Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 340 posts

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#291

Post by yesenadam »

msla wrote: post #226
dgellow wrote: post #9

> · Red: dominant, driven, solution focussed. > · Blue: analytic, careful, meticulous > · Green: patient, considerate, nice > · Yellow: extroverted, creative, verbal Damn. I spent so much of my time and energy pushing back exactly on this bullshit when I was young. That's part of the curriculum of mandatory courses I had to take during an apprenticeship in Switzerland. Expensive and mandatory courses paid by students…

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is related to General Semantics, which was developed by Alfred Korzybski. General Semantics isn't bullshit like NLP is, but it does have some useful insights. For example, General Semantics says that the map is not the territory, which isn't the most absolutely ground-breaking thing in the world but is helpful to keep in mind, whereas Neuro-Linguistic Programming might as well be "NLP: La…

>General Semantics isn't bullshit like NLP is

Uh.. did you read Science and Sanity?![2] It's absolutely BS. Korzybski thought "is" should be eliminated. When you say "The car is red", there are many things the car 'is' besides red, so this is a lie. (No, really!) Thus a language without 'is' would be better.[1] He saw and wrote of himself as an Aristotle-scale genius. Science and Sanity has a couple of ideas: "map is not the territory"–no wonder this is quoted, it's the one coherent idea in the book–and the structural differential, a very interesting device made of string and bits of metal, for representing levels of abstraction and interrelations of concepts[0].

But the bulk of the thick book is comprised of a chapter on each of many traditional fields–psychology, linguistics, physics, etc, educating about the use of "general semantics" in each field. e.g. there's a maths/calculus/geometry chapter, with a bit purporting to explain the application of "general semantics" to it. These chapters seem meant to show what a polymath and genius Korzybski was - "Gee, how knows so much about so many subjects, there must be something to this". He was evidently staggeringly impressed with himself, well, many people are, but only cranks write about it to such a degree. I think its success lay in its nature as a (very) introductory textbook to a lot of different areas. It's all extremely basic stuff. The less generally educated you are, the more impressive it would seem. It's very weird that it got any kind of reputation though. Not many people are acquainted with Science and Sanity these days, it seems, (understandably) and just assume there must be something to it.

[0] http://www.google.com/search?q=korzybski+structural+differen...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Prime

[2] Online here: http://www.rodsmith.org.uk/alfred-korzybski/science-sanity%2...

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#292

Post by Izkata »

Fnoord wrote: post #234
Izkata wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White is also largely about control and order, so I don't think that one fits well (which is fine since it is mapping a different color). The others, yeah, fairly close.

White was traditionally about defense, purity, and positiveness. Kind of like holy energy in WoW, or Diablo 3, or ... I'm kind of reminded by the book/movie Divergent as well. You can also see it (albeit roughly) back in all kind of new age subculture.

I may have a slightly different view than most players, since I also read the novels for the era I played the game (Invasion through Fifth Dawn). It fits during the Mirari and post-Mirari arcs, Odyssey through Scourge, and in the same era black also wasn't just "death and negativity" (though Phage certainly embodied those aspects).

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#293

Post by 40four »

GuiA wrote: post #263
40four wrote: post #66

I had never heard of this book, or color system before, but it makes me think of my time working in car sales. Our senior sales managers trained us to identify personalities, and they used similar groupings. There were four 'buckets' and they are very close to this color system. They are dominant driver, complacent, ego driven, and analytical. The idea is to, as quickly as possible, identify the customer's type, and…

You say that 1) the framework was encouraged at your work place, 2) you were a terrible salesperson, 3) great salespeople were great at sales (implying that they were helped by the framework). If the framework were even a tiny bit useful, wouldn’t it have made you at least an okay salesman? Conversely, wouldn’t the great salesmen be great regardless of how valid a framework is?

Well for me, it didn’t work because I wasn’t able to execute it. I understood the concepts I was taught well enough, but don’t really possess the tools needed to make it work. I’m not a people person, I talk very monotone, quite frankly I don’t have the personality for it! (Why I tried to learn sales at all is a whole other story) Haha, that’s why into programming, which is perfectly suited for my personality.

Also, the ‘personality’ piece is a small (but important) part of the larger framework that is car sales. We literally had a physical ‘playbook’ to follow. A very well defined ‘road’ to walk the customer down, and if you skipped any of the steps, it would jeopardize the whole process. Sales really is a solved puzzle, every step & technique is there for a reason, because it is proven to close people down.

So no, a great salesperson won’t be great regardless, they will be great because they follow the rules of sales. Natural charisma & like-ability go a long way, but I saw numerous guys who were terrible when they started, work hard at the system and perfect the process, end up selling 20 cars a month.

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#294

Post by outworlder »

coldtea wrote: post #286
dgellow wrote: post #9

> · Red: dominant, driven, solution focussed. > · Blue: analytic, careful, meticulous > · Green: patient, considerate, nice > · Yellow: extroverted, creative, verbal Damn. I spent so much of my time and energy pushing back exactly on this bullshit when I was young. That's part of the curriculum of mandatory courses I had to take during an apprenticeship in Switzerland. Expensive and mandatory courses paid by students…

> Based on my experience, that kind of pseudo-science is super popular in corporate environment, and is really difficult to fight against. While its uses in a corporate environment can be bogus, there are indeed a few discreet types of people, and most anybody that has worked/lived with/watched people in the wild can attest to that. I don't see many people being "analytic, careful, meticulous" in one day and "let's j…

> usually people tend to stick to some modes of behavior

Well, congrats, you have defined what a personality is.

The whole point is that the colors thing is BS. Humans are much more complex than that.

> I don't see many people being "analytic, careful, meticulous" in one day and "let's just go at it / throw caution to the wind" the next.

That can easily happen, depends on the context.

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#295

Post by rasz »

vehementi wrote: post #115
dgellow wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for sharing the English article. I decided to share the french version because it has way more details (it's a huge phenomenon here), but that's for sure more interesting if people can actually read the content :)

NLP is or was also super popular in the "pick up artists" community

Its popular because it works :)

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#296

Post by outworlder »

reggieband wrote: post #274

I'm probably in the minority and I believe I am giving an unpopular opinion: this is pretty much gatekeeping. The tone of this article is acerbic. My cynicism says that this is someone who got a piece of paper after much effort and cost and they think that makes them something more than the author. They are upset that this book is being given more attention then work they deem to be more valuable. They aren't just fi…

> I'm very glad that, in general, programming and computer science is a place where credentials matter significantly less than contributions. Sure, the programming language you wrote or the library you maintain may not be the best but no one listens to whiny academics demanding everyone bow down to them and disregard your work.

Yes, and that works for all exact sciences. If you can somehow prove a formerly unproven mathematical conjecture, guess what, they will listen to you. You may even get prizes.

But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Since in psychology very few things can be "proven", studies are the next best things. But you cannot just spout nonsense and expect people who are actually experts in their fields to endorse you.

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#297

Post by 40four »

coldtea wrote: post #288
40four wrote: post #66

I had never heard of this book, or color system before, but it makes me think of my time working in car sales. Our senior sales managers trained us to identify personalities, and they used similar groupings. There were four 'buckets' and they are very close to this color system. They are dominant driver, complacent, ego driven, and analytical. The idea is to, as quickly as possible, identify the customer's type, and…

> I was a terrible salesperson, but I watched the managers and top salespeople use this approach with much success. They would match their style of communication with the customer's, in an attempt to earn their favor and make them feel more comfortable. The hypothesis is this increases the likelihood of closing the sale. Yes. People are less "unique" than they think, and some scientists (or non scientists) can come u…

Well said. This is the right way to look at it I think. It’s a loose model, or abstraction. For some applications it provides utility/ value. Others, not so much.

It’s not a universal definition of personality, but more a rough set of patterns of communication style, where in really many different personalities might fall under.

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#298

Post by 45ure »

acqq wrote: post #284
45ure wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stated quite clearly, that it is hard to work out the intention of the article. The professional psychologist in question seems to be spending an awful amount of energy dispelling a theory that has been already discredited. There is an unhealthy fixation on the circulation and sales of the book, throughout the article. It is now a futile exercise to convince the readership if it is drivel and providing the book wit…

No. It's clearly written: "Despite the use of colours, it turned out that the “Surrounded by …” books were not based on Myers-Brigg. Instead, they built on another personality theory, the so-called DiSC model. The most noteworthy outcome of a search through the academic literature on this model was that, despite the fact that the test had been around for fifty years, there was in principle no research on whether or n…

There is no disagreement with Mr. Dan Katz's views; the licensed psychologist and psychotherapist, whose words make up the article. He suitably hammers home his point that the content of the books is nothing more than airport science, as he openly rages against the profession of 'behavioural scientist'. He also mentions the book sales, conferences, TV appearances, bestseller lists and ever increasing circulation of the books etc.

I get it. He feels passionate and sees a charlatan, who is hitching a free ride on the back of his respected profession and getting the rockstar treatment. These compendium of books could have effectively been languishing under the sections of new age, self-help, therapy etc., except they hit home with a certain audience. Now that he has vented his spleen, what more does he hope to achieve, especially under the circumstances that there are no laws or regulation in place to curb any of the activities. Also, by continuing to rage against it, he only brings more welcome publicity for the author and his books.

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#299

Post by coldtea »

outworlder wrote: post #294
coldtea wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on my experience, that kind of pseudo-science is super popular in corporate environment, and is really difficult to fight against. While its uses in a corporate environment can be bogus, there are indeed a few discreet types of people, and most anybody that has worked/lived with/watched people in the wild can attest to that. I don't see many people being "analytic, careful, meticulous" in one day and "let's j…

> usually people tend to stick to some modes of behavior Well, congrats, you have defined what a personality is. The whole point is that the colors thing is BS. Humans are much more complex than that. > I don't see many people being "analytic, careful, meticulous" in one day and "let's just go at it / throw caution to the wind" the next. That can easily happen, depends on the context.

>Well, congrats, you have defined what a personality is.

That's still worth it, especially if people think personality can't be defined, or needs tons more subtly to define (whereas I did it at a specific abstraction level) or that people are unpredictable, so there's no "static personality" etc.

Against all of those approaches, I make a statement that personality exists, and there are certain types of people, and that it's still worth it to classify them in a few simplistic inflexible groups personality-wise -- subtlety is not necessary for many purposes.

>The whole point is that the colors thing is BS. Humans are much more complex than that.

Which is neither here nor there. Complexity is only relevant based on the abstraction level on wants to work with, and what they want to use the model for.

Same way that real-world physics are also much more complex than Newtonian model, but for tons of purposes the Newtonian calculations are just fine (and we can even use vastly simplified constants, like PI with just 4-5 digits) in our calculations and still do fine.

>That can easily happen, depends on the context.

Depends on how often it happens. If it can happen, but 9/10 times it doesn't it still totally worth abstracting someone as "analytic, careful, meticulous" for predictive purposes -- you'll be right 9 times out of 10, which can give a huge advantage over other approaches...

Re: How Swedes were fooled by the book “Surrounded by Idiots”

#300

Post by bjourne »

weberc2 wrote: post #39
vertex-four wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the people suggesting the better ways are usually... promoting rather unpalatable ideas. Often either that there is no discrimination in the workplace ever and so we should stop talking about it, or that discrimination in the workplace is in fact normal and healthy. I'd love to see a way of creating healthy, non-discriminatory workplaces, especially in industries that are usually pretty terrible.

Is it unpalatable to ask questions about how much discrimination exists and against whom it is directed? The only “evidence” I’m aware of are implicit association tests and Goldin’s study of blind auditions, neither of which demonstrate discrimination. And asking this question often just gets me downvoted. If we are so certain that there is discrimination and tons of it, why is the real evidence treated as a closely…

I think you are getting downvoted because the argument is exasperating. It's argument by ignorance: "I don't know therefore it isn't true." It is very easy to find ample evidence of discrimination documented in published peer-reviewed studies. E.g https://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html "The results indicate large racial differences in callback rates to a phone line with a voice mailbox attached and a message recorded by someone of the appropriate race and gender. Job applicants with white names needed to send about 10 resumes to get one callback; those with African-American names needed to send around 15 resumes to get one callback. This would suggest either employer prejudice or employer perception that race signals lower productivity."

The other exasperating thing is at presenting evidence almost never work. The step after someone has presented evidence of discrimination is for the person who doesn't "believe in discrimination" to challenge the result. Either the result doesn't actually prove discrimination or the study is flawed in some way so you can't draw any conclusions.

Post reply on HN