[HN Gopher] Good genes are nice, but joy is better (2017) ___________________________________________________________________ Good genes are nice, but joy is better (2017) Author : sizzle Score : 86 points Date : 2023-11-03 19:58 UTC (3 hours ago) (HTM) web link (news.harvard.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (news.harvard.edu) | wing-_-nuts wrote: | One of the biggest takeaways I got from 'Behave' is it isn't | really nature vs nurture. Often one's 'nurture' (upbringing, and | experiences) can change your epigenetics, and those with abusive | childhoods have higher risks for all sorts of things including | cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune conditions and anxiety | and depression. | | I'm not really sure everyone can chose 'joy'. Some simply don't | have the innate temperament required to build strong | relationships, and some have it literally beat out of them. Some | folks are dealt a bad hand of both nature and nurture, and it | makes me wonder the extent to which we 'choose' anything, or if | we're all destined to mostly follow the ruts we're born into. | nextos wrote: | Genetics is great, but a bitter lesson from the last decade for | those who believed it was the major driver of disease is that | the environment has a stronger effect. | | If we ignore Mendelian traits, i.e. rare diseases, ankylosing | spondylitis and type 1 diabetes appear to have the largest | contribution from genetics. Yet, penetrance is tiny. Genetics | hardly explains more than 30-40% of phenotypic variance in | those two. | | Most traits are largely determined by our nutrient supply, | infections, eubiosis / dysbiosis, etc. The first year of life | is particularly important. | nyssos wrote: | > but a bitter lesson from the last decade for those who | believed it was the major driver of disease is that the | environment has a stronger effect. | | It doesn't make sense to talk about whether genes or | environmental factors have stronger effects in general: | they're very very very strongly interacting. It's not | phenotype = genes + environment, it's phenotype = stupidly_co | mplicated_function_we've_only_just_begun_to_understand(genes, | environment). You can talk about the effects of genetic | variation in a particular environment, or of environmental | variation given fixed genetics, but "the contribution from | [genetics/the environment]" without any further qualification | is not a thing that exists. | nextos wrote: | I know, but the dominant trend was to (try to) predict | diseases by calculating genetic risk scores, ignoring any | environmental contributions. | | This trend is even known as genetic determinism. There is a | whole generation of senior academics who are fiercely | attached to this line of thought. | klipt wrote: | How much better could you predict if you sequence both | DNA _and_ samples of expressed RNA from various parts of | the body? | dekhn wrote: | Personally I think nyssos's explanation (that disease is | a complex function of the joint distribution of genotype | and environment) is still more convincing, and that the | reason environment temporarily got more attention is | simply that our ability to understand causality of | disease in non-mendelian contexts is still very limited | (it being an _extremely_ complex function). | | I've worked in this field for a while and continuously | get into arguments with geneticists, part of that is | because I simply don't understand the explanations | genetics gives (I'm a molecular biologist and computer | scientist; the difference is that genenticists treat | genotype to phenotype as a black box, while molecular | biologists see it as an event system), but another part | of it is that most scientists are highly susceptible to | the streelight effect, and genetics is something tangible | you can easily measure in the lab, while environment | is... much more complicated. | chongli wrote: | Yes, exactly. Genetics is the difference between humans and | fruit flies. All the radical reshaping we've done to the | environment over the history of civilization would not have | been possible without the intelligence given to us by our | genes. | | When people talk about genetic factors in life outcomes | they always point to these very simple Mendelian diseases. | They don't point to more subtle traits that are caused by a | wide variety of genes interacting. Just because we don't | fully understand these genetic mechanisms doesn't mean | they're not there. | | And as far as "nurture" goes, genes play a big role in that | too. If a parent has a greater predisposition towards | impulsivity or violence or substance abuse then that's | going to affect their fitness as a parent. It's the Anna | Karenina principle: everything has to go right if you want | the best outcome. | molsongolden wrote: | I haven't read Behave and childhood trauma can definitely have | lasting impacts but I am also inspired by some of the older | folks I have known with what seem like bottomless wells of joy. | | There's a cynical broken person out there for every one of | them, they aren't the norm, but some of these people went | through terrible shit as children or throughout their lives but | they're still happy and grateful for what they did end up | having. | | Also, some of the happiest people I know come from some of the | worst starting environments. This is definitely survivorship | bias because these people made it out to become happy but | there's some thread between the two around grit and | expectations then finding joy in the most basic things. | brightball wrote: | It's one of the reason I appreciate Dabo Swinney's life story | so much. He had an awful childhood, broken home, poor as | dirt, his mom shared his bed in college because they were so | poor. | | And yet, he's one of the most optimistic and successful | leaders out there determined to show people that their | conditions do not define them. | noitamroftuo wrote: | sapolsky has a new book, check it out on this pod | https://www.econtalk.org/robert-sapolsky-on-determinism-free... | zeteo wrote: | Yes this seems backwards for at least some of the variables in | the study. If you're in great health you're more likely to be | joyful and to have good relationships with those around you. | Saying that you should choose joy is like saying that you can | avoid the worst health problems if you never go to hospital. | temp0826 wrote: | I think Harvard students would likely have more opportunities | to choose joy so I'd take this all with some boulders of salt | anyways. | xyzelement wrote: | I would very much doubt that. Joy is in how you engage with | the life you have. You can have a Harvard education and (for | example) be envious of the guy next door, or let topics-of- | the-day drive you crazy (eg: "I don't have kids because it's | bad for the environment" or "I never got married, too busy | with my career") | | And vice a versa, plenty of poor people find a way to be at | peace with what they have (and even strive to do better w/o | being resentful) , have families, etc. | digging wrote: | > let topics-of-the-day drive you crazy | | Oh yeah, chasing fads and news cycles is miserable - | | > "I don't have kids because it's bad for the environment" | or "I never got married, too busy with my career" | | There are, uh, extremely _not_ "being driven crazy by | topics-of-the-day." Let alone even being joyless choices. | notShabu wrote: | sometimes it's not even clearly good or bad. E.g. "sensitivity" | as a trait can be useful in nurturing environments to develop | it into talent, but also a way-in for trauma that would have | otherwise bounced off of someone with less sensitivity. | Eunoia12 wrote: | True. | | I think people need more exposure to society. Maybe school | implementation- social clubs, more sports incoporated, who | knows. | | People in general should try, even at their jobs, to join in | on events. Exposure helps people with being able to balance, | as well as find themselves, on what works, and what doesn't | work within their bubble. | | Bodies, as well as stress can be alleviated when you're | surrounded by people. Even when you're in solitude, working | in a public coffee shop can help too. | bowsamic wrote: | I totally agree. My mum left when I was 2, and my dad struggled | to care for me well. I have been totally depressed from age 9 | to today (age 29). My scientific career has failed due to it. I | am totally unable to control it, no matter how much I try to | change my circumstances or push through it | akira2501 wrote: | Yes.. Harvard. Your actions matter more than your inheritance. I | would love to see a study into the types of people who generate | these studies. | kubb wrote: | People often forget that belonging to a community and being able | to connect with people is a privilege itself. | mp05 wrote: | Spot on. | | I grew up without real community thanks to a mother ashamed of | her heritage in a pretty backwards part of America, so I missed | out on a lot of critical interactions. I didn't realize how | fundamentally, socially broken I was until my mid-late 20s. | HPsquared wrote: | This is the primary issue of the last 50 years. | xyzelement wrote: | I think this is going to "prove religious people right" in | the next generation because I find that folks of faith are | immune from this! | escapedmoose wrote: | Churchgoing/practicing folks of faith, maybe. There are | plenty of religious folks who don't partake in communal | practice and who are generally miserable people. | | (By "religious folks" I mean "people who have spiritual | beliefs aligning with a major religion") | shadowgovt wrote: | I believe this research project (an older instance of | publishing follow-up results) was the subject of an Achewood | comic to this effect. | | https://achewood.com/2016/04/15/title.html | | On the one hand: sure, it's useful to have some scientific, | controlled grounding in the value of building community. On the | other hand, any sad and lonely soul on the planet could | probably have told us this without commissioning a nearly | century-long research project. | PreachSoup wrote: | With the current trend of no child left behind style of policy, | we might start to break the community to reduce the privilege | /s | bumby wrote: | Can you explain further? I assume by privilege, you mean a | privilege to a specific class. I'm just not sure what class | you'd be referring to because the one's I immediately thought | of would seem to have a lot of counterpoints. | | E.g., lower socio-economic classes often have a strong sense of | community, sometimes by the nature of being more dependent on | one another. So wealth class doesn't seem to fit. But maybe you | were thinking of some other class. | digging wrote: | > I assume by privilege, you mean a privilege to a specific | class | | I think you started with a misstep. It's not class-specific. | In some ways the middle class is most vulnerable due to the | isolation of sprawling, car-dependent suburbs. But it's also | tied to the inability of many young people to remain rooted | in one place for economic, social, and other issues. How many | people from your high school still live in the same town? | There are other causes, but one's level of wealth isn't | necessarily a direct cause. | mensetmanusman wrote: | If you are lonely, your body is being harmed as if you were an | alcoholic. | | Surprising claim if true. | 11235813213455 wrote: | what is "lonely"? I think one problem in our society is how | binary we are, everything is on a ]0, 1[ scale instead of {0, | 1}. We are all more or less schizophrenic, all more or less | lonely. It's just finding the right cursor | detourdog wrote: | What I'm starting to notice is that personality disorders | represent normal traits used inappropriately. Once one | notices they are reacting in a pattern instead of responding | to actual events it becomes a disorder. | otteromkram wrote: | Lonely is being single and needing someone else (eg - | friends, family, significant other) to quell the feeling of | helplessness or disorder. | | Alone is being single and loving it. | | (I'm part of the latter group.) | goatlover wrote: | And what of people who prefer solitude and limited social | contact? Not everyone is an outgoing socialite. Some people | gain energy by being alone. | awelxtr wrote: | Lonely != Alone | | People who prefer solitude normally don't feel lonely | Trasmatta wrote: | I think it's more complicated than that, I prefer solitude | but I still get lonely too. | wanderingstan wrote: | Loneliness != Solitude, and this is clear in the research. | | For example: | | > Loneliness is the feeling of being alone, regardless of the | amount of social contact. | | https://www.cdc.gov/aging/publications/features/lonely- | older... | m0llusk wrote: | This is from 2017. It would be nice if the title indicated that. | There are ongoing results still coming out of this study. | davidgerard wrote: | Fake title | mjfl wrote: | Happiness is a false idol. The key to happiness is to lower your | standards for what you expect out of life. This leads to an | uncreative state of being - because why would you create | anything, the world is good as it is. And creating is just too | hard. But this uncreative "last man" is someone that I certainly | would not hold in esteem. Give me a tortured artist instead. | escapedmoose wrote: | The "tortured artist" trope is overplayed in media vs. the | reality. I don't have the sources on hand, but you might enjoy | looking into it: truly prolific and influential artists tend to | be those who had stable/comfortable/long enough lives to | sustain an art practice. One good book related to this is | _Daily Rituals_ by Mason Currey. | | I also _highly_ recommend the book _Six Myths About the Good | Life_ by Joel Kupperman, which has an accessible explanation of | some of the philosophy behind the pursuit of "happiness" vs | deeper long-term joy. It's a book I find myself revisiting | every few years because it really makes you think. | | Edit: Kupperman's book specifically analyzes the common | assumption you mentioned that "the key is to lower your | standards." ..."Better Socrates dissatisfied than a pig | satisfied" is a common related saying | elromulous wrote: | @dang could you "(2017)" to the title? | Eunoia12 wrote: | I'm noticing a lot of cynical people in society. People that just | sneer, look down, and just think on terms that are just so | malevolent- he/she attitude. | | I think a healthier generation of people- being rooted from | education, are much more prone to being a better counterpart. | Such as maintaining peace, as well as just having healthy | boundaries. | | But in longer stretches, I believe that people should be more | understanding. Steven Pinker mentions in his books that optimism | as well as just awareness that society will continue on- despite | a lot of evils, life will continue, and choosing to be positive | is a better approach than being pessimistic. | hnthrowaway0315 wrote: | Joy is too expensive. A lot of joys actually trace back to gene | so eventually it's a fateful world. | paganel wrote: | > The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships | at age 50 were the healthiest at age 80 | | Most probably the people who were already sick at age 50 were in | a "less" satisfied relationship, on account of the fact that | sickness is never a good conduit for having a happy love life. | | So of course that those people most probably went on to have a | worse health at age 80 (because they were already sick by age 50) | compared to people who had had been healthier (and happier, | partly because healthier) at age 50. | waterhouse wrote: | The question is always: does the study show causality? | | "The people who were the most satisfied in their relationships at | age 50 were the healthiest at age 80". Can we think of ways that, | for example, health problems at ages 45-50 cause (a) | dissatisfaction in relationships at age 50 and (b) worse health | problems at age 80? Did they control for that? (Is it _possible_ | to control for that? Even if they have their full clinical | history, is it possible that problems that, at age 50, were | subclinical--or "not reported to the doctor"--would have | significant effects?) | giantg2 wrote: | I've previously wondered how this affects nuerodiverse | individuals. After all, relationships and social interactions | tend to be different, limited, or both. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-11-03 23:00 UTC)