpected side effects. Why do I say this is because one of the possible side effects from hair regrowth products is manboobs, which is why cosmetic surgery in this recession is doing good business even though women are having less work done because more men are having breast reduction surgery.
So to you male horn dogs I have bad news, more bad news, some good news, and bad news again. The bad news is that there is more women then men, more bad news is it is not going to get better so do not expect women to become desperate, the some good news is the overabundance of estrogen effects on women is larger breasts, and the bad news again is because women having larger breasts means they will have more control over us. So to you geek women reading this admit it the odds are in your favor if you feel despair it is not because of the numbers it is because who you desire. What do you expect if grownup men are behaving more like teenagers because of hormones and remembering high school there are three personality types for male teenagers and all three are immature. Mature grownups have many unique personality types for each person and so a higher chance a women will find a type they will like. So to you women be thankful for what you got do you have to beg for a date like guys do and get rejected.
I hope this helps someone. I wish I found this article sooner and hope someone reads this.
Obviously the solution is more semen during impregnation attempts (fucking). So ladies... no headaches allowed, we need to save the human race!
*turns in whitespace device* No, you can't! Muhuhahauauhahuahua! *ducks*
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
Guess what? I'm gay and my penis is statistically larger than average. I'm bigger than you.
So much for chemical pollution destroying masculinity.