tom thinks

that you should sort by topic

date 2001-04-23:11:20
SelfConciousness More fun with personality tests. Unsurprisingly, the Spark.com test, which is unpretentiously fun, produces a more accurate assessment of my personality than most of the pretentiously hyped tests. According to it, I'm:



Which is described as:

MENTOR

(Submissive Extrovert Abstract Thinker )

Like just 6% of the population you are a MENTOR (SEAT). Some would call you the most powerful and influential of all people. Those people are wrong.

The reality is that you DON'T really WANT to impose personal views or beliefs on others. Yet you are extroverted and intelligent, and you like to get involved. So you help others with the pursuit of knowledge.

You're the reason that people say "teachers are also students." You are as much a learner as a master, and this satisfies you.

You won't die a lonely death, but towards the end you'll grow introspective, wondering if your life meant anything. This will last for decades, and you'll die after your spouse.


Of course, I could as well interpret any of the other descriptions as favorably--adjectives like "strong willed" and "aggressive" and "analytical" abound in all the descriptions I glanced at, all of which are words that I've seen applied to me one time or another.

This is the wonderful thing about personality tests--everyone is everything, but not at the same time. No one is completely devoid of will or analytical skills or any other human characteristic. So any test can say anything about anyone, and the people who want to believe will do so.

I wonder sometimes about the ethics of selling such people what they want, of selling not your best, most well-reasoned thoughts, but silly things that are just what people seem to want to hear.

Why would it be wrong to do so?

Well, it would be lying, for one. At least, it would be if you claimed to have any true insight. But it's clear that you could make money selling people insight while disclaiming any insight. Yes, we have no insight! We sell nonsense to idiots! Is that any difference from the "For entertainment purposes only" disclaimers on psychic hot-lines?

Would there be anything else wrong with it? If you were proclaiming it was all nonsense, you would hardly be at risk of being found out. In fact, this is what financial advisors--who are people I put squarely into the category inhabited by psychic advisors and personality profilers--do. They say, "You may not get good results, past performance is no indication of future performance."

So what would be wrong with it? I already have a beard, so the inability to shave wouldn't be that bad.

Or would it?
Software This is a real experiment in hot swapping software. I've been editing this entry while Caro has been adding functionality to the code at a great rate, which means suddenly the server is going to get information from a client that was generated from a different server. THIS is true test of technological virtuosity.

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