The Disappearing Male

[tracy]

Why would you refer to women as the weaker sex?
In my life women have always struck me as the smarter and more resilient of the two.
How do really feel about this?

I use that term tongue and cheek. I think women have had to be very resilient to have survived thousands of years of dangerous childbearing along with oppression and violence. Men on the other hand had to be strong to survive as well. Both genders have strengths and weaknesses, but I wonder how many of the behavioral qualities we associate with each gender are actually inherrent to that gender and how many of them are simply socialized into us. That's why I wonder what society would be like if women were in more leadership positions. Would we seek consensus and peace more often? Or would it simply change so that it was women dragging men into stadiums and stoning them to death for adultery? I honestly wonder.

 

[Lester]

Cloning is an available option, we may not have a choice in twenty years. Maybe it's the depopulation solution the powers that be are looking for- sterilize the lot and let them die off- Beats the hell out of nukes.

 

[Tonington]

The bigger question is what to do about it?

That is the question, and there's no easy answer. The minute you talk about regulation, you need to show that the cost is worth it for any compound. So that means scientific analysis, and the number of compounds out there is really huge. More than that, how do you measure the effects of long term exposure with such tiny trace amounts of any substance?

I guess the government could up the anti on any new chemical compound for the general public, research, industry, etc. Make the periods to study health effects longer...but how long. That would be fought very hard by industry, which would make the case that it's economically damaging to enforce such punitive measures, for the "small amount of chemicals out there that show demonstrable harm" or something like that, is I'm sure what they would say.

Or.... if you are aware of all these chemicals existing around us everyday, or just became aware of them, what do you do to prevent/reduce exposure to these chemicals to yourself or your loved ones?

There's very little I can do to reduce my exposure to what's in the environment, except possibly living in a cave in the wilderness somewhere, but even that's not really going to work. I'll be down wind and down stream from somebody...Things I do, use less plastics. Ceramics and glass, and stainless steel water bottles rather than those bisphenol infested plastic ones. As far as drugs in my drinking water, and food, not much I can do about that for the time being...