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The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

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Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#111

Post by _yb2s »

chongli wrote: post #106
_yb2s wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does not do that- each dimension which represents two opposite archetypes (e.g. introvert vs extrovert) is a continuum, and the output of the test isn’t actually a single category but a point on that line for each dimension. The full output is actually a 4 dimensional vector. Importantly- everyone has both traits, it is only telling you which you more consciously identify with. Many people will be near th…

I think you may have missed my point so I’ll give an example: Suppose you take a random sample of adult humans and sort them by height. What you’ll see is a bimodal distribution which reflects the fact that there are actually two distinct populations represented in the sample: men and women. The sexes can be considered types and you will get reasonably accurate results for predicting height from sex and vice versa. H…

I don’t think I missed your point but you missed mine. If someone is 51% or 49% it is misleading to classify- which is why the test actually outputs a vector.

Archetypes are fairly arbitrary concepts that isolate individual aspects among thousands that could potentially explain personality traits- they don’t claim to exist in real people.

It is critical to realize that in the dimensions on MBTI everyone is actually both, but some people strongly identify with one and reject or despise the part of themselves that represents the other.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#112

Post by motohagiography »

are you a sociopath because the inner struggles of your food delivery guy don't register to you, or have you just instrumentalized someone to achieve an end and you just relate with a transactional distance? no matter what you think you do, to someone you work for, you are the food delivery guy represented by a little dot whose progress to your destination someone is watching on their screen. maybe they're even racing you against another one, but it doesn't matter.

I don' think the gervais principle enlightens anymore. I remember thinking it was amazing to see my suspicions laid out like this, but with some time and distance I don't know that I would share it with someone now. why demoralize them.

I can see how it's demeaning and feels like punishment to take orders or show deference to someone who lacks heroic qualities, and really we should make a better class of managers, but it is the duty of all prisoners to escape, and they probably won't miss you anyway. there's an aspect of humility that comes from simple competence where all work is "we make a thing here so our families can eat," and if you're on an existential quest for belonging, you're probably not going to provide the value to others that yields the rewards of the business.

Sure, money and power flows to some of the least interesting people doing the dullest things, but the dinner party they're boring at isn't the reconciliation or taking account of their course through life either. they do the thing and then eat at drive thrus and watch some tv. meaning for them comes from somewhere else. articles raging against them are dumb and misleading. trying to grind out meaning from every experience is exhausting and ephemeral because meaning is beautiful, but it's rarely shared and doesn't persist.

this life is only what we actually do, so do something different.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#113

Post by Lyngbakr »

rbanffy wrote: post #67
szundi wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stephen King does this with whole trilogies haha

This is actually a very practical way of creating stories - set up the stage and see what the characters go about doing. The writer needs to be aware of the larger stage in order to keep the reader interested in understanding what’s actually going on and why.

I remember Stephen King writing in his book On Writing that he once deviated from this approach (Maximum Overdrive, perhaps?) and it really didn't go well. At the time, I thought creating characters, a scenario, and setting and then seeing what happened was nuts, but it's essentially how D&D works (albeit in a group setting) and that's always fun.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#114

Post by bee_rider »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #85
verisimi wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is insight there if you’re able to hear it.

Is there? Was an insight provided that you didn’t already know?

It doesn’t make any sense at all to me as an outsider.

It might make perfect sense to an insider, as an expression that says something obvious in the lingo.

In between there are statements which require some lingo, but also present a novel argument. It might be one of these. But it very short. So, I conclude that it must be either very trite and surface level, or extremely clever (how far from the definitions can one get in once sentence? Not far unless they are very good)

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#115

Post by _yb2s »

wnolens wrote: post #103
_yb2s wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meyers briggs is not “astrology” - it doesn’t claim to predict anything. It categorizes how people already consciously see themselves with Carl Jungs archetypes. The main point of the archetype concept is to then explore the part of you that is different from how you see yourself- your “shadow” for the purpose of personal development. It’s not mysterious, mystical, or claiming to be science- it’s just a very simple s…

Thanks, this has given me a new perspective. I went through mbti at a workplace and it was used to give us an understanding of our co-workers. Your point that it's a self assessment and thus only "how you see yourself" and not.. y'know, how you actually behave, is in retrospect "no shit" but I missed this crucial point. It kind of changes every conversation with anyone I've ever had about our result.

It sounds like it is being misused and misunderstood in a way that is actually BS.

The way it relates to others is more subtle than that:

Say someone is strongly extroverted and sees introversion as a negative thing… and dislikes and disapproves of their more introverted co-workers. If they come to explore, understand, and accept their own introverted aspects it will also take the steam out of their dislike for others who show those traits.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#116

Post by _yb2s »

chongli wrote: post #106
_yb2s wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It actually does not do that- each dimension which represents two opposite archetypes (e.g. introvert vs extrovert) is a continuum, and the output of the test isn’t actually a single category but a point on that line for each dimension. The full output is actually a 4 dimensional vector. Importantly- everyone has both traits, it is only telling you which you more consciously identify with. Many people will be near th…

I think you may have missed my point so I’ll give an example: Suppose you take a random sample of adult humans and sort them by height. What you’ll see is a bimodal distribution which reflects the fact that there are actually two distinct populations represented in the sample: men and women. The sexes can be considered types and you will get reasonably accurate results for predicting height from sex and vice versa. H…

To follow on: why does the MBTI focus on 8 specific archetypes when there are limitless others?

It is indeed a totally arbitrary choice, and a value judgement. These are ones that Carl Jung thought particularly important based on his philosophy of personal development, and experience as a clinical psychologist. Of the ones Jung talked about MBTI further selected an even more limited set.

Personally, I think it is more useful to skip the MTBI and just use Jungs original text.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#117

Post by 627467 »

cen4 wrote: post #18
trojanalert wrote: post #12

To be read in conjunction with the Babbler hypothesis - The amount of time some people spend talking gets them into leadership positions. It doesn't matter what they say, just how much they rant on. I read that, and realised how insanely true it is

Well these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threate…

I feel like we forgot (or deprioritized - or maybe never genuinely prioritized) how to NOT have to sync on everything all the time.

not everyone needs to be in a group.

not everyone in a group needs to be in sync with interests AND personalities AND needs AND beliefs AND...

but I see the paradox here: we need to believe the above is true to live happier and more meaningfully

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#118

Post by stavros »

627467 wrote: post #117
cen4 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well these observations have nothing with to do with the main conundrum - How do you keep a group of chimps who all have different interests, personalities, needs, beliefs, values, upbringings, culture, religion, language, history etc etc in sync? And these days groups grow quite large quite fast. Historically, if you take rewards, bribery, force, domination and manipulation out of the story, the babblers/non threate…

I feel like we forgot (or deprioritized - or maybe never genuinely prioritized) how to NOT have to sync on everything all the time. not everyone needs to be in a group. not everyone in a group needs to be in sync with interests AND personalities AND needs AND beliefs AND... but I see the paradox here: we need to believe the above is true to live happier and more meaningfully

By "groups" we mean "working with people". How are you going to do anything without working with people?

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#119

Post by aleph_minus_one »

eru wrote: post #56
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are getting -- I think -- reflexively downvoted, but I genuinely think you are onto something. German grammar has strict word order rules as opposed to say Polish, where syntax is much more permissive ( for that one aspect of it ). I wonder to what extent native language changes how brain functions over the course of one's life.

Nah, spoken German can handle that just fine. Spoken German has different rules from written German (and, of course, people have quite a bit more tolerance for minor breaks of grammatical rules in ad-hoc spoken language anyway.) To give an example: a bog standard German sentence puts the verb in second place. Everything else is fairly flexible, eg you can either put object or subject first (unlike in written English,…

> In spoken German, you can get away with "Barbara besucht das Restaurant, weil.. sie hatte ja Hunger." Especially if you pause to think at the place marked by the two dots.

Native German speaker: When I hear such a wrong placing of the finite verb in a subclause, I immediately think that the respective speaker is either uneducated (when the person is a native speaker) or (if the person is a foreign speaker) had a really bad German teacher who did not correct this mistake.

Thus: No, don't do this. Speak the sentence as you would write it.

Re: The Gervais Principle, or the Office According to “The Office” (2009)

#120

Post by djhope99 »

I think sales and consulting can be a bit of a cheat code here.

You spend most of your time with customers and so you just kind of navigate their politics without actually involving yourself.

The money can be better so it’s a better deal and you’re mostly shut out from the politics of the organisation you work for anyway.

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