In Lakatosian terms, the amyloid hypothesis is an example of a degenerating research program that has largely failed to predict new observations and is primarily driven by post hoc reasoning. The hypothesis was rescued by research claiming a significant new observation that was ultimately shown to be fraudulent (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12397490/).
From a Lakatosian perspective, the amyloid hypothesis is not necessarily wrong, but it is not paying off in terms of empirical insights relative to the amount of attention and funding it has received.
My CEO did a deep dive into AI prototyping and eventually ran into a wall with data architecture and deployment. Fortunately, he realized very quickly that having human designed core infrastructure is what enables vibe coding that doesn't run off the rails.
I'm a non-Conformist is the historic sense. In the past decades, American Christianity has devolved into a smorgasbord of personality cults and group therapy that effectively suppresses the freedoms that many Christians fought for at the country's founding. Not usually overtly, but the prison is in the mind (or its lack of use).
Computational biologist with a focus on predicting individual human health at a startup, but I have ended up managing software engineers. (Scientist explore and engineers make the science work in production.)
The mind-body link is too important to get the causality wrong and The Body Keeps Score is an ideology where the causality only goes one way.
I have a cousin that had frequent, overwhelming anxiety attacks. She started eating breakfast consistently and the anxiety disappeared at the same time. Anxiety is strongly linked to gut activity, so the temporal correlation is a smoking gun, even if not dispositive.
For her, "understanding past trauma" was irrelevant to the solution.
I think you are getting at the need for tiered layers of abstraction and constraint. Simultaneously considering all possible ways to solve a problem doesn't work for humans or the LLMs derived from our use of language. The repeated use of Domain Specific Languages (DSL) in the context of a general purpose programming language gets at this same need to constrain solution spaces within a reasonable boundary.
Once we have quantum LLMs, the need for intermediate abstraction layers might change, but that's very [insert magic here].
Available data makes causality hard to get right. This paper is trying to get around known constraints with observational data (e.g., some people stop drinking when they start having noticeable problems). Mendelian randomization tries to infer how much a person drinks from their genetic variants. However, the genetic tendency to drink might be associated with the same variants related to dementia. The summary doesn't make it clear if this was addressed.
Washington's opinion might well have changed and, as noted in other comments, an armada of nuclear ICBMs does negate the distance that he referenced.
Regardless of the hypothetical, isn't it clear that Trump IS meddling and not following Washington's injunction? (Also applies to Israel/Gaza.)
In family and community (and internet) dynamics, meddling in other people's quarrels often leads to blowback. (Yes, I'm aware of the irony of making this comment on HN.) Is it really any different on the global stage?
My genuine question: What are the best criteria for deciding when getting involved is better than remaining on the sidelines? Do those criteria apply at both hyper-local and global scales, or this there a phase transition in applicability?
George Washington's farewell address (1796) - on Europe:
The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none; or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.
Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.
Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?