"Interesting" does not imply any in the set of "correct; insightful; clever; informed; perfected ..."
A submission is a document. A post is part of a discussion. Hence Plato diminished the role of books, favoring those contributions which are still alive. They are two pretty different realms. A document can be highlighted because pointing to something interesting; a post is more normally a direct contribution (highlighted for such value).
It's like nerd catnip when you mix a deeply scientific expert, say in astrophysics, with sarcasm and cynicism. "They are so cocky it must be true. Also they're a physicist!"
"In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightned by my intelligence" - Aalewis
Are there any studies how much of this is caused by hormone levels and medical infertility? ....and how much is caused by people studying until 25 and working on their careers until 35 before they even star trying (compared to going to highschool until 18, starting a job at 19 and making kids at 20)? Also, how many people can actually afford to move to a place with an extra room for a child + all the extra expenses when you actually get a child?
I know it's anecdotal, but i know very few couples who want a kid, but are unable to get one while trying... i know more than that people, who didn't want a kid, but it "just happened", and i know A LOT more people, who'd like a kid, but "when they can afford one", and that 'when' isn't 'now' (mostly due to housing prices)
edit: also looking at a whole population, there is a huge difference if you start making kids at 20 (since you have time to raise 2, 3, even more... if you can afford them) or if you start making your first at 35, where the biological clock is showing it's signs, and even a second kid is a big "if", if you don't start immediately after the first one.
I am not saying that things are not multi factor but that to dismiss hormones going weird as just nothing to worry about is not correct.
The phenomenon is worrisome, but qualified people are already working on it, and will likely succeed in halting or reversing the decline.
If they can’t… well, we’re probably fucked regardless of what joe does, so again, no point in worrying.
You are not wrong that it isn’t a near term concern but I witnessed the lack of progress on global warming in the 1980s and 1990s and do not completely trust experts to make progress by themselves without a larger awareness at the societal level that there is an issue. In many ways the problem isn’t experts but at some point you need politicians involved and they only really react when the voters care. And thus you need the average joe to care so that polticians care and act.
I think that this is the global warming-like issue of the next 3 decades.
The author of this piece basically concluding that there was no issue. She didn’t conclude that it wasn’t a concern for the average joe but that there wasn’t an issue. That is wrong.
It would be a lot easier to make people care, if the people speaking the loudest about climate change would actually behave in the way they want 'others' to behave.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/oliverwilliams1/2021/11/05/118-...
qualified people are already working on it
Funny how one persons experience is the polar opposite of another's.
https://www.bbcearth.com/news/teenage-elephants-need-a-fathe...
On top that, I think stress from modern life contributes a lot. Anecdotally, my partner and I had been trying for over a year, and as soon as we went on holiday and detached from our stressful jobs for a couple of weeks... boom, pregnancy.
I can't say if life easier or harder 30 to 50 years ago, but there definitely seems to be a lot more stressed people than there used to be.
I know huge amount of people, even in their 30s, 40s and 50s talking about kids. Would have to be the first time in history I'd imagine?
Anyone can have an opinion on anything and make it to the HN frontpage. The fact that she is well versed in scientific literature and method make her assessments a tad more interesting than average IMO. A hallmark of her videos is presenting conflicting research results, separating the knowns from the unknowns and then drawing conclusions that she finds plausible, sometimes with some gusto. Generally (not always) I find myself agreeing.
In this case however I agree she skips over the main problem a bit too easily, which to me is the ever increasing abundance of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment, some of which we are aware of like PFAS, many of which we have likely yet to discover the adverse effects of.
> ever increasing abundance of hormone-disrupting chemicals in the environment, some of which we are aware of like PFAS, many of which we have like yet to discover thee adverse effects of.
It is likely that many common drugs we take are affecting fertility (eg Advil) and many other chemicals in the environment and they may affect us long after the exposure is done (eg forever chemicals or pre birth exposure.). And it may also just decrease sex drive which in a way also decreases fertility in a more indirect route.
I think we are way more affected that we realize right now and we’ll look back and wonder how did we ever survive this era of rampant hormone disruption.
I wonder how many times this could have been said in the ~4 billion year history of life on this planet, and then life just keeps going anyways in some new form.
It's just evolution. You have a changing environment, decreased hormones or what not, and some parts of the population will develop ways around it and others won't. If you have a set mindset on how life should propagate, as in "we need so-and-so hormone", then you're probably going by the wayside in terms of an evolutionary perspective.
What's the most obvious answer here? The emergence of technology. We might not even have sex hormones in the future. There might be some completely new way of genetic propagation (if genes themselves are even a thing in the future) that we can't even dream of right now. The concept of sex, hormones, etc., might even disappear as whatever new form of "information" propagation takes hold. We just have no idea. We could be in the middle of the change right now, or the bare beginnings. Maybe those new forms of life will be resistant to the effects of global warming and other things as well, and so on.
It's like how organisms such as cyanobacteria changed the composition of the atmosphere billions of years ago, and wiped out previous forms of life as oxygen become abundant. A whole new ball game got started, and we're here now.
In other words, a present solution might no longer work well for the current environment (a specific sex hormone), and so it begins to filter out of the 'system'. The issue here though, as is obvious on this forum, is that we can get attached to so-and-so hormone from an emotional standpoint, since we've been fooled into believing that it's our identify, and then get angry when we see it no longer "useful", even though that hormone is just one interchangeable part of our identities.
> I am quite disappointed in the author to be so dismissive on a topic she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory (and whose expertise there makes sense) make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone.
I'm new to hacker news, and am quite surprised by the amount of ad hominem arguments on here.
Too bad that the parts of the human condition that actually matter don't occur at evolutionary timescales. Sure you can say that there's a good chance Homo Sapiens will be around in one form or another for hundreds of thousands more years but that could mean a population numbering in the thousands reduced to barbarity along with all its ills.
> We might not even have sex hormones in the future
> that hormone is just one interchangeable part of our identities
Sex hormones like testosterone fulfill many more functions than the name "sex hormone" implies. Like any hormone in the body they act as a form of chemical communication between a variety of systems. This topic is far too deep to get into in a comment so I suggest you do some reading on it.
Welcome to reality. Evolution doesn't care which species is here or not or what form it takes, it's just the basic essence of adapting to new conditions.
> Sex hormones like testosterone fulfill many more functions than the name "sex hormone" implies. Like any hormone in the body they act as a form of chemical communication between a variety of systems. This topic is far too deep to get into in a comment so I suggest you do some reading on it.
Strawman argument ^ Sex hormones only came into being around 500 million years ago. That is the point I'm making. In another 10 billion years, whatever life exists at that point might look back in time to see this small little period of history where there were these things called "hormones" existed, before evolution got rid of them.
So true.
High testosterone is great for people doing jobs that make those people disposable. In the past, that's been the male gender, if you lump them into a group. If activities like combat, climbing power poles, contact sports (women making inroads), are deprecated by tech or whatever, then I guess less testosterone is needed. To add, since population numbers are stagnating, why do we need disposable and non-disposable jobs drawn down gender lines at all? Why do we need our sports separated by gender?
To add, cutting your nuts off has been shown by studies to extend life in males. Whatever your pref is I guess. I'll sacrifice a few years to keep my nuts, thanks. I love my nuts. Oh, and my penis. Strictly my personal preference. To each their own.
I agree with your criticism of the dismissive tone. Low t is associated with low health. Cause and effect aside, dismissing a decrease in average health rubs me wrong.
If only that phenomenon were limited to HN.
aaaaand ... yes, it is Mme Hossenfelder. she seems to be all over the place recently
I do not find this analysis and conclusion convincing. Basically don’t worry about it is the conclusion. We have rising infertility, both female and male (which people blame on hormone disrupters: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reproductive-prob... ) and also in developed nations soon to be significant falling populations (already started in China, Japan and South Korea) and just less sex overall ( https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/people-have-been-... ). This likely plays into this in some way. These trends do not lead to a sustainable future - it is like global warming, slow but indicative of bad things coming down the line, but manageable in the immediate.
I am quite disappointed in the author to be so dismissive on a topic she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone.