evoloution

Assuming Apple itself doesn't bypass Little Snitch, I don't even think Apple is doing the level of telemetry Microsoft does.

Little snitch doesn't talk directly to the kernel's netfilter/iptables/nftables framework so some traffic may be hidden from it (low-level stuff that cannot be accessed via the API). I don't use it so I don't know if there is a way to bypass this in the settings or with special permission.

So are you hoping to be treated by nurses who are worse academically than the ones we have now? Or are you hoping that "others" will be treated by them while increased supply depresses wages for the good ones that you think will treat you? Also being a nurse is a very hard job, most people wouldn't last a year as an ER nurse in the US.

Access to full text: https://rdcu.be/d210J

Our team is excited to share our paper in Nature Human Behaviour. We investigated whether genetic predisposition (polygenic scores, or PGS) for 17 neuropsychiatric traits—ranging from mental health disorders like ADHD to personality traits such as agreeableness—might influence membership in 22 broad professional categories (e.g., “Computers & Math”).

Key questions: 1. Does higher genetic load for any of these traits increase the likelihood of entering certain professions? 2. Do these findings still hold when excluding individuals with any neuropsychiatric disorder diagnosis?

Main Findings 1. Weak but Significant Associations: Despite significance across multiple trait-profession pairs, each neuropsychiatric trait’s PGS explained less than 0.4% of variation in individual professional membership. 2. Stronger Influence from Age and Sex: Age accounted for around 21% of variance, and sex 7%, overshadowing the influence of genetic predisposition. 3. No “GATTACA” Scenario: Our data suggest that neuropsychiatric trait PGS currently can’t predict career outcomes—nor is it likely to become a robust predictor in the future displacing traditional assessments.

Motivations & Broader Context 1. Reducing Mental Health Stigma: Neuropsychiatric disorders are common and often highly heritable. Some risk variants could persist because they carry potential benefits under certain contexts. Our aim was to explore these potential “trade-offs” and contribute to a deeper understanding of how these common genetic factors shape our societies. For instance, our findings showed a positive association of ASD PGS with both “Computers & Math” and “Arts & design”. 2. Scientific Curiosity: We wanted to test whether neuropsychiatric PGS could serve as a strong predictor of professional membership. Our conclusion: not really—these scores cannot reliably forecast someone’s career path.

Further Insights 1. ADHD & Education: ADHD-related associations were largely mediated through educational attainment, which influenced career pathways. Notably, the gatekeeping “Education” profession itself had a negative association with ADHD PGS and a positive one with (contrasting) OCD PGS. Unfortunately, systemic modifiable biases in education may affect individuals with ADHD. 2. ASD & Management: “Management” showed a negative association with ASD PGS but a positive one with extraversion PGS—an intriguing contrast to “Computers & Math”—a finding that may resonate with frequent discussions about the social and organizational demands of tech management roles at HN.

Limitations of interest 1.We deliberately excluded intelligence, cognitive performance, and educational attainment PGS from our analyeses. 2. We chose more interpretable statistical approaches rather than complex machine-learning algorithms, as the goal was interpretability over prediction performance. 3. Future studies might use multivariate multiple regression approaches to uncover even more nuanced interactions.

Conclusion At the population level, there are small yet significant associations between neuropsychiatric trait PGS and professions. However, demographic factors—age, sex—and life circumstances dominate these outcomes. Genetic information alone won’t be a meaningful guide for career selection.

If you’d like to dive deeper please read the full article from the link shared at the top of the page.

Correspondence: georgios.voloudakis@mssm.edu (evoloution) panagiotis.roussos@mssm.edu

PS1: We hope this research helps reduce stigma around neurodivergence and mental health and spark further discussion on the complex interplay between genetics and life outcomes.

PS2: Figure 2 in our published paper has an error where the “Legal” data point was inadvertently removed (should overlap with horizontal dotted line just above “ga”); we plan to correct this soon.

There is a joke among scientists that choosing the career path will cost you your firstborn. It would be nice to quantify this but it is hard to. Anecdotally, main issue is financial stability so people with wealthy backgrounds or supportive (by time investment) families have a much easier time navigating this. I would be surprised if someone did the study and didn't find a delay till first-born child born when compared to similar people (SES background, abilities, etc) that went down the business/finance route. Edit:typo

What tanepiper is saying is mostly correct, especially the part that late-onset ADHD is not really a thing. Genetic condition is kind of an inaccurate statement, though, in my experience as a psychiatrist-scientist. You can liberally say that ADHD is ~75% [1] heritable (based on twin studies) which is pretty high. However, data suggest that even though DSM requires a binary definition of the disorder, in truth it is more like a spectrum and less like e.g. bipolar disorder type I which you either have or you don't despite the fact that severity may vary. For example in a recent study, we found that among people, a high polygenic score (PGS; a kind of way to score individuals for genetic liability based on published studies that associate genetic variants with a disorder) is associated with typical deficits in cognitive functions found in ADHD even in the absence of a diagnosis [1]. I conceptualize it as another lever within the natural variation of how brains work and are tuned for different environments.

Now visiting the late-onset part, I have mostly seen it in clinical practice in individuals who had ADHD traits already (may not have met diagnostic criteria) that got really worse after traumatic brain injury and/or worsening of a comorbid mental health conditions e.g. their anxiety or their depression. The natural progression of ADHD for most is to get better over the years as they develop compensatory habits and/or choose lines of work that make ADHD traits less of an obstacle; some believe that also brain maturation kind of catches up at some point which is an incomplete cure. However, the effects on confidence and self-perception are long-lasting...

Another misconception is that high IQ corrects for ADHD traits, this has been mostly rebutted in both clinical literature and we have a genetic study under review that mostly replicates that. Finally, there is an overlap in signs when comparing "bored" gifted individuals and ADHD individuals which can be confusing... Unfortunately, smart individuals with ADHD (of the inattentive type) get enough performance to fly below the radar of diagnosis which ultimately hurts them or delays them from realize "their full potential".

1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-022-01285-8 and for open-access see manuscript at PMC: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10914347/

At least VirtualBox has stopped working properly for some time now in my distribution without any plans to fix it. Workaround is freerdp remoteapp but this also breaks sometime with overlay menus... It was about time someone took a shot at this. Also, MS hyperv has been doing a lot of improvements to improve desktop user experience (e.g. opengl) whereas VMWare and virtualbox are more geared towards enterprise I think.

Thucydides's trap, old as history itself. From the wikipedia page of the Graham T. Allison who termed the coin: Allison coined the phrase Thucydides's Trap to refer to the situation that when a rising power causes fear in an established power, it escalates toward war. Thucydides wrote: "What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta." And a Ted talk from him explaining the matter: https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_allison_is_war_between_chin...

Several years ago, I had a Sony Vaio VGN-FS115M and it was in the waterproof laptop sleeve in my bag. I literally poured a whole hot latte with sugar in the sleeve and the laptop was swimming in coffee. I took it out, removed the battery, disassembled it, took away all visible stains carefully with a good quality paper towel and let it dry. A year later the only thing not working was the lan port and I blame the sugar for that... If the same thing happened today my laptop would be long dead before I could disconnect the battery...

- Nursing home (NH) is a much higher level of care and if you need it then living in a hotel is not an option. Medicare covers NH so it may be cheaper overall to go there than live in an apartment with your own nursing staff. - Assisted living facilities are closer to living in a hotel and they get (partially?) covered by Medicaid in some states. Prices vary so I don't know how they would compare directly though. One theme that I see more often lately is seniors transferring their assets to their (grand)kids so that they look poor on paper so that they qualify for low cost assisted living/ Medicare and then cost is not a consideration any more.

Your statement sounds pseudocorrect but the underlying assumptions are that: a) we are currently able to diagnose all nosological entities efficiently, b) we know which treatments are working for each of said entities and c) all people react the same to the same medications, d) all medications that are indicated to treat a disorder are equal. Oh boy, wouldn't that be nice...

In reality you have an army of paper pushers that are hired and have their salaries paid to restrict what can be prescribed. For patients that fit well in proper diagnoses and are otherwise typical it is sometimes annoying but for the 1-2% of patient that rules do not apply (for so many reasons that I cannot possibly enumerate here) it is detrimental. The people who are actually doing this job are not happy with it, the doctors are not happy with it. Every step of the prior authorization process is designed to irritate the doctor or provider (like saying all the patients information again when the representative changes or not accepting the case id to pull out the patient information or "sorry Dr. we only accept this application by fax, we don't do this online" or "this patient's plan does not support peer review") and discourage him from doing it. I know patients that were turned away because their doctors didn't want to handle specific prior auths for them.

"But doctor why don't you want to prescribe medication A that is as effective as medication B but it has more side effects?" As your advocate, I feel obliged to recommend the best medication, if your insurance does not want to cover it then they should take the risk and the legal responsibility of their policy not force me to change my recommendation based on price. Of course, I will not start with the bazooka antibiotic for your tonsillitis but there is a medical reason for not doing that (resistance development). Right now, I have to spend extra time to even justify why a patient should stay on a good medication yearly even if it works great for them. The doctor is your medical scientist consultant, he shouldn't be burdened with saving money from the system, he will tell you what is best, if you want them to give you a value-for-money determination they can do that as well. If two medications work exactly the same, I would happily give the older and cheaper one - it has been longer in the market so it has been more extensively tested.

You are missing the point of how strongly people in US still believe that you can achieve the American Dream if you choose whatever field, just work hard and are good to your job. Most Americans are not consciously aware of the class system that exists in contrast to most Europeans and other foreigners. There is also a disproportionately higher percentage of people that seek true satisfaction from their jobs (live to work) than seeing it as a job (work to live). It is not even PC to say that your parents are working class or you are 1st generation immigrant so I advise you to become a nurse, doctor or a plumber. In addition, as history has shown again and again people can and will do poor or risky financial decisions if given the opportunity across the whole spectrum (e.g. from payday loans to very expensive underperforming actively managed funds with huge fees). For a financial institution it may make sense to have 11% interest rate and a 20% chance that people will default before paying at least the principal but these interest rates make life unbearable for the people who have them and is detrimental for the society. Finally people would probably make better decisions if they had an advisor like you but truth is that most people that come from low socioeconomic status either cannot imagine their selves being for example doctors (they even don't know anyone, an uncle or a family friend) and they have no access to advisors like you from their environment.

There has been a shift in conversation over the last years and at least in US they are claiming that the highest variance in student performance can be attributed to socioeconomic status and developmental environment. So it would seem like selecting based on school performance could make things worse. One could make the case that this would really hurt very smart/ high-performing individuals from low socio-economic status families but most people (and rational policy) care about helping/ making an impact at the population level.

This, finish and go to the best Uni you can; everything else that anyone tells you may not serve you well. Although throwaway0255 is making an argument about whether you could achieve better education by yourself vs. an organized university curriculum, you should never overlook the effect that a degree from a prestigious University can have. In most fields companies hire people from the highest ranked Universities, when there is a recession they still hire those ones even if they hire fewer people in total. Money and time spent in a top-tier University always pays off either by prestige, connections or just by the network that you build there. That is how US works currently, top Unis are becoming the tool of class formation. Plus while in Uni you can still do what you want if your part time jobs are not very demanding. Finally, for most people with not enough fu money, this is the last time to really experiment without putting their livelihoods on the line.

I think you are absolutely correct. I think that people who are more entrenched in the field are even subconsciously unwilling to accept what is to come knowing that the unavoidable regulation will limit their creativity and just make their lives more miserable. But they know...

"Doctors are part of a guild. They artificially limit the number of doctors available by capping the number of medical schools, which also allows the existing schools to crank costs to astronomical levels (“don’t worry, you’ll make enough to pay it back”)." - True (in principle). But even with so much filtering, I have encountered not so bright doctors practicing and it is not a pretty sight... Plus you have to consider the time investment, apart from money, there is lost time and opportunities. Take a typical cardiologist for example: 4 years undergrad + 1 year research or something else to beef up CV + 4 years medical school + 3 years of internal medicine + consider 1 year chief residency to beef up CV + 3 years cardiology fellowship. That's 14-16 years either getting in debt or being underpaid.

"One thing that would help is letting non-MD’s, such as nurses or physicians assistants, do more “doctor” things. Dentists, a similar profession, is going apeshit that states are trying to let specially licensed assistants (but non-DMDs) do slightly more advanced work like fill cavities.[0]" - That's were market forces are driving us anyway, it is happening. As long as you are OK with everyone being seen by a PA or NP... Most people though that support what you said kind of feel like this is "for the other people" but for themselves they "demand" to be seen by a doctor when they are seen by a PA or an NP. Don't get me wrong PAs and NPs are fine for 95% of everything that needs to be done but they simply lack the knowledge and the training to troubleshoot complicated problems and what makes it worse is that many times they cannot even detect that it is beyond them.

"The entire health system from top to bottom would benefit immensely from free market forces." - There is a free market for medical services in the upper bracket and doctors are making even more there.

In the end, perfect is the enemy of good...

Off-topic: Always better to quote the earliest reference. Plato said practically the same think around 347BC. Maybe there was someone before him too when we had no written texts. History repeats itself.

If I were you: 1) I would go work in a computational biology lab, get some papers out, Cancer research is always a step ahead but there a lot of good projects in Neuroscience too (immunology could also work). Go to the best lab you have around, most PIs know that it is hard to find good programmers because they mostly go to the big tech companies or startups. Make sure you don't do wet lab at this step it is going to be a waste of your time since you will not have time to do anything meaningful. 2) With the papers apply to medicine or preferably to MD/PhD program, if you get into MD/PhD program you will have time to learn some real science too. In any case if you are the ambitious type of person when doing step 1 try not to get stuck working as a bioinformatician: lower salaries than tech although better than biologists, you will hit the ladder cap faster, very few transcend to become leaders and command multidisciplinary groups. Good luck!

You have a valid point. I felt that my love for math and algorithmic thinking (although not part of a formal curriculum) have been very helpful. Medicine is more like engineering than most people think. Keep in mind though that everything looks like a nail to a hammer. The same way they lacked in some way, you lack too. Unless you expand your knowledge base in the end you will be limited in analyzing similarly generated data with slightly better ways, as is so often seen in the literature. At the same time researchers who possess the knowledge to work "under the hood" are designing novel ways to obtain data, ask new questions and design the accompanying pipelines in the process. Where you put mathematics major feel free to insert molecular biologist/ nuclear physicist/ organic chemist/ or whatever else you like. I feel that if you really want to be spectacular and at the interface of many sciences you have to master one and have a good understanding of the others. And as a doctor you will always have it easier to lead a team for human disease research, the prestige of the degree by itself and the fact that you have actually seen what is being studied will always give you some respect if you are not a complete jerk. The bar can only be set higher and higher...

You would be surprised how much effort has been put to improve the quality of life of the homeless population in NYC. For example every homeless is entitled to a shelter and they have access to food and emergency healthcare, let alone the opportunity to enjoy public spaces. This is in direct contrast of what's happening in other US cities. The total homelessness in US is dropping but there is I think around a 40% increase in the homeless population in NYC. I have been waiting some time now for an investigative journalist to come up with an article that reads something like "The great migration of the homeless".

Yes, there is a screen. I can verify people chilling at the kiosk while having youtube videos playing for hours. I have not seen people watching porn though...

In US it is becoming increasingly difficult to dedicate yourself to a cause. Since no one has your back you have to fend for yourself and your family. Good affordable healthcare, education, daycare, e.t.c. is not a given and they dedicate their lives to tend to their families and service their debts. PS: I assume you are comparing with Sweden

Thanks for all this info and your thoughts :) I have some reading to do now.

Very nice article, I was introduced to a lot of concepts under a historical perspective. However, it does not cover emerging patterns (startup culture) or what would be the most plausible alternative future trends. Can someone suggest some good reads?

@clevernickname and @shkkmo you both have valid points and if you read carefully what you say you could agree. clevernickname is right on his points on sexual dimorphism; the hormonal and genetic differences that lead to changes in body shape/function and structural brain differences with certain tradeoffs do shape two different forms of our species geared towards different tasks. Now gender roles will depend on the environment that you throw the humans into (if shkkmo mentioned that, it would make sense). Is the environment hostile and hunting requires bringing down big strong animals? Then if women need to hunt alongside with men, this has an impact in the number of offsprings that can be reared (neanderthals). So in that case it was beneficial to have a structure where males hunt and women were gatherers this in turn may have selected for genes that make males better hunters and women better gatherers further increasing sexual dimorphism. In any case if humans are put in an environment where females have a more important role then cultural adaptations that would free up time for females to pursue this, would ensue as it has probably already happened in several occasions in the past as shkkmo mentions.

Based on what they say you are probably right. They first say some things that are true but then give completely unjustified explanations about the medical profession. The regulation of the medical profession and the health market also exists in most European countries, even in Poland for example where doctors are not paid well. But somehow he attributes the high cost of care in USA on the high degree of regulation which is in most Western countries... Americans also pay more for drugs, nurses, and insurance. Hospital CEOs and administrative staff in US also gets paid considerably more. As a foreigner in USA with experience in the field, I would say that they are doing a pretty good job to make sure that the doctors that get to practice medicine in USA have passed through multiple filtering by ensuring that even the worst doctor is in a good enough level. If you want to have cheaper care at any cost, I think you could do it but there will be a price to pay. Medical travel is a viable option but then if things do not go well is your life valued according to Indian or American standards. In other words how much coverage do you get from their malpractice insurance. The medical profession is already very stressful and most young doctors feel that they are not well compensated for their long education, 8 years of student loans, training and skills on top of basically being converted to bureaucrats that their practice is ruled by compensation agreements (do not spend more than x time for each patient). Most doctors are smart and very few are "missionaries". If the medical profession keeps becoming less attractive you are just going to end up with less smart doctors and more smart programmers/engineers/finance/e.t.c. There are choices to be made...

Please for whatever you hold dear do not say please read and then point to books. Books? seriously, most people know that the peer-review is many times laughable but anyone can publish whatever book they want even if they are respected professionals/scientists/philosophers... You are just downgrading the conversation by orders of magnitude...

What toufka said plus now we have tools to make small edits in specific areas of interest (search CRISPR/Cas9 if you are interested to learn more) in mammalian cells.

If we deliver it as a payload with targeting sequences and the "corrections" template which are needed to introduce the changes would be amazing, as we would be able to make corrections in specific cells in specific areas of the DNA. Unfortunately the efficiency of this technology is not high enough yet for prime time.

That explains why the data are visualized the way they are in the view menu :)

Has anyone done any studies to correlate intelligence with net worth? Since the +3 or +4 SD people usually work to satisfy their own curiosity and thirst for knowledge, I would assume that it doesn't pay really well above a level...

I find it rather discouraging that mediocracy really punishes people for being extremely smart. Evolutionary punishment is decreasing their fitness (money, social stature, e.t.c.) and thus decreasing their procreation chances. Smart women are affected even more. Not to mention the intentional punishment/oppression by different intelligence class supervisors.

PS: one of my favourite relevant reads: http://prometheussociety.org/cms/index.php/articles/the-outs...

What do you do with neurosurgical tools used in CJD patients? THROW AWAY! (disposed by incineration)

Edit: source= http://epi.publichealth.nc.gov/cd/docs/CJD_FAQ.pdf