4 ms·

Seems a very popular thing to put labels on people's personalities. "He's a leader", "she's an introvert", "they are artsy". Feels very similar to astrology - "

Seems a very popular thing to put labels on people's personalities. "He's a leader", "she's an introvert", "they are artsy". Feels very similar to astrology - "he's a Lion", "she's a Taurus". Or the "alpha male" and "beta male" nonsense.

nineteen999 5y ago
Or "Type A" or "Type B". Sometimes I think a large part of HN readers think everything about human nature and personality can be classified, as if ready to be replaced with software in the future. Our understanding of the human mind is nowhere near that place now, and may never be.
- marginalia_nu 5y ago
  It's important to keep in mind that all of these things, not just personality traits, but even concepts such as "human" are artifacts of our modelling of the world. The things in themselves do not know of these distinctions, and you can draw them fairly arbitrarily in ways that may or may not be helpful in making sense of the world. Saying that there are some things that are alive, an others that are inert; and that some alive things are animalia, and others are not, and that some animalia are humans and others are not, and that some humans are Type A, and others are not. Really, none of those distinctions are more justified than the other. It's even hard to motivate that there are things as separate. We have matter constantly moving through us, the air we breathe and the water we drink and the food we eat. We aren't strictly speaking entirely made of the same stuff we were yesterday. It's like a wave across the water, the wave persists but the pieces of water it's made of changes over time. A bit in the same way our hands are features of our bodies, we are features on the universe. You can make the delineation to say we are separate, but only as a mental model.
  - khimaros 5y ago
    Robert Anton Wilson would be proud
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
failedengineer 5y ago
That's a very type B thing to say. As a type A, I know that categorizing is a necessary shorthand to streamline decision making and to produce maximally effective results. This is why the "myth" persists, despite being "disproven." It may not have a scientific basis, but it has real-world value.
- toyg 5y ago
  So I guess what you're saying is that ignoring reality maximizes your own perceived happiness. Would explain a thing or two about our "leaders" and the state of the world.
  - bumby 5y ago
    Scott Adams (who I'm not particularly fond of) has a habit of saying that people pick mental models that 1) make sense of reality (sometimes in a misperceived way) and 2) make them happy. That does seem to explain a lot about human behavior, but I don't necessarily think people are deliberately ignoring reality, just making sense of it in an illogical way sometimes.
nicoburns 5y ago
The main problem with astrology is associating personality traits with someone's birth date. Which is pretty ridiculous. Simply describing someone's personality traits seems entirely reasonable.

nineteen999 5y ago

Or "Type A" or "Type B". Sometimes I think a large part of HN readers think everything about human nature and personality can be classified, as if ready to be replaced with software in the future. Our understanding of the human mind is nowhere near that place now, and may never be.

marginalia_nu 5y ago
It's important to keep in mind that all of these things, not just personality traits, but even concepts such as "human" are artifacts of our modelling of the world. The things in themselves do not know of these distinctions, and you can draw them fairly arbitrarily in ways that may or may not be helpful in making sense of the world. Saying that there are some things that are alive, an others that are inert; and that some alive things are animalia, and others are not, and that some animalia are humans and others are not, and that some humans are Type A, and others are not. Really, none of those distinctions are more justified than the other. It's even hard to motivate that there are things as separate. We have matter constantly moving through us, the air we breathe and the water we drink and the food we eat. We aren't strictly speaking entirely made of the same stuff we were yesterday. It's like a wave across the water, the wave persists but the pieces of water it's made of changes over time. A bit in the same way our hands are features of our bodies, we are features on the universe. You can make the delineation to say we are separate, but only as a mental model.
- khimaros 5y ago
  Robert Anton Wilson would be proud
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

failedengineer 5y ago

That's a very type B thing to say. As a type A, I know that categorizing is a necessary shorthand to streamline decision making and to produce maximally effective results. This is why the "myth" persists, despite being "disproven." It may not have a scientific basis, but it has real-world value.

toyg 5y ago
So I guess what you're saying is that ignoring reality maximizes your own perceived happiness. Would explain a thing or two about our "leaders" and the state of the world.
- bumby 5y ago
  Scott Adams (who I'm not particularly fond of) has a habit of saying that people pick mental models that 1) make sense of reality (sometimes in a misperceived way) and 2) make them happy. That does seem to explain a lot about human behavior, but I don't necessarily think people are deliberately ignoring reality, just making sense of it in an illogical way sometimes.

nicoburns 5y ago

The main problem with astrology is associating personality traits with someone's birth date. Which is pretty ridiculous. Simply describing someone's personality traits seems entirely reasonable.