Evolutionary reasons for current type distribution

[Elfboy]

let's use early hunter gathering societies as an example
- Si would have been useful for everyone. harvesting grain and farming in general require an obscenely uncomfortable amount of routine for non-SJs. more importantly however, if you cannot remember and pass on the lessons of the past, no permenant progress can be made and each generation has to start over from scratch. this is why today you see SJs making up about 45-50% of the population
- Fe would be the most economically advantageous for women. due to their anatomy, lower level of physical strength and need to remain safe to produce and take care of offspring, they have in the past been more suited to domestic pursuits. taking care of the work around the huts (cooking, making pottery, taking care of the children, taking care of the hunters' injuries). also, Fe would create a common culture and keep the tribe together collectively. this is why i think about 50% of women are FJs
- for men, Te and Se would be extremely advantageous for hunting. Te for drawing up hunting plans and Se for it's physical prowess. this is why we see a lot of STJ men and SP men
- more than a baseline level of intuition would probably not have been very useful during those times, even if today being N is probably slightly advantageous
- same goes for Ti and Fi. neither of these would have been particularly useful beyond a baseline point. however, Fi, Te and Si combined would have been good for making the first legal structures and Ti is a good skill to have if one is a craftsman, as many were in the earlier times
- the value of Fi by itself is not really linked to real world/tangible things as it deals with ideal, fantasy and aesthetics. this is why I think Fi has a reputation for being supernatural and often connected with magic or mythical creatures. the first myths and fairytales of old were probably devised by NFPs and would be useful in teaching the younger generations wisdom and life lessons.

anyway, just a theory

 

[Rasofy]

Does that mean our Ne is useless?
You have interesting points.
I definitely agree that the proportion of SJs has a great evolutional value, in the sense that they help structuring and perpetuating the societies.

 

[Elfboy]

Does that mean our Ne is useless?
You have interesting points.
I definitely agree that the proportion of SJs has a great evolution value, in the sense that they help structuring and perpetuating the societies.

it was then, but it sure as hell isn't now (especially now that the internet has taken hold. NPs friggin dominate at internet marketing)

 

[sleuthiness]

I think my gung-ho sx/so e12 enfp uncle would have been just as effective then as he is now.

 

[Elfboy]

I think my gung-ho sx/so e12 enfp uncle would have been just as effective then as he is now.

your disagreement is welcomed, especially as it gives props to ENFPs.
NFPs ftw!

 

[KDude]

I don't think some of these conditions necessarily negates types from appearing.. just that some may not have played to their strength in some environments.

Hmm.. That or actually they did play to their strengths in a way, and helped humanity evolve techniques in these humble conditions. It's not like agriculture or discovering which animals were easily domesticated compared to others is necessarily "S". That takes some thinking outside the box too.

As humanity evolved and spread about, and some geographical territories were more plentiful or required less work, plenty of people turned their attention to new pursuits. Arts, new forms of weapon and tool making, etc.. Some cultures evolved in such a way where they have been a lot of even distribution (like Athens, for example.. heavily N. And SP as well. People were more free to waste their time philosophizing or studying the stars or creating sculptures, or mocking their leaders and promoting new political ideals in literature or theater).

edit: Hmm, this post isn't very structured. I'm just thinking outloud.

 

[FDG]

That's some extremely stereotypical thinking, IMHO. First of all, we don't even know if functions truly "exist". Secondly, we don't know if type is fixed during one's lifetime. Thirdly, some of the characteristic you refer to (i.e. physical strength, good craftmanship, ability to deal with children) are completely unrelated to one's MBTI-Socionics types, they're wrong stereotypes too easily associated to specific functions.

Just think about how agriculture had to actually be "invented", while you're considering such a thing as something humans had to deal with since their dawn. It isn't, it's a very recent discovery.

 

[onemoretime]

let's use early hunter gathering societies as an example
- Si would have been useful for everyone. harvesting grain and farming in general require an obscenely uncomfortable amount of routine for non-SJs. more importantly however, if you cannot remember and pass on the lessons of the past, no permenant progress can be made and each generation has to start over from scratch. this is why today you see SJs making up about 45-50% of the population

Humans have farmed for approximately 0.5% of their existence, being generous with the numbers.

- Fe would be the most economically advantageous for women. due to their anatomy, lower level of physical strength and need to remain safe to produce and take care of offspring, they have in the past been more suited to domestic pursuits. taking care of the work around the huts (cooking, making pottery, taking care of the children, taking care of the hunters' injuries). also, Fe would create a common culture and keep the tribe together collectively. this is why i think about 50% of women are FJs

Fe doesn't imply a universal set of social values. These values and rules differ from community to community.

- for men, Te and Se would be extremely advantageous for hunting. Te for drawing up hunting plans and Se for it's physical prowess. this is why we see a lot of STJ men and SP men

Explain in detail how pre-agricultural humans hunted, and then maybe I'll take your idea into account.

- more than a baseline level of intuition would probably not have been very useful during those times, even if today being N is probably slightly advantageous

This is just silly. Do you have any clue how in-tune with one's environment a person must be to survive in a hunter-gatherer society? How important it would be to predict the moving of herds, or the coming of bad weather, based on small, abstract signals? How much value people place on being able to tell a good story when everything you have known or will ever know exists within a 50 mile radius?

- same goes for Ti and Fi. neither of these would have been particularly useful beyond a baseline point. however, Fi, Te and Si combined would have been good for making the first legal structures and Ti is a good skill to have if one is a craftsman, as many were in the earlier times

Once again, you betray a misunderstanding of what the introverted judging functions are for. Ti's main purpose is to keep you from killing yourself when you do something, which was the primary objective of pretty much everyone in those days. Fi's main purpose is to keep us from killing each other when someone does something that may seem threatening, which was the other primary objective of pretty much everyone in those days. You don't have a functioning society without either.

- the value of Fi by itself is not really linked to real world/tangible things as it deals with ideal, fantasy and aesthetics. this is why I think Fi has a reputation for being supernatural and often connected with magic or mythical creatures. the first myths and fairytales of old were probably devised by NFPs and would be useful in teaching the younger generations wisdom and life lessons.

All of those things are absolutely linked to the real and tangible world. Ideals provide standards, which sharpen others' judgment tremendously. Fantasy allows us to engage real problems in a detached way through the use and exploration of archetypes. It may not seem real to you, but to someone with extremely strong Ni, fantasy and reality are nothing more than two sides of the same coin. Aesthetics allows us to intuitively grasp what is safe and wholesome and what is dangerous and malignant. You need to have a sense of these things when you're living in an environment that doesn't give you a whole lot in the way of explicit information.

The first myths and fairy tales were likely stories of actual events that were passed from generation to generation, and it was through this generational persistence that their mystical qualities arose. Approximately 99,500 generations passed between the evolution of Homo sapiens and the beginning of agriculture. After that, 250 generations passed between the development of agriculture and the invention of writing. As a result, there are some who believe (and I am inclined to agree with them) that practically every basic story we tell one another is at least one million years old, and a small subset of them are ten thousand years old; i.e. the ones that would never occur to someone who lived a non-agrarian lifestyle.

anyway, just a theory

Work on it some more.

 

[onemoretime]

That's some extremely stereotypical thinking, IMHO. First of all, we don't even know if functions truly "exist". Secondly, we don't know if type is fixed during one's lifetime. Thirdly, some of the characteristic you refer to (i.e. physical strength, good craftmanship, ability to deal with children) are completely unrelated to one's MBTI-Socionics types, they're wrong stereotypes too easily associated to specific functions.

Just think about how agriculture had to actually be "invented", while you're considering such a thing as something humans had to deal with since their dawn. It isn't, it's a very recent discovery.

It took 3,500 years from the dawn of agriculture for someone to figure out how to make a plough. Three thousand, five hundred years.

I think the main problem with his argument is that he fails to recognize that the inventions that we consider simplest were the hardest to invent of them all. I mean, ONE PERSON figured out that a wheel could be scaled up to workable size. One person of the hundreds of millions who had lived up to that point figured that one out.

 

[nolla]

If the functions are related more to genes than cultural evolution, then I would agree with onemoretime that whatever the distribution is now, it has been so for a long time before agriculture. BTW, the first type of hunting was to outrun the animal. They just jogged for days. Not that this is relevant, but I think it's a funny fact.

 

[sculpting]

I dont agree with the details, but I enjoy seeing your ideas. You might consider reading a book by Julian Jaynes-I have heard discredited but a creative approach to a similar problem and a fascinating idea at least. An INTJ friend passed a few other book ideas along that I will hunt down as well and pass along.

I wrote other things but deleted them as I am trying to learn not to speak.