My conspiracy theory is that declining birthrates aren’t actually caused just by personal choices and trends like women becoming more educated. My conspiracy theory is that global birth rates are actually plummeting due to industrial pollution, and it’s being blamed on individual actions and choices rather than the actual environmental problems at the root of it.
I could see this being true, my personal conspiracy theory follows yours but is plastics specifically. In 50 years we’ll look back on the age of plastic the same way we look back at leaded gas or asbestos.
Could also be epigenetic effects that we currently do not well understand.
Turns out that you actually can and do sort of pass on the cumulative effects of what has happened to you before you reproduce. And this does seem to include testosterone production.
Now that’s paywalled, but the abstract seems to me to indicate that at least broadly… this is probably part of the puzzle.
Stress, your metabolic state due to your diet (of ultra processed foods), environmental pollutants, things like that… may significantly contribute to how much T your offspring are gonna be making.
And the general destruction of the middle class. My parents were teen parents and while it was tough, they could afford it. I can’t afford a kid at all, and I’ve worked my ass off.
But yeah, stress, depression, fear, anger, chemical and hormonal imbalances, climate change, fascism, overworked and underpaid bs, attacks on bodily autonomy, surveillance and tracking, the death of 3rd places, the poverty of free time, unaffordable housing, unaffordable transportation, hours-long commutes, staggering wealth inequality, state violence, white nationalists endless wars, etc… I don’t blame anybody for putting off or entirely deciding against having children
Just like climate change. It’s happening because you didn’t recycle that can, not because of the hundreds of open cut mines approved by bribed politicians.
My conspiracy theory is that declining birthrates aren’t actually caused just by personal choices and trends like women becoming more educated. My conspiracy theory is that global birth rates are actually plummeting due to industrial pollution, and it’s being blamed on individual actions and choices rather than the actual environmental problems at the root of it.
I could see this being true, my personal conspiracy theory follows yours but is plastics specifically. In 50 years we’ll look back on the age of plastic the same way we look back at leaded gas or asbestos.
There’s the whole endocrine inhibitor plastic contamination of literally everything thing.
But surely a hormone blocking compound being present in all foods, ground water, soil, oceans and atmosphere wouldn’t be related to this.
Iirc, some plastics can act similar to estrogen… so your theory probably holds more truth than you like.
Could also be epigenetic effects that we currently do not well understand.
Turns out that you actually can and do sort of pass on the cumulative effects of what has happened to you before you reproduce. And this does seem to include testosterone production.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11010-025-05366-0
Now that’s paywalled, but the abstract seems to me to indicate that at least broadly… this is probably part of the puzzle.
Stress, your metabolic state due to your diet (of ultra processed foods), environmental pollutants, things like that… may significantly contribute to how much T your offspring are gonna be making.
Don’t forget pervasive lead poisoning, it fucks up the baby basically day one by fucking up the neural crest.
And the general destruction of the middle class. My parents were teen parents and while it was tough, they could afford it. I can’t afford a kid at all, and I’ve worked my ass off.
But yeah, stress, depression, fear, anger, chemical and hormonal imbalances, climate change, fascism, overworked and underpaid bs, attacks on bodily autonomy, surveillance and tracking, the death of 3rd places, the poverty of free time, unaffordable housing, unaffordable transportation, hours-long commutes, staggering wealth inequality, state violence, white nationalists endless wars, etc… I don’t blame anybody for putting off or entirely deciding against having children
Just like climate change. It’s happening because you didn’t recycle that can, not because of the hundreds of open cut mines approved by bribed politicians.
I’m fairly convinced of this too