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The interesting question here perhaps isn’t so much whether knowing if you are a particular color or 4-letter Myers-Briggs combination helps you or whether ther

The interesting question here perhaps isn’t so much whether knowing if you are a particular color or 4-letter Myers-Briggs combination helps you or whether there is a solid foundation to the categorization at all. What’s interesting here is rather: what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any behavioral insight. But something tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. A bit like every single diet works (compared to no diet) because the fundamental thing is dieting in the sense that you think actively about diet. As for this book: It’s a pretty useless book, but I can see how it’s appealing. I can’t see how it being unscientific makes it worse than 90% of similar books in the bookstore. This is a pop book you read on a plane. It’s not a scientific publication. If he claims it’s solid science that’s obviously bad, but I’m sure all the mindfulness and yoga books do too - and all of those are certainly not very scientific.

beaconstudios 5y ago
Mindfulness and meditation especially, /are/ supported by scientific findings. I don't know about yoga, but it's basically stretching and that's generally good for you.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Sure I didn’t mean to imply that those fields in particular are all bogus, but rather that every new book on the subject has to bring a new angle and also often plays a bit fast and loose with scientific rigor. You’ll see books on why you should do yoga while juggling eggplants or mindfulness through playing quake and it might be some times a bit semi-scientific.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    Fair point, yeah the novelties are just there for marketing and intrigue purpose, they probably don't do anything most of the time.
- nemo44x 5y ago
  So is taking a short nap in the afternoon. Pretty much these are all the same things. Some just get branded and packaged as a thing for consumers to make into a “lifestyle”.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    They're not the same things, in the same way that healthy eating and exercise aren't - they're both systemically beneficial. Sleep and meditation are different and serve different purposes, and stretching is closer to exercise than anything else. They do get packaged into a lifestyle, but they also predate consumerism by thousands of years.
    - Jensson 5y ago
      > They're not the same things Evidence for this? Taking a break and relaxing your mind is beneficial, not sure why one form wouldn't substitute for another form.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation
        Jensson 5y ago
        From the wiki article: > Of more than 3,000 scientific studies that were found in a comprehensive search of 17 relevant databases, only about 4% had randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which are designed to exclude the placebo effect. So 4% accounted for placebo. How many accounted for the "taking a break is healthy" effect? You need to show that it is different than just taking a break! Any evidence of this?
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        4% of 3000 is 120 - that's a lot of studies. You're the one claiming they're the same - where's your evidence that napping causes the effects identified as caused by meditation? If you want to believe meditation is the same as napping, you're free to do so. As somebody with a great deal of experience in both meditation and napping, my experience is that they're completely different - meditation is not just quietly relaxing, in fact it can be extremely difficult.
- inDigiNeous 5y ago
  Yoga means many things. There are systems that are developed over hundreds, if not thousands of years, which are systematically designed to elevate certain things in the practicioner, it's just not stretching, but can contain many very specific movements and breath techniques that open up certain channels in the body that would be hard to work with otherwise. Just wanted to clarify that a bit ..
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    I was referring to the most common Western-familiar forms of yoga. I'm not sure what "channels" would refer to materially - I'm of the opinion that effective techniques were discovered by trial and error and then religious explanations were applied to them, but there's nothing supernatural going on.
    - inDigiNeous 5y ago
      Well, I dont know either, I've practiced kundalini yoga for a long time, and read about the subject also, in many of the lineages there are stories of the original founder of some of the different types of yogas have received the information directly as some sort of "downloads", like from a higher place of existence or being, not just through trial and error. There is also the story of Shiva being the first yogi, which one telling can be read here: https://isha.sadhguru.org/yoga/history-of-yoga/the-first-yogi-adiyogi/ https://isha.sadhguru.org/yoga/history-of-yoga/the-first-yog... .. you know, but these are of course stories, who knows how they originated. Still, the yogis and holy men in India were considered to be like scientists today, studying the technology of the human beings, so these stories and things passed on are not just random findings but careful studying of the inner technologies on how we operate as humans.
- TriNetra 5y ago
  The original term yog/yoga has very little to do with stretching. Yog in Sanskrit means to unite with, and historically in India it's used to refer ashtanga yoga (raja yoga) which has eight limbs. It's a complete science [0] to master your body and mind, to experience different states of consciousness with meditation. > Yoga is the mastery of the activities of the mind-field. Then the seer rests in its true nature. 0: https://swamij.com/index-yoga-meditation-yoga-sutras.htm https://swamij.com/index-yoga-meditation-yoga-sutras.htm
replygirl 5y ago
i'm not sure being into astrology makes people more empathetic
- dathinab 5y ago
  That is a good way to phrase it. It just makes people excuse/explain away their and other peoples behaviour, instead of trying to work on themself, their relationships, interactions and/or environment.
- alkonaut 5y ago
  Neither am I. But my point is that unlike astrology itself, that’s actually a valid scientific question to research!
JoBrad 5y ago
Classifying people makes it easier to interact with them. You feel that you understand where their boundaries are, and what motivates them. It’s the reason we have geeks vs jocks, or any other variation of classifying people. Some aspects will bear up under a basic sniff test, which is why they stick around. But it also forces people into boxes that don’t properly describe them well, if at all.
- dathinab 5y ago
  > You feel that you understand where their boundaries are, and what motivates them. Expect you don't because people do not fit into classes, especially not classes that simple (i.e. only 4). It means you will behave annoying, toxic or otherwise unpleasant to people because you expect them to have traits/personalities they might _just don't have_. In my experience any classification I know of is more hurtful for society then it's helpful and should be avoided. Also in my experience they are quite often used in a slightly degradating way by people outside of that group which either don't understand or like that group or just want to make themself feel better by lifting themself over other people.
  - JoBrad 5y ago
    My last sentence was along these lines. I recall reading somewhere that these types of approximations are things that we tend to make on first impressions, but taking care that they don’t last beyond that first impression is key.
- watwut 5y ago
  You feel like you understand them, but you don't. You are making up motivations and dismissing their real values, reasons and motivations.
HPsquared 5y ago
Arbitrarily dividing people into groups with defined roles is the basis of the "Noble Lie" in Plato's Republic. In that, people are defined as having souls made of gold, silver or iron/bronze. The idea of giving people a role that they can focus on, from an early age, has some advantages. Of course pigeonholing people has a wide range of disadvantages; everything is a trade-off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes
- cjalmeida 5y ago
  Interesting that Popper denounce Plato's political theory as totalitarian. But if you look at it, that's basically how we divide society and government. We cherish technocrats and "philosopher-king" to rule us in the Supreme Court and high ranking agencies and military. In turn they're not expected to have relevant property to avoid temptation. Truth is people like being ruled and being told where they fit, if this leads to some sort of purpose and stability. That's why such millennia old ideas prosper
  - ethanbond 5y ago
    I think people like having a world that they can make sense of, and organizational schema help do that. I don’t think it needs to be hierarchical (ruled/ruler) in order to get 100% of the benefit of a world that is somewhat distilled, even imperfectly, from a complete mess of unstructured interactions. Society will reach its peak when we fully adopt a graph-like conception of people’s roles, ideally with a high degree of mobility between the nodes. You can know where you fit without being told where you fit. Right now we’re in the uncanny valley of not wanting to tell anyone, but also acting like there’s nothing to be known.
  - watwut 5y ago
    For all flaws of current democracy, it is not nearly totalitarian. Just because two things vaguely reassemble when you abstract enough does not make them the same.
    - 5y ago
sabellito 5y ago
Pigeonholing seems to me that it only leads to plain old confirmation bias instead of actually paying attention to the other's behaviour.
dathinab 5y ago
> But something tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. I doubt it, any benefit (if there are any) will be FAR outweighed by the negative effects. It makes it way too easy to use the category as a excuse for bad behaviour. It makes it way too easy for someone believing it to put themself in a category while they do not fit any category in turn causing a ton a psychological stress, especially for teenagers in the puberty which could even cause long term negative after effects. It hinders a proper healthy society, because that requires people to work on themself instead of just excusing themself as being <color>. It hinders proper psychological care, self finding, self reflection/introspection. It messes with peoples life if applies at work. ...
- golemotron 5y ago
  This critique also applies to intersectionality.
  - zepto 5y ago
    I think this is valid. Intersectionality may make sense as a legal theory for scrutinizing patterns of discrimination in industrial relations. This is where it originated. However, it tends to be used as a theory of personality too, despite there being no science whatsoever to support it.
edanm 5y ago
> A bit like every single diet works (compared to no diet) because the fundamental thing is dieting in the sense that you think actively about diet. (This is completely tangential to the main point, but...) Every diet "works" because the underlying mechanism driving weight loss is eating less calories than your body uses throughout the day. And almost every diet makes people consume less calories than they normally do, at least at first. That's why every diet "works" at least in the short term.
matbatt38 5y ago
Maybe you should extend your concern about those 90% books. IMO, they're just as problematic. They're simply less successful so we pay less attention to them individually, but IMO the trend of having 90% of books sold being total BS dressing as science or personal development is a serious concern.
- jd115 5y ago
  Just curious - do you also think 90% of people are a serious concern?
  - matbatt38 5y ago
    Not sure what you mean. Do you ask if I care about them in a general sense (if so, yes) or if I think they're "a problem" (if so, no) ?
  - rapind 5y ago
    I mean philosophically speaking our entire species is a concern. What drives us can also destroy us. Paradox.
    - jd115 5y ago
      It's called freedom. I don't think anyone would have it any other way.
      - rapind 5y ago
        No I'm not referring to freedom. Wild animals have freedom. I'm talking about drive/greed/motivation/moxi or w/e you want to name it. The thing that delivers ingenuity but also locks us into a winner takes all (or as much as possible). I'm speaking at a species level, not an individual (you can moderate as an individual, but as a species we will push every button eventually). I'm not suggesting a solution, as I don't have one, and would be extremely sceptical of any proposed solution. Doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize it. "Know thyself" etc.
- 5y ago
gnarbarian 5y ago
I believe there is a benefit. This book exists on a spectrum with things like tarot cards, the i-ching, astrology, Meyer Briggs etc. When people are trying to make sense of a situation it often helps to place it into a pre-existing narrative for guidance. In many ways the amount of scientific rigor behind the narrative doesn't matter much. It's far more important for the narrative to guide people towards the behaviors which will have a positive outcome. People will inscribe themselves onto a character and then map The narrative onto their lives, If it's a good narrative (maybe turn the other cheek for example) The person will proceed with an action That is statistically most likely to result in a positive outcome. I suspect this is how most religions came about, The sets of rules, narratives, and beliefs which resulted in relatively better outcomes propagated and flourished.
Terretta 5y ago
> But *something* tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. The article. The article told you that: “Maybe the only positive thing that can be said about Erikson’s theory is that it might help some people realise that not everyone thinks the same way they do. Psychologists call this “theory of mind”, an ability to change perspective, which usually develops in early childhood.” But then it continues with this glorious TL;DR: ”In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old.”
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  ”In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old.” Yes, that was a very nice worded academic insult. Which makes the later sentence a bit hypocrite: "When faced with challenges to his work, Erikson claims that we are attempting to make out that his readers are idiots. Nothing could be further from the truth" Of course a psychologist is not using the loaded word "idiot" anymore. They still scientifically describe it and use more nuances. And in this case explains, how the poor readers were fooled by the big publisher. Ah those poor idio.. I mean, structurally mentally challenged persons.
- neltnerb 5y ago
  I think another rather critical point that is buried in the article is that Erikson *lied that the person writing the article* endorsed them as a behavioral scientist! That makes everything else all the more poignant; Erikson apparently saw the author of the article as their *strongest likely supporter* which says so, so much about their degree of self delusion. The person that says Erikson is totally wrong and causing harm is seemingly about the only actual scientist Erikson knows... and Erikson continues to push their theory anyway.
  - AtNightWeCode 5y ago
    The way it works in parts of Europe and probably other countries is that there are some titles that are protected, and others are not. Anybody can call themself behavioral scientist. Psychologist would be the protected title in this case I believe.
Dumblydorr 5y ago
Slow down, I don't think "all of those" yoga and mindfulness books claim to be "solid science" and I doubt they're all "not very scientific". You just took hundreds of books, assumed they all claim to be scientific, and attacked them for not being solid. This broad brush painting of two healthy habits' texts is pretty damn lazy writing, friend. Obviously, yoga is a movement practice and thus, one could write a very practical book about the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, how to foam roll and massage to enhance yoga, how yoga has scientifically proven health benefits, etc. Similarly for mindfulness, you look at Joseph Goldstein's book Insight Meditation, and it's mostly a combination of stories from his life as a Buddhist in Asia, alongside his learnings from Buddhist teachings. Nowhere does he claim it's scientific nor does he attempt to use pseudoscience. He stays in his lane and the book is a great one. So, friend, I'd say don't besmirch two very ancient and healthy habits which have aided millions of people, especially when you give zero pieces of evidence while seemingly not actually knowing those fields.
NikolaNovak 5y ago
I have a friend who's tremendously into astrology. After years of arguments etc I had a moment of enlightment when I realized she practically uses it more as descriptive model rather than predictive source of truth. I. E. She used classifications for personal shorthand on how she thinks about people. From that perspective, there's a sense where a summarizing framework is beneficial. Almost every high level executive I met that's actually genuinely good with people, subscribes strongly and uses a personality model - whether it's the Disc model or four quadrants or whatever. The fact it has no scientific backing has no bearing in them "knowing its true" , but it also doesn't limit it being a useful if self fulfilling framework. And though we can accurately argue that system is stacked in what it rewards, these are leaders who genuinely do care and do well by their team. More than anything, it makes me introspect what does it mean for a model to "work", because I deeply believe that these models are pseudo scientific garbage, overly simplifying and random bs's confirmation of existing bias... But I've also had tons of personal anecdotal evidence they "work" or "help" - again, not just in self fulfilling or pegging into square hole way.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  "She used classifications for personal shorthand on how she thinks about people." I do not know how your friend did it exactly, but my main experience with people who are into astrology is different - they get told by the astrological models/dogma on how to think of people and combination of people. "I cannot be with this person, he is a lion and I am [whatever]" "Why are you together, your signs do not match each other" In other words, they "help" by simplifying things. Avoiding thinking to make decisions. But in my experience that always hurt them in the long run. And it probably destroyed many relationships as people went with the simple astrological explanation, instead of a real analysis what went wrong. Or rather, it often went wrong, because of negative self fullfulling prophecy.
  - blue1 5y ago
    Years ago I studied astrology quite a lot. I've never been too interested in the divinatory side, and the pop-level generalizations such as those you cited are not even worth commenting. Instead I, like the OP's friend, think it's a rather interesting and deep system of symbols and archetypes. A set of lenses, if you want. Sometimes, looking at the reality through a certain lens yields interesting insights.
aidenn0 5y ago
From TFA: > Maybe the only positive thing that can be said about Erikson’s theory is that it might help some people realise that not everyone thinks the same way they do. Psychologists call this “theory of mind”, an ability to change perspective, which usually develops in early childhood. In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old. Which sounds about right to me (though I find the last sentence to be a bit overly dismissive). On top of that, TFA has many good points about the damage that can be done when this system is imposed from above and used to explain away problems. Imagine if there was a shitshow at work, and the post-mortem determined that it was because the tech lead was a Capriocorn and the engineering lead was an Aries.
- dantyti 5y ago
  >Imagine if there was a shitshow at work, and the post-mortem determined that it was because the tech lead was a Capriocorn and the engineering lead was an Aries. You have no idea how close to reality this description is for my former workplace that based its management on the disc model. "Oh, the product lead and some specialists are having conflicts? Surely it is because of those arbitrary letters they got on that pseudoscientific test, and not some structural issues in our organization"
wreath 5y ago
My team did a workshop where we identified our colors. The result of that was very awkward communications and people making excuses for not stepping up or contributing in meetings because their needs, as described by these colors, were not met. Total disaster.
Zigurd 5y ago
People like to think of businesses as rational. Financial ratios have meaning. But businesses are evidently very susceptible to pseudoscience. They seldom hold management practices to the same standards as finance. So you get bunk like Myers-Briggs tests and Agile "velocity," which, unlike real velocity that needs units over time, is unitless and inconsistent "story points" over time. It isn't harmless. It is sand in the gears. Especially when human mismeasures and biases need to be kept out of ML systems, baking bunk into systems results in lasting damage.
mannanj 5y ago
> what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any behavioral insight. Attach the label "antivax" or "conspiracist" to anyone and see what goes on in your mind.
analog31 5y ago
>>> But something tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. The problem is that "something good can come from lying to people" requires lying to people, and people believing the lie. If someone realizes that the whole thing is bunk, then the positive effect evaporates.

beaconstudios 5y ago

Mindfulness and meditation especially, /are/ supported by scientific findings. I don't know about yoga, but it's basically stretching and that's generally good for you.

alkonaut 5y ago
Sure I didn’t mean to imply that those fields in particular are all bogus, but rather that every new book on the subject has to bring a new angle and also often plays a bit fast and loose with scientific rigor. You’ll see books on why you should do yoga while juggling eggplants or mindfulness through playing quake and it might be some times a bit semi-scientific.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  Fair point, yeah the novelties are just there for marketing and intrigue purpose, they probably don't do anything most of the time.
nemo44x 5y ago
So is taking a short nap in the afternoon. Pretty much these are all the same things. Some just get branded and packaged as a thing for consumers to make into a “lifestyle”.
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  They're not the same things, in the same way that healthy eating and exercise aren't - they're both systemically beneficial. Sleep and meditation are different and serve different purposes, and stretching is closer to exercise than anything else. They do get packaged into a lifestyle, but they also predate consumerism by thousands of years.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    > They're not the same things Evidence for this? Taking a break and relaxing your mind is beneficial, not sure why one form wouldn't substitute for another form.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_meditation
      - Jensson 5y ago
        From the wiki article: > Of more than 3,000 scientific studies that were found in a comprehensive search of 17 relevant databases, only about 4% had randomised controlled trials (RCTs), which are designed to exclude the placebo effect. So 4% accounted for placebo. How many accounted for the "taking a break is healthy" effect? You need to show that it is different than just taking a break! Any evidence of this?
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        4% of 3000 is 120 - that's a lot of studies. You're the one claiming they're the same - where's your evidence that napping causes the effects identified as caused by meditation? If you want to believe meditation is the same as napping, you're free to do so. As somebody with a great deal of experience in both meditation and napping, my experience is that they're completely different - meditation is not just quietly relaxing, in fact it can be extremely difficult.
inDigiNeous 5y ago
Yoga means many things. There are systems that are developed over hundreds, if not thousands of years, which are systematically designed to elevate certain things in the practicioner, it's just not stretching, but can contain many very specific movements and breath techniques that open up certain channels in the body that would be hard to work with otherwise. Just wanted to clarify that a bit ..
- beaconstudios 5y ago
  I was referring to the most common Western-familiar forms of yoga. I'm not sure what "channels" would refer to materially - I'm of the opinion that effective techniques were discovered by trial and error and then religious explanations were applied to them, but there's nothing supernatural going on.
  - inDigiNeous 5y ago
    Well, I dont know either, I've practiced kundalini yoga for a long time, and read about the subject also, in many of the lineages there are stories of the original founder of some of the different types of yogas have received the information directly as some sort of "downloads", like from a higher place of existence or being, not just through trial and error. There is also the story of Shiva being the first yogi, which one telling can be read here: https://isha.sadhguru.org/yoga/history-of-yoga/the-first-yogi-adiyogi/ https://isha.sadhguru.org/yoga/history-of-yoga/the-first-yog... .. you know, but these are of course stories, who knows how they originated. Still, the yogis and holy men in India were considered to be like scientists today, studying the technology of the human beings, so these stories and things passed on are not just random findings but careful studying of the inner technologies on how we operate as humans.
TriNetra 5y ago
The original term yog/yoga has very little to do with stretching. Yog in Sanskrit means to unite with, and historically in India it's used to refer ashtanga yoga (raja yoga) which has eight limbs. It's a complete science [0] to master your body and mind, to experience different states of consciousness with meditation. > Yoga is the mastery of the activities of the mind-field. Then the seer rests in its true nature. 0: https://swamij.com/index-yoga-meditation-yoga-sutras.htm https://swamij.com/index-yoga-meditation-yoga-sutras.htm

replygirl 5y ago

i'm not sure being into astrology makes people more empathetic

dathinab 5y ago
That is a good way to phrase it. It just makes people excuse/explain away their and other peoples behaviour, instead of trying to work on themself, their relationships, interactions and/or environment.
alkonaut 5y ago
Neither am I. But my point is that unlike astrology itself, that’s actually a valid scientific question to research!

JoBrad 5y ago

Classifying people makes it easier to interact with them. You feel that you understand where their boundaries are, and what motivates them. It’s the reason we have geeks vs jocks, or any other variation of classifying people. Some aspects will bear up under a basic sniff test, which is why they stick around. But it also forces people into boxes that don’t properly describe them well, if at all.

dathinab 5y ago
> You feel that you understand where their boundaries are, and what motivates them. Expect you don't because people do not fit into classes, especially not classes that simple (i.e. only 4). It means you will behave annoying, toxic or otherwise unpleasant to people because you expect them to have traits/personalities they might _just don't have_. In my experience any classification I know of is more hurtful for society then it's helpful and should be avoided. Also in my experience they are quite often used in a slightly degradating way by people outside of that group which either don't understand or like that group or just want to make themself feel better by lifting themself over other people.
- JoBrad 5y ago
  My last sentence was along these lines. I recall reading somewhere that these types of approximations are things that we tend to make on first impressions, but taking care that they don’t last beyond that first impression is key.
watwut 5y ago
You feel like you understand them, but you don't. You are making up motivations and dismissing their real values, reasons and motivations.

HPsquared 5y ago

Arbitrarily dividing people into groups with defined roles is the basis of the "Noble Lie" in Plato's Republic. In that, people are defined as having souls made of gold, silver or iron/bronze. The idea of giving people a role that they can focus on, from an early age, has some advantages. Of course pigeonholing people has a wide range of disadvantages; everything is a trade-off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_five_regimes

cjalmeida 5y ago
Interesting that Popper denounce Plato's political theory as totalitarian. But if you look at it, that's basically how we divide society and government. We cherish technocrats and "philosopher-king" to rule us in the Supreme Court and high ranking agencies and military. In turn they're not expected to have relevant property to avoid temptation. Truth is people like being ruled and being told where they fit, if this leads to some sort of purpose and stability. That's why such millennia old ideas prosper
- ethanbond 5y ago
  I think people like having a world that they can make sense of, and organizational schema help do that. I don’t think it needs to be hierarchical (ruled/ruler) in order to get 100% of the benefit of a world that is somewhat distilled, even imperfectly, from a complete mess of unstructured interactions. Society will reach its peak when we fully adopt a graph-like conception of people’s roles, ideally with a high degree of mobility between the nodes. You can know where you fit without being told where you fit. Right now we’re in the uncanny valley of not wanting to tell anyone, but also acting like there’s nothing to be known.
- watwut 5y ago
  For all flaws of current democracy, it is not nearly totalitarian. Just because two things vaguely reassemble when you abstract enough does not make them the same.
  - 5y ago

sabellito 5y ago

Pigeonholing seems to me that it only leads to plain old confirmation bias instead of actually paying attention to the other's behaviour.

dathinab 5y ago

> But something tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. I doubt it, any benefit (if there are any) will be FAR outweighed by the negative effects. It makes it way too easy to use the category as a excuse for bad behaviour. It makes it way too easy for someone believing it to put themself in a category while they do not fit any category in turn causing a ton a psychological stress, especially for teenagers in the puberty which could even cause long term negative after effects. It hinders a proper healthy society, because that requires people to work on themself instead of just excusing themself as being <color>. It hinders proper psychological care, self finding, self reflection/introspection. It messes with peoples life if applies at work. ...

golemotron 5y ago
This critique also applies to intersectionality.
- zepto 5y ago
  I think this is valid. Intersectionality may make sense as a legal theory for scrutinizing patterns of discrimination in industrial relations. This is where it originated. However, it tends to be used as a theory of personality too, despite there being no science whatsoever to support it.

edanm 5y ago

> A bit like every single diet works (compared to no diet) because the fundamental thing is dieting in the sense that you think actively about diet. (This is completely tangential to the main point, but...) Every diet "works" because the underlying mechanism driving weight loss is eating less calories than your body uses throughout the day. And almost every diet makes people consume less calories than they normally do, at least at first. That's why every diet "works" at least in the short term.

matbatt38 5y ago

Maybe you should extend your concern about those 90% books. IMO, they're just as problematic. They're simply less successful so we pay less attention to them individually, but IMO the trend of having 90% of books sold being total BS dressing as science or personal development is a serious concern.

jd115 5y ago
Just curious - do you also think 90% of people are a serious concern?
- matbatt38 5y ago
  Not sure what you mean. Do you ask if I care about them in a general sense (if so, yes) or if I think they're "a problem" (if so, no) ?
- rapind 5y ago
  I mean philosophically speaking our entire species is a concern. What drives us can also destroy us. Paradox.
  - jd115 5y ago
    It's called freedom. I don't think anyone would have it any other way.
    - rapind 5y ago
      No I'm not referring to freedom. Wild animals have freedom. I'm talking about drive/greed/motivation/moxi or w/e you want to name it. The thing that delivers ingenuity but also locks us into a winner takes all (or as much as possible). I'm speaking at a species level, not an individual (you can moderate as an individual, but as a species we will push every button eventually). I'm not suggesting a solution, as I don't have one, and would be extremely sceptical of any proposed solution. Doesn't mean we shouldn't recognize it. "Know thyself" etc.
5y ago

gnarbarian 5y ago

I believe there is a benefit. This book exists on a spectrum with things like tarot cards, the i-ching, astrology, Meyer Briggs etc. When people are trying to make sense of a situation it often helps to place it into a pre-existing narrative for guidance. In many ways the amount of scientific rigor behind the narrative doesn't matter much. It's far more important for the narrative to guide people towards the behaviors which will have a positive outcome. People will inscribe themselves onto a character and then map The narrative onto their lives, If it's a good narrative (maybe turn the other cheek for example) The person will proceed with an action That is statistically most likely to result in a positive outcome. I suspect this is how most religions came about, The sets of rules, narratives, and beliefs which resulted in relatively better outcomes propagated and flourished.

Terretta 5y ago

> But *something* tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. The article. The article told you that: “Maybe the only positive thing that can be said about Erikson’s theory is that it might help some people realise that not everyone thinks the same way they do. Psychologists call this “theory of mind”, an ability to change perspective, which usually develops in early childhood.” But then it continues with this glorious TL;DR: ”In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old.”

hutzlibu 5y ago
”In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old.” Yes, that was a very nice worded academic insult. Which makes the later sentence a bit hypocrite: "When faced with challenges to his work, Erikson claims that we are attempting to make out that his readers are idiots. Nothing could be further from the truth" Of course a psychologist is not using the loaded word "idiot" anymore. They still scientifically describe it and use more nuances. And in this case explains, how the poor readers were fooled by the big publisher. Ah those poor idio.. I mean, structurally mentally challenged persons.
neltnerb 5y ago
I think another rather critical point that is buried in the article is that Erikson *lied that the person writing the article* endorsed them as a behavioral scientist! That makes everything else all the more poignant; Erikson apparently saw the author of the article as their *strongest likely supporter* which says so, so much about their degree of self delusion. The person that says Erikson is totally wrong and causing harm is seemingly about the only actual scientist Erikson knows... and Erikson continues to push their theory anyway.
- AtNightWeCode 5y ago
  The way it works in parts of Europe and probably other countries is that there are some titles that are protected, and others are not. Anybody can call themself behavioral scientist. Psychologist would be the protected title in this case I believe.

Dumblydorr 5y ago

Slow down, I don't think "all of those" yoga and mindfulness books claim to be "solid science" and I doubt they're all "not very scientific". You just took hundreds of books, assumed they all claim to be scientific, and attacked them for not being solid. This broad brush painting of two healthy habits' texts is pretty damn lazy writing, friend. Obviously, yoga is a movement practice and thus, one could write a very practical book about the muscles, ligaments, and tendons, how to foam roll and massage to enhance yoga, how yoga has scientifically proven health benefits, etc. Similarly for mindfulness, you look at Joseph Goldstein's book Insight Meditation, and it's mostly a combination of stories from his life as a Buddhist in Asia, alongside his learnings from Buddhist teachings. Nowhere does he claim it's scientific nor does he attempt to use pseudoscience. He stays in his lane and the book is a great one. So, friend, I'd say don't besmirch two very ancient and healthy habits which have aided millions of people, especially when you give zero pieces of evidence while seemingly not actually knowing those fields.

NikolaNovak 5y ago

I have a friend who's tremendously into astrology. After years of arguments etc I had a moment of enlightment when I realized she practically uses it more as descriptive model rather than predictive source of truth. I. E. She used classifications for personal shorthand on how she thinks about people. From that perspective, there's a sense where a summarizing framework is beneficial. Almost every high level executive I met that's actually genuinely good with people, subscribes strongly and uses a personality model - whether it's the Disc model or four quadrants or whatever. The fact it has no scientific backing has no bearing in them "knowing its true" , but it also doesn't limit it being a useful if self fulfilling framework. And though we can accurately argue that system is stacked in what it rewards, these are leaders who genuinely do care and do well by their team. More than anything, it makes me introspect what does it mean for a model to "work", because I deeply believe that these models are pseudo scientific garbage, overly simplifying and random bs's confirmation of existing bias... But I've also had tons of personal anecdotal evidence they "work" or "help" - again, not just in self fulfilling or pegging into square hole way.

hutzlibu 5y ago
"She used classifications for personal shorthand on how she thinks about people." I do not know how your friend did it exactly, but my main experience with people who are into astrology is different - they get told by the astrological models/dogma on how to think of people and combination of people. "I cannot be with this person, he is a lion and I am [whatever]" "Why are you together, your signs do not match each other" In other words, they "help" by simplifying things. Avoiding thinking to make decisions. But in my experience that always hurt them in the long run. And it probably destroyed many relationships as people went with the simple astrological explanation, instead of a real analysis what went wrong. Or rather, it often went wrong, because of negative self fullfulling prophecy.
- blue1 5y ago
  Years ago I studied astrology quite a lot. I've never been too interested in the divinatory side, and the pop-level generalizations such as those you cited are not even worth commenting. Instead I, like the OP's friend, think it's a rather interesting and deep system of symbols and archetypes. A set of lenses, if you want. Sometimes, looking at the reality through a certain lens yields interesting insights.

aidenn0 5y ago

From TFA: > Maybe the only positive thing that can be said about Erikson’s theory is that it might help some people realise that not everyone thinks the same way they do. Psychologists call this “theory of mind”, an ability to change perspective, which usually develops in early childhood. In other words, Erikson’s book might help someone with the empathetic and intellectual level of a five-year-old. Which sounds about right to me (though I find the last sentence to be a bit overly dismissive). On top of that, TFA has many good points about the damage that can be done when this system is imposed from above and used to explain away problems. Imagine if there was a shitshow at work, and the post-mortem determined that it was because the tech lead was a Capriocorn and the engineering lead was an Aries.

dantyti 5y ago
>Imagine if there was a shitshow at work, and the post-mortem determined that it was because the tech lead was a Capriocorn and the engineering lead was an Aries. You have no idea how close to reality this description is for my former workplace that based its management on the disc model. "Oh, the product lead and some specialists are having conflicts? Surely it is because of those arbitrary letters they got on that pseudoscientific test, and not some structural issues in our organization"

wreath 5y ago

My team did a workshop where we identified our colors. The result of that was very awkward communications and people making excuses for not stepping up or contributing in meetings because their needs, as described by these colors, were not met. Total disaster.

Zigurd 5y ago

People like to think of businesses as rational. Financial ratios have meaning. But businesses are evidently very susceptible to pseudoscience. They seldom hold management practices to the same standards as finance. So you get bunk like Myers-Briggs tests and Agile "velocity," which, unlike real velocity that needs units over time, is unitless and inconsistent "story points" over time. It isn't harmless. It is sand in the gears. Especially when human mismeasures and biases need to be kept out of ML systems, baking bunk into systems results in lasting damage.

mannanj 5y ago

> what happens when you think of everyone as a pigeonholed category. Intuitively it seems it should be mostly negative especially if the categories don’t even offer any behavioral insight. Attach the label "antivax" or "conspiracist" to anyone and see what goes on in your mind.

analog31 5y ago

>>> But something tells me that there could also be some positive effects from actually wondering about the behavior of others and how you treat them, even if it’s pigeonholing and preconceptions based on bogus research. The problem is that "something good can come from lying to people" requires lying to people, and people believing the lie. If someone realizes that the whole thing is bunk, then the positive effect evaporates.