A narrower follow-up, since the general answer is now clear:

How would you tell the difference between that and the alternative explanation?

pam_stl said:

Update — I was wrong in the opening post, specifically about the direction.

This is where I part company with the consensus forming above. The counter-case has not been addressed. Somebody upthread described the situation that does not fit, and the thread moved on rather than engaging with it, which is the failure mode this board is supposed to avoid.

pam_stl said:

Update — I was wrong in the opening post, specifically about the direction.

Agreed, with the usual condition: that holds for the average and this board is a collection of individuals. A population claim and a personal prediction are different things and get quoted interchangeably.

Happy to go further on any of that.

pam_stl said:

Update — I was wrong in the opening post, specifically about the direction.

That reframing is the part I needed. Sending this to two other people who asked me the same thing last week.

Adding the clinical framing, because it changes how the question reads. Worth answering the question that was asked rather than the one behind it. The narrow version usually has an answer; the broad version usually does not, and answering the broad one is how a thread stops being useful.