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Comment by tenpies | Hacker News Reader

The really annoying thing is that when you bring up the generational decline of testosterone in men no one really cares. Then RFK Jr brings it up - quite validly - and now you have the entire Democrat-pharma industrial complex lumping it under "far-right conspiracy theory, probably funded by Russia and MAGA white supremacists who hate women and Muslims".

The irony is that it's a problem that is clearly already having consequences already. It's quite likely it's behind some of the current issues both at the fringes (rapid onset gender dysphoria) and broadly in politics (see the correlation between male testosterone levels and voting patterns). It potentially wipes out humanity way before anything with climate change, but since it affects men, the West just doesn't care.

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There's also a correlation between increasing levels of obesity and decreasing levels of testosterone. And a likely explanation, in that fat cells metabolize testosterone to oestrogen, plus, obesity is linked to lower levels of SHBG which binds to and carries testosterone in the blood. So it's probably that too.

Also from what I've read, I think ROGD mostly affects young women and girls? It's not so much a male phenomenon. I don't think any of the research so far has linked it to plastics consumption, seems more to be a socially contagious, culture-bound syndrome, like anorexia is.

> It's quite likely it's behind some of the current issues both at the fringes (rapid onset gender dysphoria) and broadly in politics (see the correlation between male testosterone levels and voting patterns).

Can you expand on this? Are you attributing political movement to the left in young men to lower testosterone levels?

It would surprise me if it wasn't a factor. Probably not quite as clear-cut as "less T => more left" but I do view the left as more "nurturing" than the right. Not gonna die on this hill though, humans are complicated :)

If we are speculating, perhaps the extra testosterone is what makes the men on the right attracted to the strong-man daddy figures?

I think strength naturally begets respect in men, has nothing to do with T levels.

If you're going to assert statements that wild you should provide valid sources for them, otherwise it should be fairly easy to dismiss them as paranoid and baseless conspiracy theories. Your own ideology should not inform how you interpret objective facts, although I know this is often difficult to achieve for people on the far-right end of the political spectrum.

That first paragraph was so good... I can't believe it was followed by the second one.

Anyway, about the first, there are people studying a possible link between plastics contamination and the testosterone trend. AFAIK, nobody has got anything yet. And given that there are other very likely culprits, I do think stating the link with plastics is way too premature.

>It's quite likely

...is it?

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