For example imagine 50% of workers are office workers. And say heart attack risk is twice as high for overworked office workers but 10% less for non office workers. The study would find a broad-based 40% increase in risk for all workers, despite OPs original hypothesis being exactly correct.
Somewhere in the last couple of decades, the SCIENCE WORKS, BITCHES people seem to have forgotten how real science is actually done. Intuition, anecdote, common sense, hunches are very important parts of the process.
Specifically: Is it productive for HN users to have anecdotal evidence rise to the top, or actual peer-reviewed evidence from studies with N=100 or N=10,000? I'd argue if layman HN users have time to read only one comment, we should upvote the N>1 comments, not N=1.
From the guidelines: "Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive."
We went from an international article (N=745k) to anecdata, which is a downgrade of substance in my view.
They found the biggest effects in Southeast Asia. I live in Southeast Asia. If you think office workers make up a significant part of workers in Southeast Asia....That's just not a "let's assume" I'm going to join you with.
If you think office workers are the cause then do the hard work of actually looking at the data and use that to make your case.
There's plenty of reasons to imagine a job you enjoy could lead to a shorter life.
Maybe it doesn't though. And even if it does, is prolonging your life for as long as possible actually a noble goal in the first place?
It may be that the name we give to those things is enough to make them harmful, but I do find that very unlikely. If it's not calling it a "job" that makes it stressful, then it must be some properties, and it's pretty much possible that some jobs lack those properties.
Commute time is also part of the blend btw, it's a balance.
[0] for instance I have money and am jobless but my actual context is unhealthy as hell (social, emotional needs unmet to the fullest)
What you can’t do with anecdotes is generalize them to the entire population, but taking an honest look at them is an excellent way to find methodological gaps.
They also are roles with a lot of agency and variation in schedule. A carpenter may be working 60 hour weeks in June, but is usually partially idle in January.
Not saying the conclusions they came to are wrong. I’m saying you can’t possibly determine whether it’s right from the data they present. I’m not sure they could replicate their own conclusion if you sat down at a desk with them.
Is there any reason to assume HN should be better then anyone else?
However, this is just my impression from reading comments here for a few years. I may as well be wrong. Smart people do have their own blindspots, too.
Edit: I noticed you were downvoted, and I disagree with that. Your question is reasonable.
The main effect this has is that HN people have an overinflated sense of their own competence, and are more blind to their own ignorance.
Have condition X. Doctors say Y, which doesn’t actually help.
Support groups will have a long list of things to try. Questions to ask doctors lifestyle changes. Up to date info on diagnosis/ treatment.
What tests should be run, how to interpret tests.
Medications side effects doctors don’t know about.
I always assumed a Facebook medical support group would be all nonsense. Instead it’s got tons of people who have spent years researching and experimenting, and have amazing advise to give.
Simple example. Was going to the bathroom 10+ times a night. Years of doctors were zero help.
Someone suggested aloe Vera freeze dried pills. 3 days later I was sleeping through the night.
Medical community is both amazing and full of major gaps.
Very very often, people start with very wild assumptions and then make wild implications on them, even the ones that are directly contradicted by article they comment on or simple search.
That is fairly normal, group of people talking about something they dont know much about is not supposed to randomly pivot to correct conclusions. But, HN is uniquely convinced HN is superior in this regard.
"Two systematic reviews and meta-analyses of the latest evidence were conducted for this study. Data from 37 studies on ischemic heart disease covering more than 768 000 participants and 22 studies on stroke covering more than 839 000 participants were synthesized. The study covered global, regional and national levels, and was based on data from more than 2300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970-2018."
The study has nothing to do with sitting in an office, despite what you claim.