[hablog]

I think engineers (esp in areas like SF) are especially vulnerable due to their relatively sedentary lifestyle, dietary proclivities (e.g. consuming stuff like soylent, vegetarian/vegan diets deficient in cholesterol and other androgen precursors, lots of bottled water, novel dietary fat profiles), etc.

But yeah, I have to imagine these effects are society-wide with varying strength for different sub-populations. This is consistent with various macro-scale observations like decreasing population-wide male fertility.

[helen___keller]

> But yeah, I have to imagine these effects are society-wide with varying strength for different sub-populations. This is consistent with various macro-scale observations like decreasing population-wide male fertility.

Right, what I’m saying is based on your hypothesis we should expect a population-wide boom in socialism. Based on how it tends to be at the intersection of multiple demographics (young people, more educated people, people who live in certain cities) I would expect that there’s not a significant environmentally-driven biological driver, unless there’s a specific environmental factor that exists primarily and only at the intersection of these demographics.

Like maybe you could say, MacBook pros specifically are causing socialism. Personally I don’t find this plausible but that would be an example of an environmental factor that largely affects urban young white collar workers :)

[hablog]

> what I’m saying is based on your hypothesis we should expect a population-wide boom in socialism

Correct, which is also consistent with observed data.

> unless there’s a specific environmental factor that exists primarily and only at the intersection of these demographics

I've described two - sedentary lifestyle and diet.

Even the fattest guy in alabama is probably not sitting in an office all day, and he's probably not cholesterol-deficient.

> maybe you could say, MacBook pros specifically are causing socialism

The difference is with endocrine disruptors we have a pretty clear causal model of the process.

[helen___keller]

If you look at CDC risk maps for physical inactivity you may change your mind regarding sedentary lifestyle. In my experience city people tend to be less sedentary than average - since you have to walk around the city - compared to average suburbanites nationwide (rural / physical labor in a different league of course)

What you might expect to predict then is that socialism peaks in well-off suburbs of medium-to-large cities where people take the car everywhere but largely do not have physical labor in their job. This is not the case however, well off management types are significantly less likely to be socialist compared to young urban dwellers who walk or bike a lot.

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Regarding cholesterol I have no idea, I had never even heard of “cholesterol deficient” because I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to keep myself from dangerously high levels of cholesterol. You can find CDC risk maps for the latter, not sure about the former. Lol