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Sort of meta-related (in that I'm disagreeing with your facts, and therefore the judgement changes): I disagree that most hackers are --TJ types. They are more

Sort of meta-related (in that I'm disagreeing with your facts, and therefore the judgement changes): I disagree that most hackers are --TJ types. They are more likely to be -NT- with a bend towards INT-. The N is _the_ trait that tends to abstractionism, so it would make little sense for a hacker to be -S-- at all. If you look at the polls here it comes out in spades: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=943722 The reason that we argue is that as Rationalists, the truth is more important than anything except for the fact that there is a truth. It is why Rationalists are likely to pick up an Aristotelian view of the word (though that might be a tautology since I think it is an axiom of that worldview). There is a reason why people are not usually grouped in the --TJ category (the broad categories being -NT-, -NF-, -S-J, -S-P). The reason is that the most important variable, the one that correlates to income, happiness, intelligence is the second letter. It fundamentally effects how you approach the world.

jacques_chester 15y ago
Meyers-Briggs is not a respected test of personality in psychometrics circles; it was invented based on an amateur's reading of Jung's theories of personality. Insofar as people say a pop personality test describes them, it's likely due to the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect).
- 3pt14159 15y ago
  I've heard this plenty of times, and I know this anecdotal, but it does predict things. Every developer at FreshBooks when I was there was the same type. Every one of my girlfriends (that I got to take the test long after we broke up) is the same type. There are correlations with IQ, with employment, with other accepted tests. The primary weakness of MB is that results are normally distributed across each letter, so a majority of the population is not strongly correlated with each letter. Just look at the hacker news response. I know it is self reported, but I don't buy that the two of the least populous types self reported themselves by a factor of 1000.

jacques_chester 15y ago

Meyers-Briggs is not a respected test of personality in psychometrics circles; it was invented based on an amateur's reading of Jung's theories of personality. Insofar as people say a pop personality test describes them, it's likely due to the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect).

3pt14159 15y ago
I've heard this plenty of times, and I know this anecdotal, but it does predict things. Every developer at FreshBooks when I was there was the same type. Every one of my girlfriends (that I got to take the test long after we broke up) is the same type. There are correlations with IQ, with employment, with other accepted tests. The primary weakness of MB is that results are normally distributed across each letter, so a majority of the population is not strongly correlated with each letter. Just look at the hacker news response. I know it is self reported, but I don't buy that the two of the least populous types self reported themselves by a factor of 1000.