In Defense of Myers Briggs (2020)

- Redditors like to posture as intellectuals more discerning than the plebe down below, so they're more likely to engage with these personality types than others that would be considered lesser. In other words somebody being given an INTJ profile is more likely to circlejerk about it and making it part of his personality on the website.

- These tests are overwhelmingly self-administered and extremely easy to manipulate to get the result that you want. And even if you don't, you can still lie about it if you feel like you're a super smart rational non emotional 20-something dude.

Like I just went to the INTJ subreddit and the first post I see starts with:

> What drives me crazy the most is when you’re able to notice patterns in almost every aspect of life either it’s video games, schooling, human mannerisms, etc. What drives me crazy is when people say “oh my god you’re so smart, you should be a doctor, you should be a psychologist, you should work for whatever company device you enjoy using”.

Ah yes, cursed by his own intelligence he wanders on the plains of despair, unable to engage with lesser pleasures. tips fedora.

This tribal aspect of these personality profile are really what I dislike the most about them. If at least people used these things for self-improvement instead of just justifying their bad behaviour. "No I'm not being a dick, I'm just an INTP mom".

So for instance maybe there's 6% INTXs in the world, but in psychometry field there happens to be 30% INTX representation. Nobody is making the claim that ALL psy

First of all I want to thank you for sharing modern authors. I was aware of Carol Dweck's older theories and Toyota management model. I do plan to learn from your suggestions. Have they been helpful in your career?

One of the fist thing I've noticed after I started Zen meditation training 5 years ago was that I had recurrent daydreams about killing my bosses. I switched position 3 times until I found myself in a toxic startup where I've burned out. I met a psycologist specialized in work related issues (very good with modern models) and it was helpful. I've learned how to manage my anxiety and to trust my self better.

I'm not certain that I would qualify Jung's ideas as 'attractive'. I understand what you mean by 'a good story', but my take on his work is that its a pre-scientific tool to look deeply into yourself. If it's not scary, your are not using it right. (A bit like zen meditation).

Right now I work as an IT consultant in a byzantine public organisation where failure is normalized or hidden. Knowing that I will not spend my life there makes it easy to cope with the day to day absurdity, and cashing that paycheck is nice during COVID. But the thing is, I dont care about money. According to FIRE metrics, I save over 50% of my income after tax. I have no kids and no responsabilities beyond myself.

Instead of bitching about corporate-employee life, I think I should move out of it. Why not go back to school and do a Phd (already Msc), start or join a meaningful startup? Also recently I made a list of professional achievements which make me proud and turned it into a presentation letter, and found potential employers based on that letter. I have an interview in another industry next week.

I have no problem with the scientific method. The thing is, your own life cannot be a randomized controlled trial. And unfortunalty, if you are suffering from strong emotional biases (like anxiety), trying to use a new model might not work because your will be biased in its usage. Learning from science is not sufficient to lead a meaningful life. Good relationships will also help you alot in your self reflexion challenges. Lastly, I think that learning to use your intuition is probably the best tool you have to work against a disfunctional self model, since by nature intuition is non-verbal and anti-model in the first place.

My Enneagram result was even in 4 of the 9 boxes. Wonderful.

With all these tests, it seems that many people think the categorisation is what matters, rather than what you do with the information. You could use them as an icebreaker on a teambuilding day I guess, but then you could probably use a 'what hogwarts house are you' or 'what game of thrones character are you' test from buzzfeed.

Maybe it's useful to create fictional characters of D&D backstories.

I can see that if you have an idea of the type of person you have on a team, you might know how to help them, and an idea of personality traits they may have could help -- if you're an introvert that likes time alone to recharge, knowing that some people are weird and like to recharge with other people may help, but then you're just as likely to get it wrong anyway - for example thinking "I won't invite X to the pub because they're an introvert that doesn't like being around people"