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Comment by tomsaffell | Hacker News Reader

It's a model, which brings to mind my favorite quote on models:

  All models are wrong; some models are useful.

I.e. the question is not 'is it right', but 'is it useful?'. Personally, I think the MB model is somewhat useful - e.g. identifying some of the 'watch-out' points of various personality types.

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Like so many similar things, from divination to Dungeons and Dragons, the Myers-Briggs is a game designed to provide a structure on which to hang conversations and creative thought. [1] It gives you some ground rules, some traditional starting points, some classic teams to root for (go ENTJ, go!) and an assortment of useful pivots and props that can be artfully used by the participants to steer their conversation as it progresses.

As such, it's quite useful, though I would no more try to defend it as a scientific theory than I would try to defend chess as an accurate representation of medieval battle tactics. [2]

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[1] You know what would be fun, or at least funny? A Dungeons-and-Dragons version of the Meyers/Briggs. In fact, I think the AD&D alignment system may be more than halfway there already.

[2] Which is not to say that medieval tacticians, to say nothing of modern tacticians, didn't play a lot of games as part of their practice.

> You know what would be fun, or at least funny? A Dungeons-and-Dragons version of the Meyers/Briggs. In fact, I think the AD&D alignment system may be more than halfway there already.

A few months ago, we actually had a "personality types and how to get along with them" sort of training at work (not Meyers/Briggs, but something similar). I thought it seemed kind of bogus, so when it was time to fill out the feedback forms afterwards I suggested that a follow-up "alignments in the workplace" training would be at least as useful.

Does the same argument excuse astrological signs? You're a Libra? Libras need to carefully balance their desire to be accepted by their peers with their conviction that they are in fact in the right. (Technically speaking that's just total horsepuckey I plucked out of the air, but put a lab coat on me and I think I could get 80% of the population to agree that it applied to them. Score one for science!)

I've been sharing this with my pregnant friends - http://xkcd.com/699/

Unfortunately astrological signs didn't give me any 'opposites' I can compare myself with. Having read through the descriptions of various character types associated with various astrological signs, I cannot say I identify with one any more than another.

MB-types give me a set of sliding scales. I show up as strongly I and strongly N, which allows me to compare myself with ES types - I recognise very little of myself in ES types, and a lot more of myself in IN types, which means I'm biased towards the assumption that there is at least some basis to it.

I can also make predictions about what types my friends are, and (before telling them my guess) ask them what type they are. Currently these predictions seem to be matching up pretty well, although a little fuzzy on the P/J axis.

I don't know much astrology so I'm not able to address that issue, but decades ago I studied handwriting analysis. I realized there were "opposites", but they were always described in a positive manner. For example, long endings on a script 'e' were associated with generous people. The opposite, a short 'e' ending, would be associated with a thrifty individual -- as opposed to the more blunt cheapskate.

Maybe that's just wordsmithing but it seems reasonable to characterize attributes in a positive way.

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