#No piss off that's at least one type of logical fallacy

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

I hate how if you voice the mildest criticism of the NHS you have to coat it in layers of I love the NHS!!! and all medical workers just want to help!!!! It's just a funding issue!!

Iike actually fuck that. The NHS is systematically flawed and biased and there are many medical workers who are cruel and malicious and put patients lives in danger. Sure the lack of funding and the overworking don't fucking help but maybe?? Maybe don't do medical abuse about it!!! Poor poor medical workers don't you understand they have to abuse and mistreat the vulnerable!!!

[doopcafe]

Attack on Titan (進撃の巨人): Assassin’s Bullet (S04E08)

Summary: The Paradis Island crew leaves the city and Gabi kills a minor character (spoilers). 

Comments: Right, so we open on Mikasa watching a fist fight between Reinar and Eren. Eren punches half of Reinar’s face off but Reinar manages to procure a used tampon from the ground, so he’s got that going for him at least.

Eren decides he’s done fighting for today so Mikasa carries him like a sack of dirty laundry back to their super-slow ass blimp where they meet up with Armin, Levi, and the rest of the crew (one of whom kicks Eren in the face). Jean, Sasha, and Connie are here (at least for now) and are busy extracting their troops.

Meanwhile, on the other racist, genocidal side of things, Magath is grateful the Eldians are finally leaving because he’s unsure how much more pounding his defiled ass can take. However, mini-Eren (Gabi) is pissed, picks up a rifle, and gives chase to Hanji’s super-slow ass blimp. 

There’s a shot here of Gabi standing there with her rifle, just this enormous instrument of death in comparison to her tiny little body and it’s just... something that I’m sure has a real-world analog, but I’m gonna take a moment here and appreciate that “little girl holds gun” is not commonly a part of my daily reality. 

Gabi explains to Falco that she’s had a shitty life (as an Eldian) and has tried so hard to show people that Eldians can be “good people.” So she’s pissed that Eren came into her city and murdered everyone made Eldians look bad.

In response, Falco thinks back to what Eren had told Reinar about Eren’s mum: Eren’s mum was eaten in front of him by a giant the Marleys created and unleashed on her. And Falco thinks that maybe they’re the baddies? 

But Gabi does some next-level Fox News shit, asking if Falco actually saw (first hand) Eren’s mom get eaten by giants. Of course he says no and so Gabi declares that it must not be true. That’s so dumb I spent five minutes without success trying to find the name of the logical fallacy, but couldn’t, suggesting no one bothered to give that one a name? 

Anyways, let’s talk about that ODM gear cable!

Right, so the plot here is that Gabi catches up to the super-slow ass blimp and encounters a single Eldian acting as a guard. This guy’s name is Lobov and he’s apparently a new recruit in the Recon Corps. Lobov chooses not to shoot a small child, costing him his life. Idiot! In AoT, you shoot children first and ask questions never.

Lobov’s corpse falls to the ground, trailing an ODM cable back to the blimp, like a Golden Shiny Wire of Hope for Gabi to climb towards her dreams of assassination. 

In the scene where Gabi’s bullet kills Lobov and his body drops to the ground, we can estimate the approximate distance from the blimp to the ground from the height of the buildings and from Hanji’s previous comment about “flying low” over the city. Assuming Marleyan building standards can be approximated by our own, a building story is approximately 4.3 m in height. The buildings on either side of the street are five stories (including the roof elements), or 21.5 m in height. Assuming the blimp is flying twice that distance above the ground, the blimp is approximately 43 m above Gabi.

However, the super-slow ass blimp is also moving away from Gabi. Using the scene of the blimp flying over the city (in the previous episode), I would estimate an approximate speed of maybe like, 15 kph? Since the maximum running speed of a human is something like 45 kph (much less for a child), and Gabi catches up to the airship, this is probably a reasonable guess. 

But Gabi spends approximately one minute speaking with Falco between the time she sends a bullet through the important bits of Lobov’s skull to the time she pulls the ODM gear trigger to begin her ascent. Therefore, in one minute, the airship would have travelled about 250 m. To this distance I’ll add, say, 100 m to account for the fact that, when Gabi shot Lobov, the airship was not directly overhead, but a little bit in the distance [Edit: I realized I could get a better estimate from the scene where Lobov’s corpse drops, but whatever]. The point is that the straight-line distance between one end of the cable to the other is approximately 350 m. 

Let’s try to put that number into perspective.

We get a few close-up shots of the cable both with Lobov’s chubby hand holding the trigger as well as Gabi’s hand in comparison, so we can estimate a cable diameter of about 10 mm from these shots. The volume of the cable is then 0.027 m^3.

Assuming those cables are made out of steel (like their swords), we can use a material density for a standard steel, say, 8000 kg/m3 to calculate the weight (mass) of the cable: approximately 220 kg. 

Which is about 485 pounds.

Uh... 

Wait, I was talking about this show? You know, with a title like “Assassin’s Bullet” there’s not really any dramatic moment here. You’re just waiting to find out who it’s gonna be. Since Gabi and Sasha shared a “look” an episode back after Sasha sent bullets into the heads of Gabi’s friends, my easy money’s on Sasha. Honestly, I’m surprised her and Connie have survived this long. 

After assassinating Sasha, you may be wondering how many rounds can be loaded into a standard-issue Marley rifle. Well, the commercial-break exposition is here to help! They’ve got five rounds. They hold five rounds and Gabi’s gone two-for-two so far. Returning from break, Gabi immediately reloads (nice) but Falco comes aboard and stops her. 

There’s some dramatic moment here of Sasha bleeding to death surrounded by friends who are desperately wrapping her abdomen with bandages, but they must not have watched the previous episodes because they forgot to bandage her forehead. Without bandages around her head, Sasha soon dies.

We return to Pieck, possibly dying (?), explaining to Magath that the blonde-haired soldier with a beard that led her and Porco into the well was one of the soldiers aboard the first scout ship sent to Paradis after Reinar got back. And then... wHAT. 

That’s how I originally typed “what” in my notes upon the reveal that Zeke defected, so I’m leaving it to better convey the type of delightfully surprised “what” that I felt at the time. But no seriously, hold up.

So the fake-beard person is named “Yelena,” who is loyal to Zeke, right? And Zeke has defected to Paradis Island? (Personally, after witnessing Mikasa and Levi fight I would have defected so I don’t blame the guy). And this was all a part of Zeke’s plan? To restore the Eldian Empire I guess? Anyways, it was well executed by the show. 

Roll call! 

Beast (Zeke) -> In good shape, defected to Eldians

Cart (Pieck) -> Serious injuries, unknown prognosis 

Armor (Reinar) -> A bad case of the sads

Female (Annie) -> Cocooned

Attack, Founder, War Hammer (Eren) -> Once again rescued by his friends 

Colossus (Armin) -> A bad case of the sads (over Sasha)

Jaw (Falco) -> Undoubtedly being wrung out into a bucket of bleach

No but seriously, how many people have died rescuing Eren over the course of this show? 

In conclusion, Sasha’s dead and Zeke has defected.

Okay Zeke, I think we’ll take you, but you’re not allowed to do the “inject people with blood and transform them into giants” move anymore. We don’t do that type of twisted shit over here on Paradis Island. 

My enjoyment: 4/5

[mbtinsanity-blog]

Alright folks, it's time for a good old-fashion MBTI rant, you ready? OKAY HERE WE GO LET'S GET STARTED

So Vox put out a video who knows how long ago about how the MBTI personality test is pretty much inaccurate half the time, the theory formulators (mother Briggs and daughter Briggs Myers expanding on Carl Jung's ideas) had no formal training in psychology or cognitive behavior, the system doesn't really fit everyone, people shouldn't use the system to gage someone's professional success, and the whole thing is totally useless astrology-esque Forer Effect nonsense and should only be used for entertainment purposes.

Where do I even start here.

So first of all, they're right, your Myers Briggs personality type should absolutely not be an indicator of your professional success or leadership skills, nor should it pigeon-hole you into any particular job or role. Companies that use MBTI this way are companies I'd be skeptical of using sound practices in their organization and categorization of employees.

The thing is, there is waaay more to people than their personality type. Trying to fit someone into a "suitable" role based on the way they think, feel, and take in information is ignoring what people actually want to do or enjoy doing, which is significant data when you're trying to get someone to do a job. Just because you might be really really good at crafting/outfit-making because the way you think and interact with your environment + the culmination of your life experiences has given you the tools you need to be good at it DOES NOT mean you want to start up your own crafting business or that you want to go into fashion. It just doesn't. Yes, that's a real life example for an ENTJ in case anyone was wondering, and that also doesn't mean all ENTJs would be good at crafting or fashion design. Crafting and fashion design are activities that can play to an ENTJ's strengths (like Te, Ni, and Se), but you still need skill, experience, tools, knowledge, and interest to do them.

That said, you CAN use someone's Myers Briggs personality type to predict what they might be good at. I was playing Mario Party with a bunch of new friends and I go in knowing that my Te sucks, I have none of it, but I instantly recognized one of my friends was a Te user when we paired up for a Te-oriented mini game I'd never played before. So what did I do? I instructed him do most of the Te work and we totally owned it! Recognizing what cognitive functions people are good at does help predict what kind of tasks someone might be good (or bad) at, which is useful for anything from knowing your own personal strengths/weaknesses to effectively structuring teamwork. Even so, it's really important to consider what tasks people want to do. I know an ENFJ who is really flippin' good at math, but she also hates it. Her propensity for math might not have anything to do with her type, and her hatred for it isn't an inherent ENFJ quality either, so you can't just say "hm, well because you're an ENFJ, you must be good/terrible at math so you should/shouldn't go into a math-oriented field", we can only guess. Trying it out is really where you get to discover it for yourself! And even if you're terrible at math, that doesn't mean you can't get better at it, practice, and go into a field that uses it. You can do whatever you want to do, regardless of your type.

Once more for the people in the back: YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO DO, REGARDLESS OF YOUR TYPE

Okay so back to why this Vox video pissed me off. First of all, it implicitly discredits the founders, Briggs and her daughter, by stating they had no background in psychology. What's that smell you say? Why I do declare it's the pungent aroma of logical fallacy Appeal to Authority, or at least it's antithesis. What actually makes a scientist a scientist? Someone who performs GOOD SCIENCE. I cannot tell you how many "scientists" there are out there with degrees in their field of specialty who didn't practice good science. Meanwhile, people without degrees (I dunno like pea-counting geneticist Gregor Mendel and legit so many other major contributors to science without degrees in their field of contribution) who have been taught scientific principles and appropriately used them are way more scientifically legitimate to me. One scientific principle is observation, and when it comes to psychology, observation is especially key! Who cares if Briggs and her daughter didn't have the scientific background, you don't need it to be a good scientist and make legitimate observations. On top of that, they came up with a testable system, which even in fields like biology and chemistry can be challenging to develop, but in psychology it is especially not easy. So trying to discredit people’s science and their systems based on professional qualifications? Yeah no, not having it. Let’s keep going with that train of thought for a sec and touch on their feelings about astrology. Now I’ve always called myself a “sucker” for astrology, acknowledging that the descriptors do tend to be both positive and appealingly general enough to ascribe a feeling of accuracy to your specified type that isn’t based on anything real (i.e. this is the Barnum or Forer Effect). But let’s challenge that for a moment, shall we? Surely from a scientific perspective there’s no way to support astrology as being a legitimate system, right? But the answer is a little more nuanced than “astrology is illegitimate”. Astrology doesn’t have any logical basis for the associations of its types with the alignment of the stars when someone was born, but what it does have is twelve distinct and cohesive personality types.  It is not inconceivable that someone out there observed various people over time and generated 12 different personality types based on the month in which someone was born by recognizing patterns in people and then assigning those patterns to individual personalities. I’m not saying these personalities were formed with “good scientific observation,” but the system isn’t as far-fetched as it might otherwise seem. Even if it’s not a good system, it’s still worth considering seriously as a system before brushing it off as total nonsense as many are inclined to do. To do so without investigation would not, in fact, be considered “good science”. So what about the idea that MBTI doesn’t fit everyone? Well, that’s kind of the point of testing the system, isn’t it? Not everyone has to fit the system for the system to be useful, but also I personally have yet to come across someone who doesn’t possess at least one of the suggested eight cognitive functions. Maybe MBTI doesn’t work the way the system currently says it works, which is why we can modify the system if the system doesn’t hold true. Theories are flexible and subject to change! If the system “doesn’t fit,” maybe it’s not a good system or maybe that’s okay and it’s still useful. Myers Briggs has wider applications than pure entertainment, and suggesting otherwise is being narrow-minded to the scope of the system. MBTI gives us a way to talk about human cognitive processes in an accessible way.  Being able to describe some of the reasons why people get along or don’t get along and how you can improve relationships is 200% useful information that we should not just discard as flimsy entertainment.  Even if a system seems ridiculous, take it seriously and then explain your reasons for why it isn’t cohesive. Be better, Vox. Be better.

[kendrixtermina]

Rluai is the most common for INFPs, just saying.

I think I’ve already said everything that there is to be said on the topic, but I will adress this one ask because I believe it touches on a topic that I’ve only covered in passing on this blog so far. 

BIg five vs. MBTI and possible correlations. 

There is not actually that much data that correlates which results where commonly received by the same people (some forums and tumblr’s own eilamona have attempted surveys though these would be biased by tumblr’s distribution not being RL’s and the usual trappings of self-reporting)

Also, with the Big 5 having 2x2x2x2x2 = 32 categories and thus few people in every category, you would need huge sample sizes and methodical proceeding to get significant correlations. “The most” could mean anything from one percent point more than the others or “over half”; a simple tally is no statement about distribution, and even a strong distribution spike is not equivalency.

See, for example, how ISTJs correlate with enneagram. There is actually a clear distinct tedency with 90% of ISTJs being one of 3 types, but each of those (1, 6 and 5) accounts for roughly a third of those 90% so it would be idiotic to say that say, being a 6  means you must be ISTJ. What about non 6 ISTJs? What about 6s who are ISFJ?

So even if most RULAIs are INFPs, all that tells you is that tells you is that if you’re both, you’re in the majority. But to tell the probability that a RULAI is INFP or a given INFP is RULAI, you would need to know either how many of all total RULAIs are INFPs, or how many INFPs are not RULAIs. 

I’m pretty sure I met some INFPs who were distinctly “E” (mostly 4w3s and/or soc-blinds) or “C” (chiefly 9w1s) for example, though I’d be surprised to find one who claims to be SCxxN. 

It’s called “Bayes’s theorem” and one of the many examples why the world would be much better if basic logic and probability theory were taught in schools.

What more,  much of what is out there on the correlating of mbti and big 5 is people trying to find some sort of equivalency between the systems, often based on a very dichotomous (and therefore, shallow) understanding of mbti that disregards the differences between them as independent metrics. See also “16 personaliies.org” and their attempt to add the neurotism metric (-A/T) which really just mucked up their test. 

Often this is supposed top validate mbti by tying it to the much renowned and supposedly so stable big 5 system - but big 5′s supposed stability and consistency comes from being a much simpler, shallower system: It really is just a ranking of specific traits or the lack thereof on a dichotomous scale. You either are orderly and reliable (”conscientious”) or you aren’t. You can get assigned a percentage to represent stronger or weaker tendencies.

Big 5 asks you “are you X?” You tell it “yes/no/maybe” and then it gives you a profile saying you are indeeed “Yes/no/maybe” on the X scale, and that for each trait. That can be useful for some applications, like correlating those traits with lifestyle choices or opinions or screening people for very demanding jobs, but it is virtually useless for the purposes most typology is used for - such as self-development or communication. 

It ranks you on a scale, but it does not really tell you anything you didn’t know before. It simply discribes, but doesn’t postulate any internal logic or structure -  It doesn’t have explanatory or predictive power. It doesn’t elucidate your inner workings, does not tell you how to get along better with a given type. It simply measures wether you are good at five things (socializing, keeping calm, being organized, making others like you, keeping an open mind) or not. There’s no advantage to being “Egocentric”, “Unstructured” or “Non-Curious.”

Big 5 measures 5 independent metrics and the combination thereof, so “RULEI” (RUxEI supposedly most common for INTP) is would not be that different from RULAI, after all that’s 4 or 5 matching! The difference is simply that the person goes a little further in not needlessly pissing people off, especially if the preference toward “A” is only weak one. 

Meanwhile, consider INFJ vs INFP. One letter apart. Sure there are many similarities but also many fundamental differences because it’s not just one letter: It means your valued functions are completely opposite. They will share traits common to all introverts, feelers and intuitives, but differ completely where functon-specific communication and reasoning differences are concerned. 

You could label yourself as “INFx” because you’re unsure about your actual type but you can’t actually be “in-between” because unlike Big 5, MBTI is not a combination of 5 scales, but a discreet classificator. 

The MBTI and all tests based on it as well as sister/branch theories like socionics are built upon the idea of the Jungian Functions, diffent distinct types of reasoning and information processing that CG Jung believed to have identified in the human mind. The system comes with the base axiom that you can have one of 8 dominant functions, and that’s it, and you’ve got to at least humor that idea for a while to assin yourself a MBTI type, and each function comes with a set of both likely (present often) and fixed (present always) traits that will be shared between the great majority of that functions. - which is what gives mbti more predictive and explanatory power. 

Someone being “Unstructured” just tells you they’re not a great organizer; Someone being a Perceiver implies a great deal about their way of thinking and decision making, be it neutral good or bad, and if you knew if they’re SP or NP you could infer even more, not always hard predictions but certainly probalities.

Just from the definitations that both the 5 traits and the functions have by definition it figures that some combinations are more frquent than others (for the same reason that, say, an ISFJ core 8 sounds pretty unlikely) but that does not a hard equivalency make, especially since big 5 allows for twice as many possibilities. 

The idea that you can just convert mbti letters to Big 5 letters as if the letters were all there were is fallacious. 

Indeed

Some things do correlations:

R/S with I/E for obvious reasons/ pretty much by design. Intro vs extroversion is one of the most obvious differences in human personalities and hence where any metric to sort those would start.   

But this is where it stops/ where things get weird or interesting depending on your PoV. 

L/C shows a very weak correlation but is almost evenly split among T/F. 

A/E shows some  correlaton of A with F and E with T correlating with the stereotype of how Feelers are “generally nicer” but it’s not a hard 

The oddest result is that intuitives are almost always Inquisitive but Sensors can be both and are evenly split overall with individual types having their own preferences. This isn’t just split among Si/Se lines as some stereotypes might suggest, ESTPs for example are very commonly Non-curious, but again, not always.   

These traits also veer into what we might call morals so they would pose. If people were predisposed toward their morals and could not be convinced, if the were “hardwired” so to speak the whole idea of morality would be pointless, for with what authority would you “blame” someone for being close minded or a jerkif they’re just following their programing?, but it is equally pointless morality as a blackbox even though we are comming closer and closer to understanding the brain. 

There’s also this tendency of treating anything we can detect as “organic” and everything we cannot as “mental”, a Soul Of The Gaps if you will (analoous to God Of The Gaps) but we know all mental processes are in the brain somehow, (because it can be destroyed by specific brain injuries, for example) so would explaining it all mean putting it all outside a person’s responsibility?  

Hidden in there is the false assumpton that the biologically explicable is “permanent” and thats true of some parts but the strenght of nerve connections can be as temporary as the state of a computer. 

Adding the problem that people do no sufficiently differentiate between facts and their interpretation. A fact is what is real regardless of what we think about it or wether we even know it. An interpretation is what a human think is ~means~ which matters only to humans. 

Fact: The earth goes around the sun

Interpretation A: See humans? you are not special. 

Interpretation B: See humans’ You’re not that bad. We get to participate in the “Dance of the stars” 

(AThe latter was actually written by a humanist writer of Kopernikus’ own time. if the earth goes round the sun, it is not “down” (where hell is) or “up” (where god is) as many geocentric worldviews implied. “Up or down” becomes utterly meaningless with heliocentrism. )

Fact: The brains of Liberals and Conservatives show differences in scans

Interpretation A: The people are Conservatives or Liberals because of inborn characteristics

From this you could then derive corollary a) All politics is meaningless bullshit if we do not really “chose” it  or c) Some politics is wrong, so some people (the ones you agree with) are better than others

Interpretation B: Peoples show differences because they are conservatives or liberals - the brain regions is how their opinion is “stored” and the media bubbles “train” them for characteristic reactions 

Interpretation C: Some people are more suceptible to certan kinds of propaganda, we [correct opinion] must phrase our message so it reaches those who are easily misled so they don’t end up voting againt their interest. [Your opinion]  is, after all, the best for everyone. 

Of course interpretations can become invalid if they don’t account for additional facts. If they scanned children and they had those characteristics before they even know what politics is, B goes out the window - Meanwhile if you scanned people before and after their opinions changed and the corresponing brain regions changed, too,  B might increase in likelihood

Another complicated factor is that people are more likely to see something as a neutral/preferential rather than a moral issue if they think it’s inborn. 

A common anti-homophobia argument is “But it’s inborn!” which is used because it seems to convince a lot of people even though it has nothing to do with homosexual acts themselves. If we could all choose wether to screw men, women, enbies or no one at all, wouldn’t it still not be anyone else’s business if it harms no one?

by contrast, Once upon a time “orderliness/discipline” was regarded as a moral thing, hence the very word “concientiousness” but now we don’t as much and there are cultural differences (some midwestern americans see foul language as a “moral failing” (”Good christians don’t swear”) rather than simply inappropiate or rude. )

Plenty to discuss here.

But basically, Big 5 and mbti are not equivalent and work by different principles indeed attempts to treat mbti like  big 5 have probably resulted in a lot of the less reliable tests out there.