Share this page!

Enter URL or ID to Unroll

You can paste full URL like: https://x.com/threadreaderapp/status/1644127596119195649
or just the ID like: 1644127596119195649

How to get URL link on X (Twitter) App

  1. On the Twitter thread, click on or icon on the bottom
  2. Click again on or Share Via icon
  3. Click on Copy Link to Tweet
  4. Paste it above and click "Unroll Thread"!
  5. More info at Twitter Help
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
@Noahpinion
Jun 13, 2019 • 16 tweets • 5 min read • Read on X
Today's @bopinion post is about the silent pollution crisis that is damaging American kids' brains and raising levels of violent crime.

LEAD.

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Lead is in American water pipes.

sciline.org/evidence-blog/…
Lead is in American houses.

epa.gov/lead/protect-y…
Lead is in American soil.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Lead is colorless, odorless, tasteless. It lodges itself in your brain.

who.int/news-room/fact…
And it damages your brain. And the brains of your kids. And the brains of the kids down the street.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
Lead damages kids' brains even in far lower amounts than the official threshold for lead poisoning!!

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16002379
And what does lead do to kids when it damages their brains.

It makes them grow up to commit violent crime.

motherjones.com/kevin-drum/201…
Check out this new paper on lead and juvenile delinquency, which uses natural experiments and sibling comparisons to isolate causality.

mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.116…
Or check out this thread about another important recent paper on the lead/crime link:

I would be willing to bet a lot of money that there are high levels of lead exposure in St. Louis, Baltimore, Detroit, and other unusually violent American cities.
Oh look, Detroit has very high lead levels!

WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED??

detroitnews.com/story/news/loc…
Oh look, St. Louis has very high lead levels!

WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED??

stltoday.com/lifestyles/hea…
Oh, look, Baltimore has...well, you get the point.

medium.com/@BmoreDoc/balt…
So far, only one presidential candidate has made lead cleanup a top priority: Julian Castro: julianforthefuture.com/news-events/en…
But ALL the Democratic candidates - and Republicans too, and state and local governments too - need to make lead cleanup a priority!

It's damaging the brains of American kids!! This must not stand!!

CLEAN UP ALL LEAD RIGHT NOW!!

(end)

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
May 7
I'm incredibly bored of talking about the Palestine protests, but here are some results from the recent Generation Lab survey.

Key fact #1: College students just don't care about the Palestine issue that much.

axios.com/2024/05/07/pol…
Image
About 8% of students have participated in the protests on one side or the other. That's a substantial number, but less than the 21% who joined BLM protests in May/June 2020 (and the latter were pretty much all on one side of the issue).

collegepulse.com/blog/8-in-10-c…
Image
Only about 1/8 of students blame Biden for the conflict. 34% blame Hamas, and 31% blame either Israel in general or Netanyahu specifically. Image
Read 6 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
May 2
The Palestine protesters have created a dream Palestine that is almost entirely disconnected from the real place, in which all of their fantasies of a perfect society are realized.

This is a bit like what weebs do with Japan.
FromTheRiverToTheSeaboos
Most weebs don't actually want to live in Japan. They want to live in a local subculture of their own creation, whose values are based on gentleness and romance -- the ideals that attracted them to Japanese fantasies and made those fantasies resonate.

noahpinion.blog/p/weebs
Read 9 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
Mar 24
Comparisons between the Cultural Revolution and the Woke Era get laughed at. The Woke Era didn't use violence, of course. But the *motivation* of people wanting to overturn social hierarchies, especially students wanting to overturn academic hierarchies, is recognizably similar.
In 2010s America, there was a widespread desire to overturn local social hierarchies -- the classroom authority of teachers and professors, the cultural power of entertainment stars, the authority of nonprofit execs and heads of civic organizations.
In 1960s China, overturning local hierarchies happened via physical mob violence. In 2010, it happened through online mobs destroying people's reputations on social media. Obviously, the second is far preferable to the first. This is why economic development is good!
Read 10 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jan 19
Here are some countries that did catch up to other countries.

Poland caught up to Portugal: Image
South Korea caught up to Japan: Image
Ireland caught up to the UK

(graph ends before major Irish tax shenanigans begin) Image
Read 13 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
Jan 10
This thread asks how we should deal with inborn inequality, and concludes that the best solution is noblesse oblige.

I think the best solution is public goods.
Public goods have two advantages:

1. They engender material equality more efficiently than any other economic intervention, and

2. They create an equality of respect, through the habit of mutual use.
Although rich people may pay more for a train or a park, when they ride the train or walk in the park, they are equal in social status to everyone else on the train or in the park.

This creates a feeling of equality throughout society.
Read 6 tweets
Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 Profile picture
Dec 7, 2023
1/Here's a thread in which the Economist's Mike Bird tries to rebut my recent post about decoupling. I think this thread is useful for understanding why the doubters are making the mistakes that they're making.

Let's go through it!
2/Here was my original post. I've updated it with a response at the bottom.

noahpinion.blog/p/stop-saying-…
3/Here's @Birdyword's first mistake. To say there's a "case for doubt" means that there's a possibility that decoupling isn't happening.

But just look at FDI into China. It just went negative for the first time in recorded history. That's definitely real. That is decoupling!
Image
Image
Read 14 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

Send Email!

:(