Personality typing by brainscan

[black_son_of_gray]

Then I spent some time studying maps, and I have a basic intuitive sense of 'where I am' now, and so I can operate socially without much pain. Every once in a while I consult the map again for clues because I've wandered into a region I've not been before and want to ensure that I'm not incorrectly interpreting what I'm seeing with my own eyes.
[...]
If pressed, I can sit and think and break the decisions down using language of the different models and maps, but that's post-event analysis, not what goes on IN my head as the event is transpiring.

Sounds pretty similar to my experience.

I agree with your "best practice for maps" statement. Learn the map, then put it away, and consult it when needed. "Never attempting to force your mental model of the map on the actual landscape itself" to me kinda sounds like "never assume on the basis of your map that you know the landscape better than it knows itself."

I feel like there's an implicit narrative in this thread that some people who are otherwise normal might get too deep into MBTI or other model-building and then become less adroit at social navigation. The arc is, in my experience, the opposite: people who are NOT adroit in social circumstances and find themselves floundering sometimes find MBTI or other models, use these models to build better maps for themselves, and become MORE adroit at social navigation, to the benefit of all.

Models can be useful - perhaps even necessary for some. The types of thinking patterns that go into making/using models can become problematic both personally and socially if done excessively. Both those statements can be true, right?

There's definitely philosophical tension between the softer "everybody is a unique and beautiful person" approaches and the harder "types of people" approaches. However, for their respective users, they don't require any mental overhead. It's just how their brains are wired. What does require mental overhead or overload would be to be forced to use the other approach.

I believe both of these are true, and I don't have too much trouble integrating both approaches.

Agree, a person can believe both "everybody is a unique and beautiful person" and there are "types of people". What is the evidence that people's brains are wired for one of these two approaches?

Another idea that I think is probably uncommon and not worth worrying about is the idea that the model-builders and map-readers have a constant internal explicit monologue along the lines of "aha I now have a 47% confidence that this person is TeFi which if my math is correct -- lets see square root of pi, carry the two -- aha yes, just as I suspected, vMeme is green with 4.6% orange tint". Which sounds mechanistic and anti-human and creepy.

Agree, it sounds mechanistic and anti-human and creepy. That's definitely some of the vibe I get from the acronym conversations.

Labeling is not the point when it comes to the "types of people" approach.

I understand the map/territory metaphor. It's pretty good!

That being said, while labeling (i.e. overgeneralizing the characteristics of other people) isn't the point, it kinda is how a lot of the acronym posts read. Types or subtypes are confidently talked about as being a certain, specific way despite wide underlying variability and less utility the more narrow the subtype*. Perhaps not the internal intention, but commonly the actual, in-writing external expression.

*Which was the point I wanted to make earlier - simply to warn about reading too much into things.

I might reformulate and tweak the IQ example slightly. Nassim Taleb makes a relatively persuasive argument that IQ per se isn't informative - rather, only particularly low IQ scores are informative. That is, 90 or 115 or 140 doesn't really mean much, but 60 certainly does. Not trying to argue validity of IQ one way or the other, just the idea of asymmetry.

Just as an exercise, let's flip the script and add in the asymmetry!

We might consider someone who has particular trouble relating/communicating with others, say two standard deviations from the mean, as "mildy socially retarded". They aren't common, only about 2% of the population, so most people only run into them rarely. They require extra help socially (through education of complex social models) to exist in "normie world". Someone of average sociability will live in the "normie world" where almost every everyone relates/communicates in a copecetic, functional way.

Now consider if someone is particularly socially skilled, say two standard deviation above the mean. We might even call them gifted. [Here's an interesting twist...] The odds of this gifted person running into a "mildly socially retarded" person is actually less than 2%, because their ability to socially connect is even greater than a "normie". They are able to connect and communicate effectively even further down the curve. Rather than the gifted person being cursed by being surrounded by socially stunted individuals, the experience of the gifted is nearly identical to the typical "normie". It is the "mildly socially retarded" who suffers the bulk of the discomfort, but only because every social situation they participate in involves them.

New rules are required. It becomes important for the "mildly socially retarded" to learn the basic elements of communication so that they can be functionally understood by the average person, walking people through particulars of their thoughts, desires, and feelings that they can't just assume people have been exposed to before with a ready, esoteric vocabulary. Some of the "mildly socially retarded" resent the "normies" as being "privileged" because of the additional education and effort required to function within society.

Is this better or worse than the IQ example?

FWIW, as someone with third-party test scores that could easily get me into 2SD+ high-IQ societies (bleh!), I simply don't find this depiction:

Half of all people (<100) will be either unable or too mentally slow or too intellectually simple to follow all the mental leaps of the gifted person.

to be accurate for me, nor for friends of mine who are clearly very bright. The vast majority of social interactions are not "mind-blowing" to anyone. Nor should they be? When, if ever, are you maxing out the processing power on your computer, vs. how often are you just browsing the internet, streaming a video, playing a game, answering an email? The only time the processing power matters is when it's inadequate, and that is quite rare for most computer activities. Even then, it usually just takes a little longer or has less-crisp details. Not a big deal. Similarly, I'm more inclined to believe that if IQ is useful at all, it is most useful not in the context of relative differences, but whether an absolute deficit is present. Similarly, my most socially skilled acquaintances get along well with just about everyone, which is more than average (which would still be "gets along with most people") but not spectacularly so, whereas my most deficient acquaintances get along well with... almost no one. Asymmetry.

@AxelHeyst Shh... don't tell anyone. I'm an INTJ too.

[daylen]

Typing humans is good and all but what about the territory of all possible minds that could be grown or constructed?

Such models of cognition may serve as stepping stones towards greater understanding and compassion for all types of minds. Including those that have yet to emerge in this vast cosmic volution.

[jacob]

@bsog et al.

I distinguish between two forms of social intelligence.

Passive social intelligence is the ability to understand what makes different individuals tick, getting inside their head and understanding their thought processes, etc. and that different individuals may tick differently. It also includes understanding group dynamics where the whole (group) is greater than the sum of the parts (people in the group). For example how Ann and Bob might act differently when Carl is around. Passive social intelligence boils down to understanding what someone actually means when they say or do something, that is, the ability to read someone by paying attention to everything they say or have said, their expressions, their emotions, ... and form a complete picture of them as a person.

(Emotional intelligence is a subset of that but just for oneself. Set size = 1)

Active social intelligence is the ability to make someone else feel better or increase group harmony by saying the right things at the right time in the right place to the right person(s). (Add: Social intelligence can also be used for evil purposes to spread dissent and decrease harmony, etc. e.g. psy-ops.) Usually people learn this growing up, it's basically the process of socialization. Note that this ability can be formed somewhat independently of passive social intelligence. For example, acting on a script "Hello, how are you? I'm fine and you. I'm fine too. Okay, bye, nice to meet you again. Nice to meet you too. Say hello to your family for me. I will, bye bye" will work for/on most people without needing to understand why it actually works. Active social intelligence also includes knowing what not to say. In other words, active social intelligence is the ability to play the social game which is often about "going along to get along". It can also be formed experientially w/o any theory or pattern recognition, e.g. "Ann prefers to be greeted with a smile", "Bob prefers to be left alone until 10am", "Carl likes to talk about his children...", and so on.

With those definitions in place, I'll cover some points. These are mostly assertions based on my perspective, so I offer them mostly to explain how I see things. I understand and accept that you see it differently. I'm not looking for a one-right-way conclusion. I just want you to understand where I'm coming from because I think this disagreement is due to coming from different places and having different aims in life and also on the forum.

1) It is possible for Ann's passive social intelligence to exceed Bob's emotional intelligence. IOW, for Ann to know more about what makes Bob tick than Bob does. (If this wasn't the case, there would be no point in having psychologists or therapists because everybody would always know themselves best.)

2) The average level of passive social intelligence (SQ=100) is remarkably ignorant. The average "theory of mind" is at the level of being surprised that "not everybody mentates the same way that my friends and I and everyone I know does". For example, a logical person like what one might find in the rationalism community will assume that everybody else is logical too only to different degrees of logical competency. They will see an emotional person as an illogical person, not realizing that decisions based on feelings is an actual functional method with some merit. (BTW, that was me at age 20.) Likewise, a feely person will assume that everybody else prioritizes feelings too. They'll see a logical person as uncaring and not someone who cares more about reason than feelings. Likewise, it'll take me roughly two seconds to find an average extrovert who thinks introverts are shy loners living sad lives or an average introvert who thinks extroverts are shallow people who just like the sound of their own voice.

This also goes for understanding group dynamics and perceptions. As recently said by a 50yo+ acquaintance: "Did you all realize there's a little version of you inside the mind of everyone who knows you?" Indeed, many people do eventually realize this, even some before age 12. Also some never do.

3) While the insight provided by such passive "Ann understands Bob better than Bob" social intelligence can appear creepy, active social intelligence can also appear inauthentic if not downright deceitful. Isn't it funny how one person's "good" is often someone else's "evil"? I know a couple of people that I consider to have a high level of active social intelligence if a low level of passive social intelligence. The thing is, they'll sometimes say something they don't actually mean simply to make someone else feel better or in an attempt to steer the group in a certain direction. This is not me telling fortunes about their motivations. This is them telling me what they actually did and why. As a consequence, I have zero trust in terms of whether they actually care when they say they care. However, they are still very good at making other people feel like they care. Personally, I value authenticity far more than feeling better or group harmony. Putting on facades to obtain emotional results simply feels very wrong to me.

4) I agree that there's no need for maps if most of one's social interactions are---for lack of a better non-judgemental word---dull or whatever the opposite of mind-blowing is. Talking about work with a colleague. Talking with a spouse about what's for dinner or how their day was. Talking with the neighbor about the weather or the new fence construction. Talking with the cashier at the gas station. Talking about the latest game with a friend. These do not need any passive social intelligence to extend one's theory of mind. They can be run on scripts or basic familiarity. Dull is probably the wrong word. What I mean is that all these conversations are small variations on a conversation that has been had very many times before. However, acting out a script again and again is enjoyable to many (but not all and not me). Practice a given script hundreds and thousands of times and it doesn't feel like a script anymore. It simply becomes the water the fish swim in. It's on autopilot and people feel a sense of control or flow when they're bantering with others.

5) My interest in maps came along because conversations about ERE1 or ERE2 actually do tend blow people's minds. I don't just talk to friends & family and colleagues and the random gas station attendant. I also talk to thousands of different people online and on national media and that's an entirely different kettle of fish. Indeed, in my case, those mind-blowing-type conversations actually make up the majority of my "talking with people"-time.

ERE1 can't rely on routine scripts because the ideas are seriously off-script. ERE2 is even worse. Trying to explain a concept to someone who has never even considered it---explaining to fish what water is---goes beyond "saying the right things" to "get along" with one or a few people at a time. It's closer to "changing hearts and minds" or "education". For example, a teacher with superior social intelligence will be good at creating a good classroom atmosphere and ensure that Ann isn't beating up on Bob ... but that social intelligence doesn't necessarily translate into explaining Pythagoras theorem to every student. Here it's useful to know that some are visual learners, some are analytical, ... and to know where the sticking points are (in various 7th grader minds) and how to resolve them in ways that consider the particular learning style and ability of the particular student. IOW, a good teacher has a theory of mind for each of their students; a bad teacher just rattles off a script that keeps the kids busy while preventing them from tearing each other's heads off. Well, maybe that's not a bad teacher per se... just a bad geometry teacher although possible not a bad teacher of life lessons for "going along to get along" in a group or those unspoken lessons that are required to get a j-o-b.

And so, all these maps basically came in use as ERE expanded from a single blog with a couple of dozen daily comments to getting mainstream media attention to running a forum with nearly 1000 journals to connecting with other social movements outside the finance-sphere. The bigger the territory became, the more useful maps became.

For example, the first few years of running a blog, I was blissfully ignorant of how people in general take to novel ideas because the blog was essentially a bubble of people who thought about the same things in more or less in the same way. Exposure to the mainstream and getting feedback quickly made it clear that different temperaments had different priorities when it came to unconventional ideas. This made it clear that I needed different scripts or presentations for different people. (If you dig into my historical interviews, you'll see that my talking points have changed and that they've come to depend on whom I'm talking with. I don't just say the same things to everybody everywhere anymore.) MBTI with its practical origin is simply more useful in that regard than OCEAN which just ranks people in percentiles without providing a framework for dealing with that [objective] fact.

The controversial Wheaton table came about after following several hundred journals with questions and answers and observing which explanations typically worked and which didn't and why. IOW, it created a map in the form of "given this problem && this perspective => that solution phrased in that way usually has the best chances of being understood and adopted". It's conceivable that if had been presented as an unordered list instead of a stage-ranked table, the egalitarians wouldn't be so pissy about hearing that some people are still at stage 4 and others are already at stage 6. The map provides the most likely optimal starting point for a subsequent conversation. The fact that so many narratives show that developmental stages actually exist could have been kept hidden would likely have increased social harmony at the expense of changing fewer hearts and minds.

This goes back to point (3). I'd rather actually help someone in a way that actually solves their problem than say whatever makes them feel better. There's a certain kind of friend who always says what you want to hear but never what you need to hear. And when you actually need help to e.g. move out of your apartment, they're somehow never around. I try to be the opposite of that. Actually, I AM the opposite of that, I don't even need to try. Yet, downside of that is often ignoring the part of telling people what they wanted to hear. In more ways than one. Most of the challenge is often figuring out what to not say to others rather than figuring out solutions. Ridiculous as that sounds, that's the real struggle [in terms of what solutions people are willing to accept] where I'm coming from.

6) I remain pretty convinced that those who have not had solve a (5)-type problem [of explaining water to fish] don't realize just how difficult it is. There's a quote to the effect of "I could have made this shorter, but I did not have the time". Maps (even just ideas about maps) help a lot in that regard. However, this is passive social intelligence. The kind of active social intelligence that just makes for frictionless conversations about "nothing mind-blowing" won't help here.

Over time I'm sure these new scripts will be developed and evolved just like how a stand-up comedian who keeps refining his routine based on what works and what doesn't work keeps improving his performance. However, "being funny", especially "being funny to all audiences when recorded for Netflix" is not something that just happens spontaneously based on supreme funnybone intelligence. Intelligence helps, but it's a tool, not a solution. Intelligence is a matter of speed yes, but the speed is not infinite although it may appear so when it's covering small distances or it's practiced and pre-recorded.

7) When it comes to the liberal use of maps, I see the tension on the forum to be between those who see the forum as "a place to hang out and talk with people who are like-minded already" and those who see the forum as "a research lab to figure out how to talk to unlikeminded people here and elsewhere". I suspect the former often take the latter's preparation of the territory for granted. Regardless whether it's the forum or elsewhere, people do join groups for different purposes. There's usually tension when those purposes are not completely aligned. The easiest way to "get along" is not to complain and try to convince everybody to "go along" but simply ignore those posts that are pushing a different purpose. I'd like to think the asynchronous nature of the forum should make that pretty easy but I know it's not because of human nature.

[Jim]

If the purpose is to facilitate the comprehension of ERE2 at scale (to illicit greater buy in from the uninitiated), what makes MBTI a good framework for influencing the design of a vehicle for doing that? I understand the necessity of using "passive " instead of a more manipulative "active" approach is integral to creating a perspective shifting, revelatory experience, and I can also appreciate the value of using any system like MBTI to tailor your strategy to communicating with any specific person, or narrowly like minded group of people.

But why the focus on MBTI and vMemes for the purposes of ERE2? Even should some brainscan eventually prove that these personalities are hardwired into us, does that mean the relevant system is inherently better than any other for categorizing personality types (or specifically useful for disseminating ERE2)? As it stands these sytems don't appear to have any more objective relevance than contemporary astrology or ancient Taoist tortune telling. One could make the argument that a more subjective and intuitive approach (Something you'd find, for instance, across traditional Asian cultures) is better suited to something so infintely messy as human behavior, than is something like MBTI, which organizes that reality with a categorical approach. Regardless, I'm not convinced any of these approaches are of high value to ERE 2 (the broad adoption of ERE1). Any of these approaches have value in expanding the breadth of individual knowledge and enriching the Renaissance Man's world, but it seem to me that they're being given outsized importance relative to ERE2 specifically.

I think the anectdote about the ability comedians have to appeal to very broad audiences is a poignant one and maybe bears more exploration. Developing that charm and charisma seems more valuable to someone who is acting as a figurehead or representative of a movement than does fluency in personality typing. Adressing commonalities in human behaviour rather than divergences seems like a better way to establish broad appeal. Maybe exploration into marketing or public speaking can provide insight here. If creation and growth of ERE2 is a goal (for adressing the meta-crisis) should that goal be used as metric (among others) to assess the value of any specific field of study or endeavor? If that's too reductionistic, than you've got a problem where no field of study is off the table and the scope becomes so broad that any specific praxis loses any voltage in the circuit.

In ERE1, using FI as a goal allows a person to streamline the process to achieving it, paving the way for greater engagement in the renaissance ideal (post FI). A narrow scope for achieving ERE2 (whatever that actually means) could be similarly crucial towards getting there faster. Does personality typing play a crucial role? Why? Are there better ways to skin the cat?

I'm new here, so I may be off the mark with my assessment of the intention of examining personality types relating to ERE2. Maybe it has more to do with how these types would play off each other in the interconnected web that would be ERE2, but it seems like it's being considered as a technique for aiding in the communication of information, at scale, to diverse bodies of people. I won't claim a system of personality typing isn't devoid of intrinsic value, on the contrary, but it seem to be an awfully curious choice of hammer to be driving this particular type of nail.

[daylen]

I suggest we map onto John Vervaeke's work. He is a highly active cognitive scientist and well respected. I think the mapping onto his PPPP model is actually quite straight forward:

Sensation - agent participation in an arena
Thinking - propositional binding to an arena

Agents sandwiched between the denotative above and the connotative below

Feeling - procedural binding to generative [ab]normalities
Intuition - perspectival generator

Extroverted and introverted variants of the functions being vector transitions going outwards towards the arena or inwards towards the generative capacity of an agent.

[jacob]

If the purpose is to facilitate the comprehension of ERE2 at scale (to illicit greater buy in from the uninitiated), what makes MBTI a good framework for influencing the design of a vehicle for doing that?

Unlike astrology, fortune telling, or reading tea leaves, MBTI is rather widely used to find someone the best job fit in places where it actually matters (war fighting and corporate bottom lines; hiring someone who is temperamentally unfit for a position is costly). This makes it relevant because ERE1 and to some degree ERE2 is about finding---for lack of a better word---a new "work", that is, something to do. The question that MBTI answers (and tea leaves do not) is in the most overall sense that different people like to do different things. For example, some people like to work with people, some like routine, some like plans and rules, and so on. And some do not.

This in turn avoids that extremely common tendency to create one size must fit all utopias; a kind of "fallacy" committed by idealists trying to remake the world in their image: "Why if I like it, everybody ought to like it". For example, two common tropes in doomer utopias is 1) the prepper-type survivor who thinks all problems can be solved with enough skills and supplies; and 2) the community-activist who thinks all problems can be solved by coming together and performing daily check-ins.

Strangely, many such idealists tend to be surprised when they encounter someone who doesn't like whatever they personally think is the best (or worst) thing in the world, whether it's an AR15 or a listening circle.

MBTI avoids this intersubjective theory-of-mind blindness while also providing a framework for what it is that people want to do and why they want to do it.

There are certainly other models, but they either tend to be too abstract or too simplistic. For example, academic models tend to opt for objective precision in order to pass a p-test to the effect that e.g. someone falls in the 28% percentile of extroversion. However, knowing that someone is more introverted than average doesn't really say much about whether they enjoy accounting over science. MBTI does that. Other practical models, usually centered around marketing, tend to be too simplistic. With other 2-4 different types, statements become very general. For example, not all women act as if they're from Venus and not all men as if they're from Mars.

But why the focus on MBTI and vMemes for the purposes of ERE2?

vMemes are useful because people tend to be blind to their underlying values. That is, most people don't have values, rather their values have them. This was most recently observed in the "what is an adult"-thread. It was absolutely no surprise how some equated adulthood with parenthood. Nor was it a surprise who did that.

Whereas MBTI is useful to figure out what makes people tick on an individual scale, vMemes are useful to figure out what values make a people tick on a collective scale. Tier1 vMemes have a very hard time "understanding how anyone could possible believe otherwise". The ongoing US culture wars are essentially Green vs Blue with Orange stuck in the middle. Temperament and personality does not explain this. vMemes do.

In conclusion: These [subjective] models are useful because
1) They remove much of the intersubjective blindness when it comes to theory-of-mind. (Most people presume that others are much like them.) (Scientific studies presume everybody is a variation on a small set of objective variables.)
2) They provide an actionable framework for dealing with these differences that goes beyond "let's sit down for a chat to work out our differences" which is simply too slow and limited to reach more than a couple of dozen people.

Add: Also, because the way they're structured parallel how I (@jacob) think about the world. This makes it very easy for me to see patterns and draw conclusions. Compare to other approaches like Plotkin's subpersonality, deep listening circles, dialectic conversations with personal relations aren't compatible with how I think. And that is why I tend to use some and not use others. In that regard, I think that anyone's preferred models and methods are just a matter of personal perspective. However, I do think that being able to hold multiple perspectives is better than holding one perspective or being blind to other perspectives. This is also why I don't understand the rationalist drive towards "academically proven studies only" when it comes to humans. It's pretty hard to use frequentist statistics on something as complex as the human individual or collective mind[set[s]] as well as outright impossible to use it on subjective human experience. It's conceivable that academia is simply lagging the practioner-side when it comes to psychology in the same way it's lagging when it comes to investing.

[jacob]

I think the anectdote about the ability comedians have to appeal to very broad audiences is a poignant one and maybe bears more exploration. Developing that charm and charisma seems more valuable to someone who is acting as a figurehead or representative of a movement than does fluency in personality typing. Adressing commonalities in human behaviour rather than divergences seems like a better way to establish broad appeal. Maybe exploration into marketing or public speaking can provide insight here. If creation and growth of ERE2 is a goal (for adressing the meta-crisis) should that goal be used as metric (among others) to assess the value of any specific field of study or endeavor? If that's too reductionistic, than you've got a problem where no field of study is off the table and the scope becomes so broad that any specific praxis loses any voltage in the circuit.

Different abilities are valuable for different purposes. For example, the best skills for good science are not the best skills for engineering are not the best skills for design are not the best skills for marketing are ... ... not the best skills for doing stand-up comedy. The person who is strong in one of these is often weak in others. Charm and charisma is useful for personal leadership of a movement (which will likely dissolve once the charismatic leader is gone), but that problem can not be solved until the popularization problem has been solved (charisma is basically just giving voice to values that the followers already hold)... and it's hard to popularize something when you still don't know exactly what it is you're popularizing.

Samuelson famously said that "I don't care who writes a nation's laws if I can write its economics textbooks". The development of the FIRE movement over the past 15 years provides a good case study on a smaller scale. Start by developing a new theory. Make it so convincing that existing experts can no longer deny that "there's something there there" and inspires them to rethink their approach. Watch as they proceed to convince very many more than you ever could on your own. See how others now begin to jump on the bandwagon trying to put their own brand on it without fundamentally changing the original ideas in any way (e.g. all the subforms of FIRE, barista, tropicana, lean, etc. didn't really anything new to the framework; they just fleshed it out with some examples). Finally, note how academics and other members of the establishment finally acknowledge it by offering their own perspective and services after missing the boat the first time around. You can now walk into a bank and talk to a random advisor and they'll know what FIRE is and they will not laugh you out the door if you suggest wanting to save more than 30% or retire before 40 anymore like they did in the beginning.

Basically, ideas and values are the dog that wags the tail. (The tail being ultimately much larger than the dog.) But the ideas have to be good AND bulletproof. And such don't tend to be "quick and easy" to understand for everyman. So I don't measure ideas by broad appeal. I measure by how many well-informed individuals fully grok and adopt them. If that number is >1 then there's a possibility for exponential growth over time as they in turn influence the next level out. What often happens is that ideas get diluted and lose strength as they get popularized. If this happens fast enough as the rings in the water spread, then ultimately an idea will only reach a finite number (a short distance from the origin).

Anyhoo, this is my cascading strategy for making change. Feel free to try other ones like making a meme go viral or whatever. But this is the strategy I'm using.

[Jim]

BTI is rather widely used to find someone the best job fit in places where it actually matters

I'm a career firefighter. I went through a series written tests focused on personality characteristics to screen me for employment. It's highly likely that the personality traits screened for are those delinated by MBTI or a close derivation thereof. Even more certainly, the tests are scored heavily in favor of extroverted traits. My job "actually matters" insofar as the consequences of my actions are dire and I need to be relied upon to perform as expected in high stress situations. (the fact that my job matters is the main reason I have one). I self identify as deeply introverted and my wife concurrs. After answering honestly the first time I took this personality test, and failing miserably, I recognized how the test was evaluted, answered the questions appropriately the second time around, and moved on to the next phase of the hiring process. The test didn't actually screen for personality traits in my case, it screened for adaptability. I don't possess the character traits which are expected to allow me to excel in the field, but excel I do.

Similarly, polygraphs tests are widely used for hiring law enforcement officers (at least in the region of the USA where I live). I know a number of cops who describe passing the polygraph tests as an exercise in completely believing the lies you fabricate for yourself, to the point of not reacting unconsciously when verbalizing them. Similarly I've known people who have answered honestly on polygraphs tests for law enforcement, become stressed by the questions, and failed. This test doesn't filter out liars, it filters for a type of compartmentalization, possibly even the ability to lie adroitly.

My only point here is that these systems aren't legitimized because they are widely adopted by organizations who deal with high stakes, real world consequences. As often as not, this shit probably backfires (think about the above example as it could possibly relate to the crisis of bad policing in the US). Remember the coach of the French World Cup team in 2008 building the roster around the zodiac signs of the players? Doesn't legitimize the zodiac because they got to the finals or deligitimize it because they lost. I'm not arguing that these subjective frameworks need objective scientific assessments to be effective. Being so wonderfully subjective, they do need the human eye.

The question that MBTI answers (and tea leaves do not) is in the most overall sense that different people like to do different things

Tea leaves answer whatever question you want them to, with whatever answers you want. That's the thing about tea leaves. Pop astrology or the animals of the chinese zodiac are all about different character syngergies and incompatabilities, replete with the nuances of the micro traits embued by different celestial bodies retrograte in different houses, or by calculating the elemental signature of the birth hour and how it relates to the year of the sexegenary cycle. Both these arcane systems allow for "what people want to do and why they want to do it," they just use their own languages to do that. While MBTI is lent legitimacy because of it's focused on observable behaviours and preferences of individuals rather than observable celestial phenomena at the time of one's birth, I think any functional system of this type is nuanced enough that the output is the result of interpretation. The practitioner combines what they know of the system and cold reads the person before them in the language of the system to arrive at an output.This is a subjetive process, so it's easy to discard, but I agree that the trending fascination with objectivity and measurable results adopted from the scientific community puts this kaibosh on people investigating a bunch of really great shit that is totally valuable in it's own right. I'm not sure the cold reading part would work at all in the absence of one of these system.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, and I'm definitly not trying to make an argument against MBTI anymore than one in favor of divination by enneagram or psychoanalysis via attachment theory. I personally think all these things are pretty wonderful. A good system (like MBTI) has the right amount of noise and the right amount of organization to tap into your intuitive, cold reading, pattern recognizing ability and make a startlingly accurate assessments about a person. To bring it full circle, employing the system at scale, (using it to screen for employment for example) divorces the principle from the practice and is liable to end up failing, because the human participation is an integral parts of this working in a subjective system.

It sounds like MBTI is a really powerful way for you and others to navigate this landscape, which is fuckin' cool. I apologize for misunderstanding and derailing the conversation if exploring that was the total scope of this topic, but I also feel like I learned alot from your response and was able to glean why this topic is pertinent to ERE2.

Start by developing a new theory. Make it so convincing that existing experts can no longer deny that "there's something there there" and inspires them to rethink their approach. Watch as they proceed to convince very many more than you ever could on your own.

Basically, ideas and values are the dog that wags the tail. (The tail being ultimately much larger than the dog.) But the ideas have to be good AND bulletproof.

This really clarifies your perspective for me, thank you. You've certainly proved the efficacy of this philosophy with ERE1. I wouldn't be gobbling up as much of the content on this forum as I can if I didn't see this strategy as such a poignant one. Meme's make me car sick and are an affront to the human attention span.

So, am I understanding correctly that
1. This exploration of MBTI isn't necessarily about being a vessel for disseminating the ideas of ERE2 (because someone else will do that once ERE2 is actually an idea [this would make me feel warm inside]) and
2. It is more about understanding how to overcome the crisis of how we relate to one another in society, in the same way ERE1 was about overcoming the crisis of how we relate to consumerism? Or
3. A little bit of both.
4. Neither one and I'm a troglodyte and should go back to Dave Ramsey radio broadcasts and vanguard index funds.

[jacob]

3.

For more, see the ERE2 FAQ and this thread.

[horsewoman]

@axelHeyst and @jacob have already very eloquently stated many of my feelings regarding MBTI. My brain runs mostly on pattern recognition, so naturally MBTI is highly appealing to me.

Is it really “dehumanizing” to sort people into 16 different categories? 16 is a lot of variation, IMO. I would also like to add, that I found it refreshingly “humanizing” to realize that there are enough people like me to form a category! I've certainly encountered precious few of them in person.