posted on Oct, 6 2012 @ 03:27 AM
Alright mate, let's just think for a moment about what can be done with things like the kind of high and low oxygen levels you are talking about:
First off, no area without pressure seals and large tanks of pressure tanks of some form of gas, and I do mean large, can really appreciably change
the oxygen levels in a given building.
Windows, doors and other openings equalize atmospheric pressures very quickly. On top of this if "they" as you say are depleting the oxygen levels
in mental hospitals in the United States, if they are not reducing atmospheric pressure they have to be using an inert gas to do the task. Now the air
we breathe is mostly nitrogen. Since nitrogen is lighter than oxygen, it stands to reason that it cannot be used to pump out the oxygen in a given
structure. On top of this, any gas used would have to be inert in order to keep there from being an explosion or chemical reaction of some other kind
when it is pumped into the air. In lab tests when this is done usually neon or argon are used as they are noble gases and therefore inert in their
base form. (Also to counter the arguments posted beforehand, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are not appreciably heavier than a standard O2
molecule within the "air" solution so they do not work for this) However, if argon or neon are being pumped into your air in gratuitous amounts (and
they would need to be gratuitous in order to actually replace normal atmosphere) then the lower levels of the structures, particularly the basements
would become full of what is known as "dead air" or an atmosphere so depleted of oxygen that it is impossible to breath and therefore would
suffocate anyone in it before it was able to spread to higher levels.
This is completely and totally unworkable and a realistically impossible system.
Secondly, unless the notable effects of oxygen starvation would be present constantly, the theory postulated here that lower oxygen results in an
unrecoverable depression are invalid. By your theory, everyone who grew up in say, La Paz, Bolivia (or for that matter Denver), would be impossibly
damaged mentally because they were raised in a lower oxygen environment and everyone who grew up in the West Bank of Palestine (likewise New Orleans)
would be the happiest and most productive because they grew up where the atmosphere was thickest along the Dead Sea.
This is simply not the case.
I have known a great many people from high-elevation areas that are happy, sane and productive members of their societies as well as many from
low-elevation areas who had serious issues. We humans are a remarkable species, very adaptable and very robust.