I wouldn't be surprised if this is a correlation. My quality of life increased significantly after I got my cat about 2 years ago (just before COVID!). I say to anyone who ask, getting a cat was likely the best decision I ever made. Since then I became a lot more entrepreneurial and productive. I don't believe neither me nor my car has Toxoplasmosis gondii (my cat was tested for this when I brought him home).
My cat is my friend, my roommate, my infant, the most precious thing I have and an endless source of entertainment due to weird stuff cats randomly do. He's also significant amount of responsibility, since he's a living conscious thing and I really want him to have a nice and long life. All these factors have been very useful to understand what it is that I want from life and focus on getting them.
Tangent: I'd like to see the effects of dog adoption on pregnancies.
I have witnessed and heard about a non insignificant number of young couples hesitant to having kids (because careers, mostly) deciding to adopt a dog for varying reasons. Typically, less than 18months later, boom, baby.
I think many people use it as practice/test. I have definitely see the pre-baby puppy often, but I have also witness the pre-breakup puppy where one partner turned out to be a poor caregiver.
Cat ownership is one of the least likely ways to become infected with toxoplasmosis - far more likely is contact with undercooked meat. In fact most studies suggest it is not an important risk factor at all.
Cats are quieter and less needy than dogs. They take care of themselves and don't bark at neighbors. How are you supposed to start a new company with a dog pawing at you?
I'm pretty sure I disagree but I'm 100% certain I don't understand the rationale leading to this statement.
For any pet, if you have to act as a manager, that's IMO terrible. Management incurs performance reviews, growth and overall, judgement and control. I think a pet/owner relationship is about nursing first, with added leadership when the breed allows (dogs, horses...)
I have a doggie door and both my dogs (Red Heeler and Border-collie/rottie mix) just waltz outside whenever they need to relieve themselves. Not sure where the necessary intervention is other than putting the door in… and it’s certainly far more sanitary than a box of urine and feces sitting inside my house.
Yeah, really felt like they were too zoomed in on one effect of a mindset shift. They could just as easily have said "cats lead to increase in resignations without a solid financial plan in place."
We should not interpret this to mean TP makes you better at entrepreneurial thinking. It means you are more likely to try to start a business without a sound rational basis.
Occasionally, a business without a sound rational basis succeeds: Pet Rocks made certain people lots of money. (Yes, really! Look it up.) But it's not the way to bet.
Infection with TP caused men to become reckless drivers, and (incidentally) less attractive to women. It affected women the opposite way: they became more risk-averse and conformant, and presumably more attractive to those men who seek that out.
In reflecting on life, I'd say a good percentage of the most enjoyable, worthwhile and meaningful things in life usually don't start with a "sound rational basis."
This is not to say that everyone should YOLO their way through life but if you always think something through to the nth degree and wait for it to make complete sense, a lot of life will pass you by.
fun thought: i wonder if famed "entrepreneur" martin shkreli had a toxoplasmosis infection... he famously bought the patents for the drug that treated the infection (mostly required for immunocompromised folks) and raised the prices by some huge factor. if he was, then maybe his "entrepreneurial performance" was in service to the bug he was infected with!
yes, this is a joke! (or is it?! brb. off to start a company that moderates online discussions...)
Potentially interesting how this relates to tropes. So often the evil villain is seen with a cat in their lap. Could this common stereotype have been driven by bacterial infections all along?
Cats do not do what you want, an owner is a passive partner to the cat. You have to make the cat like you, so it voluntarily comes for pets. Running a business is similar - no one automatically likes you or wants what you are selling, you must give the customer pets and treats to encourage them to reward you back. In this way cat owners have a vision of life more attuned to entrepreneurship.
In New York's Natural History museum I found a small exhibit devoted to the effect of Toxoplasmosis on humans. The studies reported identified being untidy and poor driving skills can be caused by TG presence in the body. You could retrofit this evidence to this paper's claim it would seem.
Going full pop-neurophysiologist here: perhaps if being messy is a result of being distracted by ideas which are a requirement of being an entrepreneur. It all hangs together, for me!
This is super interesting to me, and I wonder how long before someone intentionally gives themselves TP before founding a company. Considering the threads I saw on HN about homebrewing covid vaccines, I can't imagine it'll be long.
My cat is my friend, my roommate, my infant, the most precious thing I have and an endless source of entertainment due to weird stuff cats randomly do. He's also significant amount of responsibility, since he's a living conscious thing and I really want him to have a nice and long life. All these factors have been very useful to understand what it is that I want from life and focus on getting them.