8 ms·

> “Personally I see the decrease of testosterone levels more as a reaction to our changing environment than reason for concern. The world changes and we change

> “Personally I see the decrease of testosterone levels more as a reaction to our changing environment than reason for concern. The world changes and we change with it.“ 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-problems-in-both-men-and-women-are-rising-at-an-alarming-rate/ 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-having-less-sex-whether-theyre-teenagers-or-40-somethings/ 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 (and whose expertise there makes sense) make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone.

zone411 4y ago
Absolutely true. She's published a bunch of videos about all sorts of topics where she obviously has no clue what she's talking about and hasn't done any research besides reading the Wikipedia page. She gets basic facts wrong. Yet people on HN mistake being a cynic for some kind of insight and upvote them.
- nells 4y ago
- mdp2021 4y ago
  > Yet ... upvote them "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).
- sph 4y ago
  There's an entire generation of Internet nerds that were raised on snark and sarcasm. That's how early Reddit felt, and you can still see it in action in this forum. I guess that's what happens when you discover the Internet in your "it's cool to hate" teenage phase. 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!"
  - kwere 4y ago
    peak History of reddit here: "In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightned by my intelligence" - Aalewis
  - smaryjerry 4y ago
    Reminds me of the account on Reddit that used to get huge karma and tons of top comment claiming to be an expert on everything, but everything they commented on was a different subject and in every comment they claimed a phd or master from a different university and some years of experience studying X. It was actually very entertaining to look at their comment history of every comment having thousands of upvotes because they started it out with a completely phony “I got my PhD at ______ in _____ and spent ___ years working for the largest ______ researcher…” In order to build fake credibility and it totally worked. Hundreds of thousands of karma from that and insane amounts of bad information as top conments.
- gala8y 4y ago
  In one of recent videos she even hand waved at quantum biology, stating that in fact there is such a thing like quantum biology, but everything [all matter] is quantum after all. I got a strong impression that she did not dive into the topic at all and in fact she has no idea about quantum effects in biology.
ajsnigrutin 4y ago
> in developed nations soon to be significant falling populations 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.
- boringg 4y ago
  I know many many people have had to try for years to have children. Its a difficult lonely costly journey. Far more that have wanted to children and have had complications then the other way around. Funny how one persons experience is the polar opposite of another's.
  - Aeolun 4y ago
    I know basically only people that: A, are popping them out like rabbits, or B, cannot seem to have children at all.
- bhouston 4y ago
  Non affordable housing and day care are part of the problem. Delaying childbirth and not realizing that this delay may lead to fertility problems is also an issue. But there does appear to also be rising infertility as well at the same time and lots of chemicals that disrupt hormones (the latest target for legislation is PFAS/forever chemicals) and dropping sex hormone levels. 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.
stareatgoats 4y ago
> she is an “instant expert” 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.
- bhouston 4y ago
  Exactly this: > 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.
ouid 4y ago
More SSRIs and more obesity seems like a pretty good causal mechanism for less sex.
indiogrindio 4y ago
> 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 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.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  > It's just evolution 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.
jksmith 4y ago
>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. 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.
comfypotato 4y ago
I expect it’s staying on the front page has a lot to do with people in the comment section discussing the topic as opposed to having read the article (not necessarily a bad thing; for example: I enjoyed your comment more than the article). 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.
xnx 4y ago
Decreasing human population is the most sustainable future.
- ominous 4y ago
  There's no one to conjugate the "decrease" verb on us all, and I disagree that we should come together to create such a Leviathan.
- yucky 4y ago
  What is your "acceptable number" of humans?
paulddraper 4y ago
> Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone. If only that phenomenon were limited to HN.
2-718-281-828 4y ago
> she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory aaaaand ... yes, it is Mme Hossenfelder. she seems to be all over the place recently

zone411 4y ago

Absolutely true. She's published a bunch of videos about all sorts of topics where she obviously has no clue what she's talking about and hasn't done any research besides reading the Wikipedia page. She gets basic facts wrong. Yet people on HN mistake being a cynic for some kind of insight and upvote them.

nells 4y ago
mdp2021 4y ago
> Yet ... upvote them "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).
sph 4y ago
There's an entire generation of Internet nerds that were raised on snark and sarcasm. That's how early Reddit felt, and you can still see it in action in this forum. I guess that's what happens when you discover the Internet in your "it's cool to hate" teenage phase. 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!"
- kwere 4y ago
  peak History of reddit here: "In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god's blessing. But because, I am enlightned by my intelligence" - Aalewis
- smaryjerry 4y ago
  Reminds me of the account on Reddit that used to get huge karma and tons of top comment claiming to be an expert on everything, but everything they commented on was a different subject and in every comment they claimed a phd or master from a different university and some years of experience studying X. It was actually very entertaining to look at their comment history of every comment having thousands of upvotes because they started it out with a completely phony “I got my PhD at ______ in _____ and spent ___ years working for the largest ______ researcher…” In order to build fake credibility and it totally worked. Hundreds of thousands of karma from that and insane amounts of bad information as top conments.
gala8y 4y ago
In one of recent videos she even hand waved at quantum biology, stating that in fact there is such a thing like quantum biology, but everything [all matter] is quantum after all. I got a strong impression that she did not dive into the topic at all and in fact she has no idea about quantum effects in biology.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

> in developed nations soon to be significant falling populations 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.

boringg 4y ago
I know many many people have had to try for years to have children. Its a difficult lonely costly journey. Far more that have wanted to children and have had complications then the other way around. Funny how one persons experience is the polar opposite of another's.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  I know basically only people that: A, are popping them out like rabbits, or B, cannot seem to have children at all.
bhouston 4y ago
Non affordable housing and day care are part of the problem. Delaying childbirth and not realizing that this delay may lead to fertility problems is also an issue. But there does appear to also be rising infertility as well at the same time and lots of chemicals that disrupt hormones (the latest target for legislation is PFAS/forever chemicals) and dropping sex hormone levels. 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.

stareatgoats 4y ago

> she is an “instant expert” 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.

bhouston 4y ago
Exactly this: > 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.

ouid 4y ago

More SSRIs and more obesity seems like a pretty good causal mechanism for less sex.

indiogrindio 4y ago

> 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 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.

throwaway4aday 4y ago
> It's just evolution 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.

jksmith 4y ago

>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. 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.

comfypotato 4y ago

I expect it’s staying on the front page has a lot to do with people in the comment section discussing the topic as opposed to having read the article (not necessarily a bad thing; for example: I enjoyed your comment more than the article). 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.

xnx 4y ago

Decreasing human population is the most sustainable future.

ominous 4y ago
There's no one to conjugate the "decrease" verb on us all, and I disagree that we should come together to create such a Leviathan.
yucky 4y ago
What is your "acceptable number" of humans?

paulddraper 4y ago

> Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory make the front page doing an analysis on testosterone. If only that phenomenon were limited to HN.

2-718-281-828 4y ago

> she is an “instant expert” on. Only on hacker news does a physicist who spends their days criticizing string theory aaaaand ... yes, it is Mme Hossenfelder. she seems to be all over the place recently