
Test predicts which children will grow up to be drain on society - ghosh
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/12/12/test-predicts-children-will-grow-drain-society-just-three/
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braythwayt
I dunno if this is pointless moralizing, but I have a problem with the
expression "burden on the state."

Some citizens consume a disproportionate share of society's resources, but
words like "burden" and "drain" seem to be examples of heavy editorializing on
the part of the author and/or editor.

Reading the article, we could just as easily say that the test optimizes
resource allocation by providing assistance earlier to those who would
otherwise need greater amounts a decade later.

I might just be depressed by recent developments, but the tone smells like a
lead-up to proposing that if we really want to eliminate these "burdens," we
load them onto cattlecars at age three.

~~~
FilterSweep
I agree with everything you're saying. Additionally, "burden on the state" is
both an antiquated statement and, in a global economy, more and more tied to
opinion than fact. An simplistic example of such could be a very wealthy
person, who despite paying a lot in taxes, causes considerable (far greater
than average) damage to the environment - causing longer term externality and
burden on the "state" than immediately recognizable.

Furthermore, Is the "inverse" of this burden an _asset to the state_? If so,
does that mean high taxpayers are valued moneymakers for the "states" coffers?
Does that not go outside of the scope of what a government is supposed to
be/provide?

Finally, I'd be very careful to read the actual research and compare it to
Telegraph's reporting. There are some laypress misinterpretations that are
confounded but dont cause as much harm - such as the belief "eating chocolate
everyday will make you live longer." Then there are _far more toxic_ laypress
misinterpretations that have far worse consequences (such as this article) if
people were to accept it as fact.

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eli_gottlieb
> An simplistic example of such could be a very wealthy person, who despite
> paying a lot in taxes, causes considerable (far greater than average) damage
> to the environment - causing longer term externality and burden on the
> "state" than immediately recognizable.

Or a wealthy person who causes great damage to the environment, pays no taxes,
and takes public subsidies anyway. The greater burden on the state are the
people exploiting the society around them without giving back.

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projektir
What a disgusting title.

It can't possibly be that the society is unlivable for some people.

Not to mention that there are far more harmful effects out there, such as
messing up the climate, but nobody says those people are a danger to society.

[also, something something growth mindset]

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popmatrix
It's quite hard to take anything objective from this article. Unless I missed
it, I don't see any link to the source material and there is no mention of
what the specifics of the test were, or the sample (aside from the sample
size). The three links provided on the article are links to mentioned
universtiy landing pages or a link to another Telegraph article regarding a
/different/ study.

It would be interesting to see the details of the study to determine if there
is potentially more of a link to some other criteria (e.g. wealth) than the
test questions themselves (which are never mentioned).

~~~
openasocket
The actual questions will probably never be distributed publicly, if they are
planning on actually using this for something. If people can see what the
questions look like ahead of time, it can bias them and lead to inaccurate
results, so it's standard practice in psychology to keep the details private.

But yeah, there isn't a lot of content here regardless.

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Animats
Here's the research paper.[1] "At 3 years of age, each child in the cohort
participated in a 45 minute examination that included assessments of
neurological soft signs, intelligence, receptive language and motor skills.
The examiners (having no previous knowledge of the child) then rated each
child’s frustration tolerance, resistance, restlessness, impulsivity and lack
of persistence in reaching goals. This examination yielded a summary index
that we have termed brain health, a global index of the neurocognitive status
of three-year-old children. Variation in brain health at three years of age
significantly predicted economically burdensome outcomes in each sector,
except injury claims."

The Prof. Terri Moffitt quoted in the article has a web site.[2] The data
seems to come from the Dunedin Longitudinal Study, where all 1,037 babies born
in the city of Dunedin, New Zealand, between April 1972 and March 1973 were
followed for their entire lives.[3]

[1]
[http://www.moffittcaspi.com/sites/moffittcaspi.com/files/fie...](http://www.moffittcaspi.com/sites/moffittcaspi.com/files/field/publication_uploads/Caspi_NHB_Childhood%20Forecasting%202016.pdf)
[2] [http://www.moffittcaspi.com/content/terrie-
moffitt](http://www.moffittcaspi.com/content/terrie-moffitt) [3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AITcsYRjZuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AITcsYRjZuo)

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16th_hop
Another WMD (Weapon of Math Destruction) ready to be deployed.

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kafkaesq
Why (on earth) was this article flagged?

If anything, it seems to serve as a (most prescient) warning on the dangers of
this nefarious cottage industry known as "predictive analytics."

Kindly do please actually read the article, and unflag.

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colordrops
Did I miss it or does the article not go into the nature of the testing?

