Parasite infection is associated with entrepreneurship (2020) | Hacker News Reader

Parasite infection is associated with entrepreneurship (2020)

journals.sagepub.com

69 pointsjawns45 comments

They controlled for a lot of things but not for cat ownership, which given the particular parasite in question seems like an obvious missing piece. Cat ownership has long been associated with particular personality traits that may in turn be associated with entrepreneurship, so this could have more to do with who chooses to have cats than it does with the parasite.

It could also have to do with meat eating.

I think the cat and meat connection are relevant in the long term understanding of the subject, but doesn’t make this any less important, interesting, and relevant.

One of my favorite CRPG NPCs of all time is Erritis from Planescape: Tides of Numenera.

He's "infected" with nanobots called "The Audience." The nanobots were created in a long-forgotten war to push their hosts to take great, heroic risks. So he always ends up doing insane things in perfectly innocuous situations. It's great.

https://numenera.fandom.com/wiki/Erritis

lold at inability: concentration.

he got hero complex and adhd!

Brb buying a bunch of stray cats to get more $$$ next time I fund-raise for my startup.

Buying?

I know some cat charities often help catch stray cats and try to sell them to responsible owners, obviously after reviewing their business plan, or prototypes...

Venture catalysts?

The true way to acquire new cats is to sit on your doorstep and offer chin rubs and belly rubs.

From my armchair, I wonder if these published academics considered that the comfort of a cat also increases risk tolerance?

BTW The EMyth, though on lifestyle not startup businesses, claimed that a major motivation of entrepreneurs is autonomy (i.e. no boss)

This particular parasite infection is oddly specific to another oddly specific behavioral trait. This is either a very well done research or it’s a sham.

That odd association seems pretty well-established by prior work. But the study at hand does seem like very well-done research to me: exploiting existing data to achieve a virtually perfect snapshot of a well-defined population at the scale of an entire nation. It seems like it neatly addresses all sorts of questions of sampling biases, sidesteps questions of statistical power, and relies on measures that are independently assured to be high-quality and comprehensive.

With the added benefit of validating an effect in a wholly different subset of the population than the one where it had previously been measured: prior studies seem to have used mostly convenience samples of mostly men (mostly sourced from explicitly entrepreneurship-flavored environments).

It’s well known that TG infection increases risky behavior. So I’m not the least bit surprised that there’s a correlation with entrepreneurship. Or what did you mean?

Risky people are more likely to make poor decisions and contract any kind of infections, including STDs. Probably they experience more stress and frequently deal with that by getting pets that infect with Toxoplasmosis.

I'm not sure I buy the "risk->stress->pets" connection. In my own experience, anecdotal of course, people who take risks do so because risk-taking doesn't stress them out as much as it would other people.

But your point is still valid. The conventional wisdom on why risk-taking people might be more prone to toxoplasmosis in the first place is that they're more likely to eat undercooked or other ill-prepared meat, which is actually a much more significant risk factor for toxoplasmosis than cat ownership.

If TG can be spread sexually maybe it could be classed as a STD and a scary one that actually changes behaviour to spread more.

That’s a lot of mental gymnastics. T gondii is a highly problematic pathogen, not sure why you are trying to find an alternative explanation.

We're talking about the parasite that sends rodents charging headlong into the mouths of cats;

This may have something to do with the suppression of risk aversion;

Then you throw a little (potentially a lot) of survivors' bias into the mix, and this is what you get.

Pretty sure they just confuse cause and effect xD

Can you test Bill Hwang for that?

my supposition is that there should be way more people like him given the expansion of the money supply and liquidity, but there hasn't been an expansion of people willing to take risky bets with capital over several billion dollars.

we should expose ultra high net worth people to the protozoan toxoplasma gondii

There are a lot of people in finance that realized money printing was essentially a risk free environment to lever up on all assets. The mechanics of interest rates are well known, and have been for hundreds of years.

During covid, again many of them realized it was a near risk free wealth generation opportunity. Many of them in NYC, with their primary address in the Bahamas. Wallstreet bets, and the general public, caught onto this only after the party was nearly over (late 2021).

Finance is notoriously quiet about all of this. I have personally met many 10 man trading shops in NYC making a consistent 10-50M a year by betting on the FED. They have no linkedin profile, no website, no public face. The common theme is many spent alot of time in mainstream high finance and attended world class universities.

The faces of major hedge funds you see on TV do not take risks like this (because they are playing a different game, shave 2%+ from the 10B in assets they manage), and so they downplay the certainty one could have about Bill Hwang style bets.

I’m glad to know of that experience!

I have seen prop shops like that in person as well, but haven't seen the landscape through covid

Some levels of equities and commodity futures ownership require disclosures, so I still contend that one person shops (or outfits primarily trading one person’s money) are too few in number than they should be

There is enough liquidity in US equities and futures markets to trade $60bn-$100bn portfolios now, and hedge in the options market, there should be more people comfortable continuing to grow capital this way. Bill Huang’s only problem was using leverage, and even then in a slower market he would have been able to liquidate all positions at their higher prices. Without losses the investigation into swaps wouldn't have happened.

Someone should be able to surpass Berkshire Hathaway’s cash balance, or even Elon’s net worth, by trading public equities alone at this point.

Yeah its suspicious that there are not more well known individuals who got wealthy in this way.

Actually my biggest conspiracy theory is that there are far more very wealthy people in the world than is let on. Government statistics on wealth distribution are completely blind to all sorts of capital income and internationally hidden money.

yeah, doesn't take a conspiracy, the idea of any transparency of ownership in some assets is extremely recent, its not a complete idea as it doesn't cover much, and its even more recent that ways of circumventing those disclosures were less numerous. the basis for all “net worth” listicles come from extrapolating mandated disclosures, and are rarely the complete picture for anyone

and trusts can own anything with no record of the trust’s existence, and no disclosure of who manages or is a beneficiary of the trust

and even when that exists from one point in time, a trustee or beneficiary can be hotswapped in the blink of an eye

they may have no tax footprint to cause reporting, and their mere existence isn’t enough for a subpoena to go through to service providers like banks, accountants, lawyers

so yeah the government knows nothing, the service providers don't know the full picture, lawyers and trust companies may only have an incomplete picture and even the beneficiaries likely have no idea, all the while their net worth is miscalculated by every pocket watcher in existence

additionally, people in most developed nations don’t have to go international for this or an equivalent concept. the “stigma” towards international/offshore ownership can also be viewed as the high tax nation being protectionist of its domestic less accountable industry

and finally, liquidity liquidity liquidity. what America has scaled up is a market environment where the most kinds of things can be turned into cash and other assets faster than anywhere and anytime in the history of markets. and this concept isnt done yet. many of these secret high net worth holders cant sell their properties to cash if they wanted to, but can in the future.

Coming soon: Toxoplasmosis supplements

You're probably aware that cat poo is where one gets the parasite from, right?

Not everybody has access to it. Somebody needs to deliver it to the masses.

Past related threads. What doesn't it do?

Toxoplasmosis and Behavioural Changes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38951266 - Jan 2024 (1 comment)

Cat parasite linked to mental illness, schizophrenia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38529342 - Dec 2023 (13 comments)

Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Political Beliefs and Values - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34960674 - Feb 2023 (54 comments)

Toxoplasma makes wolves more likely to become pack leaders - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33741060 - Nov 2022 (1 comment)

Are toxoplasma-infected subjects more attractive than non-infected ones? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30889109 - April 2022 (68 comments)

Effects of Toxoplasma on Human Behavior (2007) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29361334 - Nov 2021 (26 comments)

Toxoplasmosis associated with entrepreneurial initiation and performance (2020) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28988486 - Oct 2021 (55 comments)

Increased risk of traffic accidents in subjects with latent toxoplasmosis (2002) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28424007 - Sept 2021 (61 comments)

Toxoplasma – The Most Successful Parasite in the world (2018) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27870034 - July 2021 (6 comments)

Toxoplasmosis: An important risk factor for acquiring SARS-CoV-2 infection - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27870025 - July 2021 (77 comments)

Toxoplasmosis: The Cat Poop Parasite That's Probably in Your Brain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27615857 - June 2021 (37 comments)

Toxoplasmosis – A Global Threat (2014) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27599085 - June 2021 (54 comments)

Scientists find link between infection with Toxoplasma gondii and schizophrenia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19042800 - Jan 2019 (1 comment)

Risky business: linking Toxoplasma infection and entrepreneurship behavior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18762544 - Dec 2018 (30 comments)

Mind-altering parasite spread by cats could give humans more courage - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18000109 - Sept 2018 (1 comment)

Toxoplasma gondii may help promote the entrepreneurial spirit? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17615209 - July 2018 (4 comments)

Rage Disorder Linked with Toxoplasmosis (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15376654 - Oct 2017 (66 comments)

Having a Cat Does Not Cause Mental Illness, New Study Suggests - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13709169 - Feb 2017 (41 comments)

Is there association between Toxoplasma gondii infection and bipolar disorder? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13048748 - Nov 2016 (13 comments)

The Relation of Toxoplasma Infection and Sexual Attraction to Fear, Danger, Pain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335134 - Aug 2016 (49 comments)

Toxoplasma gondii – 30 to 50% of humanity has a brain parasite - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12011197 - June 2016 (3 comments)

Toxoplasma Could Manipulate Our Behavior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9269688 - March 2015 (23 comments)

Toxoplasma infection permanently shifts balance in cat-and-mouse game - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6411785 - Sept 2013 (8 comments)

Cat parasite toxoplasma uses 'Trojan horse' to infect human brain - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4888086 - Dec 2012 (1 comment)

A game of cat and mouse: Evidence that Toxoplasmosis may affect human behaviour - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1420315 - June 2010 (4 comments)

The parasite Toxoplasma makes rats lust for cat pee and people drive motorbikes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1405479 - June 2010 (24 comments)

Robert Sapolsky discusses Toxoplasma's effects on mammalian behavior - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1052855 - Jan 2010 (3 comments)

Giant Plush Microbes - Toxoplasmosis, Gangrene, Etc. - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=577409 - April 2009 (3 comments)

I want Dang's search tools.

In this case I cheated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29362079. Couldn't think of a new joke either.

The other way of doing this is CPS style: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que....

Otherwise we end up with https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35970518 or worse.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

it would be curious to see the average gap between toxoplasmosis stories. it's the topic that just keeps on getting clicks, every few months, in various guises, for years.

I'm convinced it's a psyop, since they can't get away with dosing the municipal water supply with LSD. Chaos sells ad impressions.

I've had an acute toxoplasmosis infection. It was not empowering; it was fucking terrifying. I now understand why the rat is compelled to run into the mouth of the cat-- it makes everything "bad" and dangerous seem completely normal and rational; whatever life-preserving instincts you learn suddenly become processed as the opposite. There is no "optimizing" this shit into something that leads to wealth and success. It's not fun like cocaine or Adderall. I didn't recognize my own clothes. My own wife felt like a stranger. It sounds like psychosis but nothing was hallucinated; it was instead a state of induced dysphoria or dementia I would not wish on anybody and certainly would not encourage anybody to pursue.

To really understand it, pretend today is opposite day. Getting in your car to go to work will feel wrong, do the opposite-- walk the 50 miles. But sidewalks aren't for walking, silly, so just use the freeway!

Human food won't feel edible, but the opposite isn't pet food. What are you supposed to eat? I never figured it out and stayed in bed eating mostly Excedrin for two straight weeks, on account of the crippling migraines.

My ex's ex also caught it when we (legit) accidentally trapped a stray cat in their former apartment and he returned to retrieve some items. After recovering he refused to talk about his experience like some war veteran. This shit is no joke.

We've rescued four cats. They're great companions and I'm glad we gave them a chance but would never keep cats as pets again.

What a wild affliction! (no sarcasm)

We've rescued and live with four cats also, and a feral ancestry dog, and I've worked with hundreds of feral or stray cats with others with no obvious problems.

I believe what you describe and it makes me wonder, you may have just had horrendously bad luck.

You give me too much credit. It's not bad luck, it's straight-up negligence.

I used to stick my nose in a lot of dirty places without PPE; the week before that I had blown out a garage full of rat shit and cleaned out a backyard full of bat shit without a mask. I didn't know any better.

The surprising part was that it was cat shit that got to me-- despite the exposure, my histoplasmosis test was clean.

adding raw meat to my diet, check.

Eating the parasites for the hustle

Futurama predicted it

From the point of view of a venture capitalist, who has a diversified portfolio of startups (in aggregate occupying a point on the risk/reward curve on the frontier), a mechanism like this would be useful, as it would provide the requisite number of entrepreneurs willing to run their individual ventures at a point far riskier than the frontier.

It's been interesting to note how my ability to empathize with other people correlates to my income level, and I wouldn't be surprised if you could actually see damage in a billionaire's brain. Combining these two 'mechanisms' gives you a powerful risk-taker who, on a fundamental level, can't help but view people as numbers on a spreadsheet.

What I'm saying is that you just need to give someone a cat and tell them they won the lottery to create the perfect CEO or CEO simulator.

Sooo - how many HNers have cats?

This depends on the region, I think. My own experience: most people I know on the East Coast have cats (including entrepreneurs), significantly higher preference for dogs on the West Coast. In Eastern Europe and Japan, I also noticed people tend to have cats much more than dogs (both places with vibrant entrepreneurial scenes)

My room mate has one, so …technically.

Most entrepreneurs I know, hate cats.

Part of a great interview where Dr. Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biology, Neurology & Neurosurgery at Stanford University explains Toxoplasmosis.

https://youtu.be/NroiGfNohPo?si=g_7Ob0cWQZN_QKAq

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