Comment by dist-epoch
2 years ago
As someone said in an article about detecting bullshit science research, if such an effect were true, every day at noon tragedies and accidents would happen all over the world, and we would live in a different world where work close to lunch was illegal and so on, just like we forbid work under alcohol.
Lead was added to gasoline since the 1920s. The first clinical studies that showed it was toxic were in 1969. The first country to ban it completely was Japan in 1986 and the last was Algeria in 2021. For more than a decade, people could have made a similar claim to yours, "if such an effect were true, we would have banned it already". And they would have been wrong, the effect was true.
> The first clinical studies that showed it was toxic were in 1969.
We knew it was dangerous within a year of it being introduced, even if we didn't publish widespread clinical studies before the 60s. Its creator, Thomas Midgley Jr, was diagnosed with lead poisoning multiple times.
> Warnings about the toxicity of tetraethyllead came to Midgley from various sources. The letter of Erich Krause concerning its toxic effects, quoted in part in part 1,2 written on November 30, 1922, to George Calingaert (then at M.I.T.) was forwarded to Midgley in December 1922 by W. G. Whitman, Assistant Director of the M.I.T. Research Laboratory of Applied Chemistry. However, despite his own health problems and these early warnings, Midgley did not appear to be overly concerned about the health issues associated with the handling and use of tetraethyllead.
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/om030621b
There's also some discussion at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Initial_controv... suggesting that early studies may have been suppressed by the lead industry.
> In the years that followed, research was heavily funded by the lead industry; in 1943, Randolph Byers found children with lead poisoning had behavior problems, but the Lead Industries Association threatened him with a lawsuit and the research ended.
> Lead was added to gasoline since the 1920s...the last was Algeria in 2021.
Right, so we figure these things out within 100 years or so at most. We've been dealing with hunger for millions of years, you'd expect there to be something in the Torah about how no man shall act as a judge before he's had lunch.
עַד מָתַי יוֹשְׁבִין בַּדִּין? אָמַר רַב שֵׁשֶׁת: עַד זְמַן סְעוּדָה. אָמַר רַב חָמָא: מַאי קְרָא? — דִּכְתִיב: ״אִי לָךְ אֶרֶץ שֶׁמַּלְכֵּךְ נָעַר וְשָׂרַיִךְ בַּבֹּקֶר יֹאכֵלוּ. אַשְׁרֵיךְ אֶרֶץ שֶׁמַּלְכֵּךְ בֶּן חוֹרִים וְשָׂרַיִךְ בָּעֵת יֹאכֵלוּ בִּגְבוּרָה וְלֹא בַשְּׁתִי״.
Until when do they sit in judgment? ? Rav Sheshet said: Until mealtime, noon. Rav Ḥama said: What is the verse that alludes to this? As it is written: “Woe to you, land that your king is a lad and your ministers eat in the morning. Happy are you, land that your king is free and your ministers eat on time in strength and not in drunkenness”
-Shabbos 10a
The effect of lead toxicity is not immediately and enormous so it is not remotely analogous.
The effect of a grumpy person sending Bob to jail is also not immediate or enormous (unless you are bob or bob's family).
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> and accidents would happen all over the world, and we would live in a different world where work close to lunch was illegal and so on,
Not at all, as a society ee are really good at ignoring terrible consequences of our decisions and carrying on regardless, sometimes for no reason other than habit.
We force children to go to school early despite mountains of evidence that this harms their learning, we give antibiotics to healthy livestock despite absolute proof that this causes antibiotic resistance, you can probably add more to this list, I.e climate change, etc.
Nassim Taleb has a theory that the primary purpose of school is not to educate children, but to keep them from roaming the streets and causing mayhem. Learning is a side-effect.
Also, to acclimatize them to the structure of working where we spend massive amounts of our time carrying out arbitrary tasks with arbitrary deadlines. The core work skill for many jobs is our ability to both believe and co-create the shared fiction that they are important enough to even spend time on in the first place.
I don't think 6-8-year-olds would cause a lot of mayhem. But parents need to go to work and kids aren't trusted to supervise themselves at that age (analogous to kindergarten before it). For teenagers the mayhem thing is also doubtful because school usually ends around 1-2 pm, while parents only finish working around 5 pm, so there's plenty of time to roam in the afternoon (at least outside present day America where parents drive kids around until late teenage years - which really is rather the exception in the broader context of school tradition).
I did not know that. But I was told primary school is not only to teach the basics, but also (and even more important) to start forming social individuals to form a society. That is one of the reasons primary school is (typically) compulsory, presencial, and the based in groups that grow together for some years. Also is part of the primary school teaching respect for the Flag, the history and heros, anthem, etc. also patriotic holidays, like independence day, imply special works for the kids, actuation and what not. They have to learn to live their country.
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Has anyone discovered the primary purpose of Nassim Taleb though?
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It's funny that no one's understanding your claim.
The effect size claimed for the original paper, as well as how obvious and localised the effect is, would make it incredibly obvious to observe. Thus if this effect were true, we would have to explain how we've all missed it.
This is not comparable to long-term effects, or ones otherwise difficult to notice, etc. We notice the effects of alcohol immediately, and here, it's claimed being hungry-for-lunch is at least as large, if not larger, effect.
This seems obvious nonsense. If any other statistical model can explain the same effect, it's vastly more likely, since it benefits from not making a miracle out of our missing the lethality of mild lunchtime hunger.
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> just like we forbid work under alcohol
Do we? In many companies there is free infinite beer
This surprises me. Are you speaking from a US point of view?
In many west european countries it is forbidden to consume alcohol in work hours, except at company-arranged events etc. and/or to be intoxicated.
For a comparative overview of the practical differences: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9779578/
I live in Germany and a lot of companies still have free beer on tap and the managers will pressure you to drink during work hours
From the article you posted:
> Therefore, in most companies and public administration, it is solely at the discretion of employers as to what extent they tolerate alcohol consumption by their employees. The employer has the right to impose sanctions on the employee who refuses to take an alcohol test, which may result in loss of employment or suspension [53]. In Germany, regional and cultural particularities can be decisive; for example, in Lower and Upper Bavaria and in Franconia it is still common for many companies’ employees to have a glass of beer during the lunch break.
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In British parliament the most important people in the country get alcohol subsidised by the taxpayer. And they regularly find drugs in the bathroom.
You’d think that if anyone, these people would have to be sober.
If you assume what MPs do is all that important. They mostly just do what their told by their party leadership anyway, and the rest of the time they are making decisions about things they know nothing about.
Someone did a survey of how much MPs knew about economics and the results were dire, and they is something good many have been taught (all those PPE degrees!) and that is really important to them.
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