by sigmoid10 on 5/30/24, 11:08 AM
Another exemplary paper of why you need to beware of reversed causality. Since infection with T. Gondii is much more likely if you are less cautious with food and animals, it is very much possible that the causal link is actually reversed. It's also worth pointing out that current research has cast major doubt on the old idea that toxoplasmosis causes any psychological effects in humans [1]. While it might sound cool that there could be a parasite out there that changes your behaviour like in a zombie movie and papers like these will get easy media attention, take this stuff with a massive grain of salt.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4757034/
by d--b on 5/30/24, 11:15 AM
Before everyone shouts that the correlation may be spurious, I would like to say that some drugs (e.g. Parkinson's disease drugs), can have significant psychological side-effects, like increasing impulsivity and reducing risk aversion for those who experience them. People leave their spouses, buy expensive cars, get tattoos, and yes, leave their jobs to pursue entrepreneurship.
My point is that it's not far fetch to link infection to impulse, cause infection may change the chemical functioning of the brain.
by KingMob on 5/30/24, 1:43 PM
Forget Soylent! My new mycorhizal Cat Crap Caffeine Blast is what you need to crush it in SV!
by drewcoo on 5/30/24, 11:34 AM
by DoreenMichele on 5/30/24, 2:30 PM
Terrible title. This is specifically talking about toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection known to promote risky behavior.
Entrepreneurs need to have a tolerance for risk that salaried employees often lack.
by klik99 on 5/30/24, 2:19 PM
Oooooh, so THAT'S why Sequoia asked me if I owned any cats!
by fuzzfactor on 5/30/24, 2:50 PM
>Disciplines such as business and economics often rely on the assumption of rationality when explaining complex human behaviours.
Perhaps even more often, large-scale financial situations rely on the proven ability of a market to remain irrational longer than the most common participants can remain solvent.
No assumption about that.
by FrustratedMonky on 5/30/24, 2:18 PM
by chiffre01 on 5/30/24, 2:00 PM
Out of curiosity, what percentage of Hacker News readers own cats?
by achenet on 5/30/24, 11:02 AM
interesting.
On the one hand, the correlation could be suprious (I've heard the correlation between eating chocolate and winning Nobel Prizes as an example of this), on the other hand, there have been studies linking Toxoplasmosis with schizophrenia and traffic accidents.
by palata on 5/30/24, 11:09 AM
Is it trying to prove that a paper doesn't need to be any good to get published, or did I miss something? Genuinely interested: I skimmed through it and it seems like a hoax to me.
by seydor on 5/30/24, 12:02 PM
Correlation implies reverse causation. Entrepreneurship is infectious! Hide your children or they 'll become like those silicon valley kids. At least until a vaccine is found
by oulipo on 5/30/24, 11:05 AM
Hmmm that paper seems to have a suspiciously low number of citations though