Work peak and professional decline (2019) • Hacker News Board

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#161

Post by el_dev_hell » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 12:05 AM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #116

el_dev_hell wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really enjoyed the article overall. The section on Darwin was an eyebrow raiser. It makes sense to include someone like Darwin (very interesting and well known), but he's not a great example to compare to "normal" people (like the couple mentioned in the opening paragraph). A 50 year old in the 1800s whose job was catching a ship to the other side of the planet is a little different when compared to a factory worke…

> > Unfortunately, Mendel’s work was published in an obscure academic journal and Darwin never saw it This part is true. Not sure about Darwin's mathematical knowledge.

I probably should have been more explicit with my issue. This is the part that rustled my jimmies:

> and in any case, Darwin did not have the mathematical ability to understand it.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#162

Post by tomjakubowski » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 3:54 AM UTC

iancmceachern wrote: post #160

tomjakubowski wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mind showing your work?

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/when-is-flying-greener-than... https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-... "In addition, Sivak suggests carpooling, as having three or more person in a vehicle “completely” changes the comparison with flying. Indeed, with a few people in the car, “driving becomes less energy intensive than flying (even after taking into account the increased weight that the vehicle…

The comment was comparing two people taking an RV, not a commuter car, to air travel and hotel stays. I failed to mention it but was most interested in how the hotel laundry carbon footprint was a big factor.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#163

Post by iancmceachern » Thu, Apr 01, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

tomjakubowski wrote: post #162

iancmceachern wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://stanfordmag.org/contents/when-is-flying-greener-than... https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-... "In addition, Sivak suggests carpooling, as having three or more person in a vehicle “completely” changes the comparison with flying. Indeed, with a few people in the car, “driving becomes less energy intensive than flying (even after taking into account the increased weight that the vehicle…

The comment was comparing two people taking an RV, not a commuter car, to air travel and hotel stays. I failed to mention it but was most interested in how the hotel laundry carbon footprint was a big factor.

There are plenty of rvs that get similar fuel efficiency to cars. Anything on the sprinter chassis gets over 20 mpg typically.

The laundry footprint is a large factor when considering hotel stays. If we add up both the carbon costs of the hotel stay and airfare added together it seems like it adds up to more than the RV option. That's all I was trying to highlight, I haven't done a research paper on it, just my perception.

Re: Work peak and professional decline (2019)

#164

Post by sinenomine » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 4:22 AM UTC

r-zip wrote: post #155

sinenomine wrote: post #77

This is an article written by a journalist. If we want to get to the bottom of things, we can open Google Scholar and search for related peer-reviewed publications, finding [1][2] in the process. What do we see in [1] and [2]? A very prominent downward trend ( https://i.imgur.com/avKUvTd.png ) on all but a single cognitive test, which is verbal knowledge. All the important cognitive abilities related to thinking and…

I think it's important to note that the first graphic you posted doesn't include longitudinal data (i.e., doesn't correct for the Flynn effect). Compare to: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2683339/ .

Thank you for posting this paper, it is more statistically/psychometrically sound than the one I posted. By testing each person across a significant path of their lifespan, and correcting for test-retest drift, it produces a more defendable result.

Still, it does not make decline disappear into statistical insignificance, just lowers its magnitude to 0.8~1.0 s.d, which is still large, thus sparing the qualitative reasoning in my interpretation. It should also be noted, that the Flynn effect has ended somewhere in the 1990s-2000s, at least in Norway[2], so it is likely that long-term it ceases to be a disturbing factor for between-cohorts comparisons. Test-retest gains will still be an issue though (and there is a viewpoint that a large part of Flynn effect could be explained as a large-scale environmentally-driven test-retest effect acting on the population).

I also like the review[1] of paper you posted, suggesting several measurable histological/neurological/physiological correlates of cognitive aging, aptly summarized on this graph: https://i.imgur.com/CpQ6Upc.png

If you are interested in discussing these papers, or joining a community of like-minded people, feel free to ping me via the email in my profile.

1. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19231030/ (sci-hubbable) 2. http://www.iapsych.com/iqmr/fe/LinkedDocuments/Sundet2004.pd...