176. The Lead-Crime Hypothesis | THUNK
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- Опубликовано: 29 сен 2024
- Violent crime quadrupled in the US between 1970 & 1990, then fell the same amount. What could have caused such a dramatic trend? Economics? Culture? ...Lead?
- Links for the Curious-
Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime (Reyes, 2007) - www3.amherst.ed...
The Lead Poisoning Prevention Act of 1971 - www.govinfo.go...
Rationally Speaking ep. 224 - Rick Nevin on "The long-term effects of lead on crime" - rationallyspeak...
“An Updated Lead-Crime Roundup for 2018” by Kevin Drum - www.motherjone...
This recent study has findings that seem contrary to the LCH:
Association of Childhood Blood Lead Levels With Criminal Offending (Beckley et al, 2018) - jamanetwork.co...
Witchcraft or Mycotoxin? The Salem Witch Trials (Woolf, 2000) - www.pendleton....
great video! the lead-crime hypothesis also has significant explanatory power for differences in crime between races -- blacks and Hispanics had higher exposure and their rates rose faster than whites; conversely, they've now been falling faster than whites
In order to have had higher exposure, they would have had to been concentrated in the inner city. In order for that to happen, all manner of prohibitive circumstances would have to be introduced. Start with a broken immigration system and wanton welfare abuse. Which political party championed for looser immigration and welfare policy? I'll wait.
@@thomasjefferson8629 sounds like you’ve snacked on too many paint chips as a kid…
@@thomasjefferson8629inner cities were crowded do to the end of multi family zoned housing in rural America due to race and funding public buildings via property taxes due to race
Your intro puns give me life.
Weird, most people claim the opposite. ;)
Read an article on how leaded gasoline might have been a factor in a period in the rise of serial killers.
Yep! You can pin just about any horrific thing that happened during the boomer years to gas! 😬
Makes you wonder what we're breathing in right now that might be messing with our bodies.
Microplastics, BPs, hormones... 😟
They’ve found so much of it in our blood
Wonder if the anxiety epidemic is causing it
I was thinking why football games in my country (the UK) have become so tame. I remember aggressive rivalries between the players all the time. I was wondering what has affected their behavior where today there are almost no longer fights on the pitch.
It's certainly possible that lead played a role!
The lead theory makes me wonder about why, and how, so many serial killers existed back during the 1970s. Ted Bundy, Dennis Rader, Jeffrey Dahmer, Zodiac, and the list goes on and on.
Ted Bundy seems like a text book example of someone who may have had brain development problems due to lead poisoning.
I wonder if any study on serial killers has looked at there bones and the general environment they grew up in.
Very interesting video.
But it reduces knocking!
Well this is absolutly terrifying
Right?! At least we caught this one!
I don't know why it would be so hard to believe that certain chemicals could cause a rise in crime- due to the lowering of brain function- when we already take chemicals in the form of medicine in order to alter/improve brain function.
While it's not quite the same, as it's not a consequence of effects on human biology, adding CO2 to the atmosphere would certainly count as "causing widespread societal changes as a result of chemical concentration in the environment." And it doesn't even require speculating about the future, as a lot of conflicts and other social problems around the world have already been attributed to it.
I think the best example of this is the Syrian Civil War, which began against the backdrop of massive socioeconomic upheaval that was worsened by the most serious drought the region had ever faced, and one linked to climate change. The war has in turn reshaped the politics and culture of the entire Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and indeed the whole Western world.
Likewise, some loose connections can be made between climate change and growing socioeconomic hardship -- including a resulting increase in violence -- in Central America, which has undoubtedly given rise to an increase in migration. The resulting influx of migrants to the USA has similarly contributed to the profound shift in American society, one which has in many ways been exported globally.
I’m attracted to the hypothesis that part of the economic boom of the 80’s was in some part to do with food fats becoming the bad guys and carbs, particularly sugar being used in everything.
Lolol not even close. Sugar only helped on making us fatter the "boom" was fueled by FIAT, debt, and F40K Reagan getting rid of all the regulations put in place to prevent another great depression. The "boom" you're referring to was an inflating bubble...
I’m glad to know this is a real hypothesis. I always wondered this myself since i read about the effects of lead on people and i thought i was just crazy lol
In Germany, the murder rate dropped from 8,8 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3 in 2017. The same year (1993) marked an unprecedented over-all decline of violent crime which continues until today. Intriguingly, lead pipes were outlawed in the whole country (at least in West-Germany, I don't know about the GDR) in 1973, whereas the drop in crime lagged 20 years behind - which is the same amount of time which has been observed in US-based studies about the effects of (supposedly) declining lead exposure on violent crime. It makes sense, given that most violent crimes are committed by young adolescent men. If we were to assume that lead indeed influences early development in a negative way and that those born in 1973 and after were the first generation(s) which did not get intoxicated with lead via pipe water, it makes even more sense. The saddest thing is that there might be a whole lot of unknown factors like this which are never considered and which might explain a whole lot of misery attributed to more classical factors like education, poverty or upbringing. But still, more research must be undertaken. The drop could also be explained by the demographic shift in the west.
Always more research!
Hey, where did you source this information from?
@@jamesockelford514 Google, for the most part. I also drew from "the biological roots of crime", which is a book. (I don't know if I remember the title correctly) (To be more precise, I read about the lead theory of crime in the aforementioned book and I saw videos about it and upon reseraching the drop in violent crime in the nineties, I was interested, whether lead might have played a role in it. More or less randomly, I googled whether lead pipes had been outlawed in Germany (yes) and when this legislation was implemented. When the date matched the theory, I was flabbergasted. But I am not a researcher, so I don't know where to draw my data from for further evidence. For instance, lead pipes had already been outlawed in the end of the 19th century in Bavaria and neighbouring regions (I think), but not in the rest of the country. If this effect was so significant, we should see a drop in violent crime in the end of the 19th century/the beginning of the 20th century, but only in Bavaria and the neighbouring regions which also outlawed lead pipes during this time.)
@@KommentarSpaltenKrieger I'm not a criminologist, but It's fair to presume that causations change over time. Also, I think this video mentions lead being used in gasoline? If so, is it reasonable to suggest that citizens in the 1950s would have been exposed to higher levels of the chemical compared to the early 20th Century? Thanks for your ideas and sources - much appreciated :)
@@jamesockelford514 I would assume that some causations have different effects in different times. I don't know if this would be true for lead intoxication via lead pipes, but it might as well be an effect with cultural aspects. (In the German case, it is not about lead-heavy gasoline). You're welcome, it is surely an interesting topic.
I don’t know if you realize this bro but you’re spirting str8 facts 💯 how did I barely find this channel
Glad you did! :D
"Heavy metal lead to murderous rampage".
Would be a good decent writing prompt.
Imagine what cannabis and magic mushrooms can do for the world.
I'm very, very skeptical if widespread use of hallucinogens would be overall better for the world. I think more research would have to be done on the subject. Anecdotally, hallucinogens tend to effect people in many ways and the risks of bad effects might not be good for the average person. Even if there are people who will react positively, it might not be worth that risk.
Charlie McGuire there is a whole field of study of psychedelics and MAPS contributes to it greatly. There is much more research than a person not looked into that would be stunned to discover. Btw, I don't support casual use of these substances, excluding cannabis. One has to be cautious about side effects, but the risks are pretty low.
@@Ensivion I think the important piece of this issue for you to consider is around the way that hallucinogens are used. Hallucinogens are no joke, the risks of using them needs to be taken seriously and a careful practice needs to be established in order to minimize harm and enhance the positive effects of whatever hallucinogen is being used. Taking mushrooms or acid, for example, and then going out and socializing with people who are not on a hallucinogenic substance is often a recipe for trouble. Taking these substances however in a controlled and stable environment leads to far greater chances of having a positive experience. The current movement to have people dealing with psychological trauma, or terminally ill patients, as a couple of examples, has been tremendously promising… a serious practice involved a person taking mushrooms, lying on a couch while supervised by a “guide” who is sober and able to monitor the person… this practice has shown overwhelmingly positive effects on people struggling with those issues. The point is that there are undoubtedly positive implications for the controlled use of these substances in safe settings where harm can be minimized or even avoided altogether
Bisphenol-a in thermal paper (shopping receipts)...
What about refined sugar and attention spans?
Fluoride in toothpaste.
Thanks for this video, it's something I've only just heard about. It's interesting to say the least!
Glad you found it interesting!
Interesting! Thunk you!
No no, THUNK you!
Also makes one wonder about gun ranges and lead dust from bullets.
Is there a significant amount of breathable lead around gun ranges??
@@THUNKShow Supposedly some of the dust on a window sill is from micrometeorites that burn up in the atmosphere. If you run a magnet over that dust it might even pickup some iron and other metal from them.
Lead-Crime Hypothesis is bunk. Let's say if lead exposure were a major problem then we should surely see it in IQ decreases right? Nope, in the US IQ was increasing in spite of such lead exposure. How about other countries? If lead exposure surely was a problem like how the hypothesis says it is, then we should see this as a global trend since everyone was using leaded gasoline. Except, this didn't happen in mexico, brazil, costa rica, puerto rico, japan, hong kong. There's many things wrong with the lead-crime hypothesis. I think that the ice cream-murder hypothesis is better.
Appreciate the Philosophy Tube reference lol
Might be nice to show some more graphs of the research on screen
Definitely Mercury and Aluminium could be part of this. People keep bringing up Aspartame sweetner but the mice tested with Aspartame that developed tumors where given extreme and excessive amounts of Aspartame, people think that a spoonful of Aspartame sweetener is Aspartame but it's not it's other things to make it comparable to sugar, aspartame is 200 times sweeter than sugar so only approximately 0.5mg of Aspartame is in a 5mg spoonful of Sweet n low or Canderel. The amount in Gum is even lower. People have blamed Aspartame for seizures when it could be possibly Sugar withdrawal causing side effects when people switch to artificial sweetener. Why do people not suffer this with Splenda(Sucralose) well because Splenda is made from real sugar!
And what about how those chemicals interact with the microbiome on the level of the individual -- dizzying!
I suppose this could also be another causation vs correlation debate. I mean, I have no doubt that there's likely some unknown butterfly effect stuff going on here with small changes to the environment effecting the way people behave but we should also keep in mind that larger socio-political factors of the time may have influenced both the environment and the people living in it simultaneously.
The evidence is more clear than he presented. This is a done deal. It was a hypothesis for a while, but it has been several years and many studies have been done all over the World. Also consider that there is now only one country in the World that has failed to ban this crud: Algeria. You would not get that level of unanimity, if there was no good reason. Show me one other thing that 99.5% of countries agree on.
He did not go into it deeply, but the damage is visible on MRIs. And it was not just the U.S. that had this lead added to the fuel, most countries did. Though we had more cars, more traffic slowing those cars, and worse guzzlers. So much more lead...and thus a larger effect.
We also did blood lead level tests which showed that Blacks had between 2 and 3 times more lead in their system. The reason was not just traffic in inner cities but old buildings with lead paint, and the fact that calcium can actually help remove lead, and statistically Blacks are more likely to be lactose intolerant, and thus tend to consume less dairy, a major source of calcium.
We need a major effort to get these buildings cleaned up or replaced, and the tainted soil removed. I also think all the pregnant mothers in the US need routinely checked for lead exposure. We need to check children every 6 months for the first 3 years and yearly after that to 18. Sounds excessive, but I think it is definitely worth it. And we can do more than removing the sources of exposure, we can remove the lead out of the bloodstream with chelation therapy. More harm than good though for a pregnant mother. You have to do that before pregnancy. Though, they can supplement calcium so less lead will be absorbed by the unborn. You need good quality calcium too. Some calcium supplements are tainted with lead...naturally. These supplements need routinely tested.
And there is another earlier bulge in crime that perfectly corresponds to the level of lead put in paint decades earlier at high levels. And farming areas that had no lead paint when the cities did had little crime but when the trains and "rural free delivery" became available and they bought the paint crime skyrocketed and matched that of the cities. This is in all these cases with an offset of 21 years, because infants don't generally shoot people and such. Farmers actually made their own paint before that. They used linseed oil (flax seed oil) and finely ground rust.
Additional evidence is that even those people now older who were exposed to more lead are still committing crimes at a rate much higher than earlier generations at the same age. The damage was permanent, and their decisions ongoing. That is partly why the rate has not returned to the baseline. Older people still commit less crime than when they were young, but the whole curve was shifted up for these lead exposed generations.
The message also need to go out that remodeling your pre-1978 home to make another bedroom/playroom for a child on the way is very dangerous. That stirs up the lead when the mother is pregnant damaging the child. The mother needs to live somewhere else while that is happening. And the clean up needs to be very thorough before she returns. And you need to cover everything in the other rooms with plastic drop cloths. And ideally, separate entryways with tapped up plastic drop cloths. And take care not to spill any of the dust when the plastic is removed.
We need a big program to replace lead painted windows with new double pane windows. Saves energy and removes a major source of lead.
@@ChessMasterNate this guy didn't breathe lead in his youth
I've been having HarmOCD
This started happening after I went to the army and we shot alot of guns
I was stupid and inhaled alot of the gun fumes, which I think has lead
I think it hurt my memory capacity
And triggers my HarmOCD
It's something about the lead particle
@@CampingforCool41
It's it's too superstitious, lead has 4 spare electrons on the outer shell.
Who would think lead has such a direct effect on physiology, but it does 🤷
Better just accept it as fact, and keep an eye out for when it comes up.
My memory used to be real good,
After the army 🪖, I feel I lost some brain functionality, but I donno, could be wrong
It's hard to measure
Romans used to eat lead, maybe that's why they were so violent
good video. Thanks!
Thank *you*! :D
Quantified Self health tracking for the win
any stats on when chlorine and fluoride were added to drinking water?
Teeth got browner. No really, high level fluoride water consumption over time makes teeth browner. But also stronger, so there's a tradeoff there.
great vid as always
Lead is the worst element ever, period.
It's so *useful* though!
I still use high octane leaded gasoline, it still has a purpose and is needed in high compression engines holding off detonation.
It will remain a hypothesis. The entire country was being inundated at once. If living in an apartment with lead paint and having more cars around made you stupider, faster, you would have also seen a dramatic spike in deaths due to lead poisoning in the same places, as some folks wind up ingesting more than others. You are omitting every other factor that contributes to the crime rate. I'll go through the list. Brutalist architecture. Lack of landscaping. Poor diet. Poor water. Poor parenting. Political machinations; prison cities designed solely to house voters and to keep them as mentally decrepit as possible. Religion, stifling of the animal nature, racial background, desolation of opportunity, drugs being shipping in by the palletload, mafia and cartel influence... You want to include in your hypothesis, how exactly lead orchestrated all of that?
The minute amounts of lead exposure necessary to impair cognitive development are a few orders of magnitude lower than the amount of lead necessary to kill someone - it's certainly possible that we'd see a dramatic spike in poisoning deaths, but it's also possible that environmental lead levels could cause developmental issues (a long-term phenomenon that's difficult to detect) without ever resulting in death (an obvious, immediate phenomenon).
Also, I don't think anyone would argue that lead exposure was the *sole cause* of increased crime rates, but the possibility that it was *a significant contributing factor* is troubling.
The theory you outlined is very similar to the abortion lead to less crime advocated by the Freakonomics guys; Legal abortion leads to fewer kids growing up unwanted in homes that can't afford to raise them well.
The psychotropic effects of nicotine are all positive, vascular effects, not so much. Nevertheless the vaping panic is totally misguided.
He did mention that theory briefly, but it's worth mentioning that one of the reasons the lead-crime hypothesis is more compelling is that similar reductions in lead (and subsequently, in crime) also occurred in other countries around the world.
@@MrAidanFrancis And abortion became legal in different states at different times and I'd say that comparing different states is more telling that comparing different countries.
This hypothesis hasn't aged well.
Why ?
what? why?
Yes it has.DA's are actively promoting lawlessness.
@@humanbeing3777 Because of leaded gas?
Lead paint is effective at blocking/ shielding electromagnetic radiation. I theorize that lead based paint is safer for humans then the wireless frequency that are exponentially increasing. Especially for very young, developing cells.
Lead paint doesn't contain any metallic lead, it has lead oxide. Electromagnetic radiation passes right through lead oxide. You need something conductive to block wireless frequencies.