Comment by reducesuffering | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reducesuffering | Hacker News Reader

reducesuffering

Soliciting upvotes

https://x.com/getnormality/status/1817334956814692445

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

HN Guidelines: “Don't solicit upvotes, comments, or submissions. Users should vote and comment when they run across something they personally find interesting—not for promotion.”

Personally, I took the test and got:

“A weak sense of space

Spatial skills are important in lots of things: Math, athletics, music and coding are just some examples.

Feelers in this group may struggle in these areas or need to find unconventional ways to approach the topics through the other arguments.”

Which is the exact opposite of me…

Idk but something feels off about the thing. OP says things that sound exactly like a bipolar mania: “I'm at an inflection point in my life, if you read the rest of the post. I've become very very powerful.”

“You don't know my name now, but I promise you. You will.”

Just because they took a 16 Q personality test.

I'm going to be transparent, when I read your post I assumed it was a dismissal that's a bit too shallow. Having read the article and taken the test, both sound uncomfortably like the writer has some sort of disordered thinking (e.g. has been really hitting the amphetamines). It's a little unhinged.

But as with all personality tests, it's fun to take. As with all such tests, the things they say are general enough that they apply to most people relatively well. It's like reading a horoscope - meant to entertain. The meaning ascribed to it in the article this post references is not something I could find.

My apologies. Your points are well-taken.

I confess I failed to properly familiarize myself with the HN guidelines. I absolutely did not intend to violate them. I will review and avoid violations in the future.

I have made some mistakes as a result of this semi-manic phase and I've taken steps to calm myself so they don't happen again.

All that said, I hope the material I shared is interesting regardless. It is ultimately just some interesting ideas, not a guaranteed way to become super powerful or anything silly like that.

This test should be subjected to rigorous scientific validation to make any objective claims about its utility. One place we want to start is a basic smell check of the Barnum effect. If that doesn't pan out, I believe that we (myself, the test creator, and any other individuals promoting the test) will own up to it. We are happy to be wrong and learn from it.

Usually the proper way to handle this is to flag and/or send a mail to hn [at] ycombinator.com; probably just the latter because there are a minimum number of flags required for any story to be taken off the page, while the issue at hand is a bit serious.

(For this one, I just sent an email; and it might be a good idea to introduce a reason for flagging that might help set various thresholds for moderator actions on the story.)

I received the same result, and similarly have strong spatial skills (among other divergences from the archetype). Taking a look through the others, none of them describe me particularly well. The author of the article touches on this when they mention how low-energy and emotionally moderated people find the personality test less interesting, but I would expand this to say that the results overrepresent 'type-A' and adjacent personality types, while the characterizations of those less goal-oriented, introverts, and so on are rather lacking.

I've also had that bit presented to me and it's similarly inaccurate.

CliftonStrengths were much more accurate and actually helped me understand one coworker better after we all took the test.

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