8 ms·
Toxoplasmosis associated with entrepreneurial initiation and performance (2020)
- Arech 5y agoI wonder how many comparisons they made before they found this hit? hint keyword: multiple testing problem.
- dougSF70 5y agoIn New York's Natural History museum I found a small exhibit devoted to the effect of Toxoplasmosis on humans. The studies reported identified being untidy and poor driving skills can be caused by TG presence in the body. You could retrofit this evidence to this paper's claim it would seem.
- pajko 5y ago'Being a good entrepreneur' and 'being untidy' might not be mutually exclusive effects of toxoplasmosis. https://www.one37pm.com/grind/entrepreneurs/perks-of-being-messy-entrepreneur https://www.one37pm.com/grind/entrepreneurs/perks-of-being-m... Just for curiosity, Albert Einstein was also messy. Not sure about if he had toxoplasmosis or not, but he had two cats. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369141 https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/369141 https://www.bluecross.org.uk/story/pets-have-shaped-hearts-and-history https://www.bluecross.org.uk/story/pets-have-shaped-hearts-a... About poor driving skills: it could be hard to concentrate on the traffic and surroundings, if people's mind is somewhere else.
- dougSF70 5y agoGoing full pop-neurophysiologist here: perhaps if being messy is a result of being distracted by ideas which are a requirement of being an entrepreneur. It all hangs together, for me!
- asdfman123 5y agoWe have to earn money to make a nice life for our cats.
- hkt 5y agoI don't know about yours, but mine just requires a human as a bed and mice to murder. She's a cheap date.
- no_time 5y agoI'm about to pet a lot of cats.
- cwkoss 5y agoMaybe the elites aren't lizard people, but cat-people (khajit?). So subservience to cats has an adaptive function in the business world? /s
- coldacid 5y agoMay we all walk on warm sands.
- look_lookatme 5y agoOP you been listening to the Meateater podcast?
- DeBraid 5y agoThis is fascinating: > Mind-controlling parasite makes hyena cubs more reckless around lions https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/mind-controlling-parasite-makes-hyena-cubs-more-reckless-around-lions https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/mind-cont... the study for those that prefer primary sources: > Toxoplasma gondii infections are associated with costly boldness toward felids in a wild host https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24092-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24092-x
- mastax 5y agoNo, though the person I got this from probably does. No room for more podcasts until I finish Revolutions, so probably 2025.
- gnulinux 5y agoI wouldn't be surprised if this is a correlation. My quality of life increased significantly after I got my cat about 2 years ago (just before COVID!). I say to anyone who ask, getting a cat was likely the best decision I ever made. Since then I became a lot more entrepreneurial and productive. I don't believe neither me nor my car has Toxoplasmosis gondii (my cat was tested for this when I brought him home). My cat is my friend, my roommate, my infant, the most precious thing I have and an endless source of entertainment due to weird stuff cats randomly do. He's also significant amount of responsibility, since he's a living conscious thing and I really want him to have a nice and long life. All these factors have been very useful to understand what it is that I want from life and focus on getting them.
- rhacker 5y agoWas your car tested too?
- ipnon 5y agoCats are quieter and less needy than dogs. They take care of themselves and don't bark at neighbors. How are you supposed to start a new company with a dog pawing at you?
- ralusek 5y agoBecause with a dog you have something worth fighting for
- dfsegoat 5y agoYou prefer an emotionally shallow animal? /s [1] 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJFp272w9u8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJFp272w9u8
- xcambar 5y agoDogs are indeed more demanding, they henceforth grow your sense of responsibility, which aligns with the required skills of entrepreneurship.
- strangattractor 5y agoI can already see it. 20 somethings injecting themselves with toxoplasmosis to hack their entrepreneurial abilities.
- seibelj 5y agoCats do not do what you want, an owner is a passive partner to the cat. You have to make the cat like you, so it voluntarily comes for pets. Running a business is similar - no one automatically likes you or wants what you are selling, you must give the customer pets and treats to encourage them to reward you back. In this way cat owners have a vision of life more attuned to entrepreneurship.
- a-dub 5y agofun thought: i wonder if famed "entrepreneur" martin shkreli had a toxoplasmosis infection... he famously bought the patents for the drug that treated the infection (mostly required for immunocompromised folks) and raised the prices by some huge factor. if he was, then maybe his "entrepreneurial performance" was in service to the bug he was infected with! yes, this is a joke! (or is it?! brb. off to start a company that moderates online discussions...)
- ncmncm 5y agoWe should not interpret this to mean TP makes you better at entrepreneurial thinking. It means you are more likely to try to start a business without a sound rational basis. Occasionally, a business without a sound rational basis succeeds: Pet Rocks made certain people lots of money. (Yes, really! Look it up.) But it's not the way to bet. Infection with TP caused men to become reckless drivers, and (incidentally) less attractive to women. It affected women the opposite way: they became more risk-averse and conformant, and presumably more attractive to those men who seek that out.
- LurkingPenguin 5y agoIn reflecting on life, I'd say a good percentage of the most enjoyable, worthwhile and meaningful things in life usually don't start with a "sound rational basis." This is not to say that everyone should YOLO their way through life but if you always think something through to the nth degree and wait for it to make complete sense, a lot of life will pass you by.
- ncmncm 5y agoThings you do with no sound rational basis are generally better when they don't bankrupt you. There are lots of such alternatives. Men with TP take risks that do not offer any commensurate reward. E.g., reckless driving. They are dangerous to be around.
- pmdulaney 5y agoI think a study of bipolar individuals would yield similar results. I still wouldn't like to be bipolar or have toxoplasmosis.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dang 5y agoPast related threads: Risky business: linking Toxoplasma infection and entrepreneurship behavior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18762544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18762544 - Dec 2018 (30 comments) Toxoplasma gondii may help promote the entrepreneurial spirit? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17615209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17615209 - July 2018 (4 comments)
- cheaprentalyeti 5y agoI wonder if they'll connect the third leg of the triangle and figure out that entrepeneurship is mental illness.
- adventured 5y agoPerhaps better described as a form of masochism.
- ballenf 5y agoYeah, really felt like they were too zoomed in on one effect of a mindset shift. They could just as easily have said "cats lead to increase in resignations without a solid financial plan in place."
- LinuxBender 5y agoDoes this mean we will see a startup offering injections of Toxoplasmosis? I've seen worse TikTok challenges.
- rootusrootus 5y ago> I've seen worse TikTok challenges. Ha! That's a very low bar.
- djmips 5y agoMeanwhile there's the people taking ivermectin killing their entrepreneurial spirit.
- madrox 5y agoThis is super interesting to me, and I wonder how long before someone intentionally gives themselves TP before founding a company. Considering the threads I saw on HN about homebrewing covid vaccines, I can't imagine it'll be long.
- short12 5y agoIt's not that easy to get it unless you enjoy playing in a litterbox. Meats can also transmit but that seems to be a very low likelihood It's really bad news for pregnant women and immune defective people
- m0llusk 5y agoPotentially interesting how this relates to tropes. So often the evil villain is seen with a cat in their lap. Could this common stereotype have been driven by bacterial infections all along?
- skinkestek 5y agoIt is more that cat people are weird, generally ;-) BTW and more seriously I'm fairly sure Toxoplasma Gondi is not bacterial.
- say_it_as_it_is 5y agoThis smells like one of the cases proving that unverified research can be published as scientific claim
- ebanana 5y agowhat if this is a way of thinning out the herd. jk