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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday December 15 2016, @01:08PM   Printer-friendly
from the better-than-growing-up-to-be-a-sink dept.

Scientists at Kings College London performed a longitudinal study to test the 'Pareto principle' and found that adults who were greater users of public services were most likely to have had a low score on the intelligence and impulsivity test administered at age three.

"About 20 per cent of population is using the lion's share of a wide array of public services," said Prof Terrie Moffitt, of King's College and Duke University in North Carolina. "The same people use most of the NHS, the criminal courts, insurance claims, for disabling injury, pharmaceutical prescriptions and special welfare benefits.

"If we stopped there it might be fair to think these are lazy bums who are freeloading off the taxpayer and exploiting the public purse.

"But we also went further back into their childhood and found that 20 per cent begin their lives with mild problems with brain function and brain health when they were very small children.

"Looking at health examinations really changed the whole picture. It gives you a feeling of compassion for these people as opposed to a feeling of blame.

"Being able to predict which children will struggle is an opportunity to intervene in their lives very early to attempt to change their trajectories, for everyone's benefit and could bring big returns on investment for government."

Full Paper: Childhood forecasting of a small segment of the population with large economic burden DOI: 10.1038/s41562-016-0005


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:35PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @07:35PM (#441730)

    http://www.newsweek.com/2014/07/25/us-department-defence-one-worlds-biggest-polluters-259456.html [newsweek.com]

    Somehow the idiots who argue against constant growth never fact government into their equations.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:10PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:10PM (#441745)

    False flag after false flag on these topics. No one said the government wasn't part of the problem, and most proponents of social programs think we should be reducing military activity. However, that is a pipe dream until the world stops fucking around with who's got the biggest dick and can fuck over everyone else the most.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15 2016, @08:22PM (#441752)

      Military was just the most obvious, and I have yet to see an apt explanation of how the government will regulate "capitalism" and all the evil of pollution it produces when it can't even regulate itself.

      http://ivn.us/2012/04/18/the-number-one-worst-polluter-on-earth-is-the-u-s-federal-government/ [ivn.us]

      No one said the government wasn't part of the problem

      And yet the implication is that the government will solve the problem if we could only tax the rich more, have an even bigger welfare state, as if the military wasn't one of the largest welfare projects in the world.

      False flag indeed.