This whole discussion is completely absurd. Good soldiers, doctors, intelligence agents, fighter pilots and astronauts are often far outside of the bell curve i

This whole discussion is completely absurd. Good soldiers, doctors, intelligence agents, fighter pilots and astronauts are often far outside of the bell curve in some important traits. That's why they ended up in the job. It would be impossible to find good candidates if everyone was completely honest with all the things that should disqualify them from the job. If you were a cynic, you'd call it a test of good judgement. You can bet that almost everyone in these jobs has some skeleton in the closet that would officially be a problem. Some years of depression or other psychiatric illness, a proclivity for scandalous sex, having used an illegal drug a couple of times or even regularly, an unofficial child somewhere, some hidden medical issue that popped up once and was never talked about again, etc. With the common case that the issue has little, no or even positive effect on job performance. This is anecdotally true from off-the-record conversations with exceptional individuals I know. The list of disqualifying parameters is just there so the bureaucrats can cover their ass when an aneurysm causes the loss of a billion-dollar aircraft, and to prevent blackmail with information that can be easily found. But regarding blackmail, I think the bigger problem is that honest and harmless things can be used for blackmail in the first place. Everyone has smoked a joint and had some compromising photos taken, it shouldn't be such a big deal.