The Purpose of MBTI

[Mole]

The purpose of mbti is to create roles that we all understand.

But why are roles becoming important now?

It's because we are moving from a society based on the literate individual to a society based on electric roles.

Print gave us the literate individual and electronics like Central are giving us electronic tribalism. And in any tribe there are no individuals rather each person plays a given role.

And the roles are given and immutable, quite like the roles assigned by mbti.

To the literate individual, mbti makes as much sense as astrology, but to the emerging etribalist, mbti makes complete sense as the assigner of roles.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

A role implies you're playing a part. Performance. I do less of that here than I do almost anywhere else.

 

[Mole]

A role implies you're playing a part. Performance. I do less of that here than I do almost anywhere else.

The roles I am talking about are the four letter roles, such as infp.

So each role is designated by the four letters of mbti.

And as you point out, a role is not a conscious performance, rather we identify with our given, immutable role and inhabit it. It fits us like a glove. It is us.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Given that, all of our individual accounts are also roles.

Consider, too... an internet message forum is, or at least can be, more of a snapshot of an internal monologue. It reveals an entirely different side of ourselves than in real life. A message board is a community of minds, not a community of bodies.

If only we could have print-out scrolls from message boards of antiquity. What did the average person actually think about? We don't really know. All we know is what the few, relatively elite individuals who could read and write thought.

I don't view the internet as the destruction of literacy at all. I view it as a distillation of literacy, or a condensation of it. Granted, some people have nothing worth reading about, but the internet didn't create that.

 

[Mole]

If only we could have print-out scrolls from message boards of antiquity. What did the average person actually think about? We don't really know. All we know is what the few, relatively elite individuals who could read and write thought.

It is only with the advent of free, secular and compulsory education in the last 100 years that we have achieved universal literacy, and only then in properous countries.

So for the last 200,000 years we have lived in spoken cultures not literate cultures.

And the spoken cultures were traditional tribal cultures, where there were no individuals only given and immutable roles.

And today when print is now the content of the electric media, electronic tribalism is emerging, and we are seeking our roles, and mbti is providing those roles.

 

[Mole]

I don't view the internet as the destruction of literacy at all. I view it as a distillation of literacy, or a condensation of it. Granted, some people have nothing worth reading about, but the internet didn't create that.

Look under your nose and you will see you are not reading print rather you are reading electronic print or eprint.

Print comes from a printing press while eprint is made by electrons.

So we have two different media: print media and electronic media.

And as the medium is the message, each medium creates a different user.

So we create our mediums and our mediums create us.

So the print medium creates the literate individual, while the electronic medium creates the electronic tribe.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

And the spoken cultures were traditional tribal cultures, where there were no individuals only given and immutable roles.

And today when print is now the content of the electric media, electronic tribalism is emerging, and we are seeking our roles, and mbti is providing those roles.

These two lines are the part I disagree with. Without written records, how do we even know there weren't individuals? We don't. We lack information and know very little about how people lived, or at least how they thought of themselves, before 5000 BC.

I guess the difference is that you view MBTI as roles that would not exist without the internet. I view them as patterns that the internet has elucidated. It would be harder to view these patterns without easy access to distillations of external monologues... so I could see how someone would think that.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Look under your nose and you will see you are not reading print rather you are reading electronic print or eprint.

Print comes from a printing press while eprint is made by electrons.

So we have two different media: print media and electronic media.

And as the medium is the message, each medium creates a different user.

So we create our mediums and our mediums create us.

So the print medium creates the literate individual, while the electronic medium creates the electronic tribe.

No, because you can get books through the same electronic medium. I don't see how that makes someone less literate.

The only thing I can figure out is that you're referring to the length of "print" vs. "e.print".

Internet communication has more in common with books than it does with spoken communication, or telephones.

 

[Mole]

Without written records, how do we even know there weren't individuals? We don't. We lack information and know very little about how people lived, or at least how they thought of themselves, before 5000 BC.

Oh please! We made first contact with tribal Papua New Guinea and administered Papua New Guinea from 1902 to 1975 under the UN. So we know precisely how they lived and how they thought of themselves.

We discovered functioning tribal societies that knew not individualism but rather each person had their assigned role. And even more interesting, not only were there no literate individuals, but each tribe felt as one, in other words, each tribe shared the same feelings at the same time.

It is important to understand these tribal societies for our future is an electonic tribal society, not unlike a traditional tribal society.

 

[Mole]

No, because you can get books through the same electronic medium. I don't see how that makes someone less literate.

The only thing I can figure out is that you're referring to the length of "print" vs. "e.print".

Internet communication has more in common with books than it does with spoken communication, or telephones.

Look, you are presenting the conventional viewpoint of the literate individual. All this came to an end in 1964 with, "Understanding Media", by Marshall McLuhan.

Marshall McLuhan is regarded as the patron saint of the internet, yet you haven't read him. How can you possibly understand what you are doing here on Central if you don't understand McLuhan?

All you can do is repeat back like a parrot the conventional wisdom of the literate individual.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh please! We made first contact with tribal Papua New Guinea and administered Papua New Guinea from 1902 to 1975 under the UN. So we know precisely how they lived and how they thought of themselves.

How do you know that those societies are the same as early human societies?

We discovered functioning tribal societies that knew not individualism but rather each person had their assigned role. And even more interesting, not only were there no literate individuals, but each tribe felt as one, in other words, each tribe shared the same feelings at the same time.

I highly doubt this. And this certainly does not happen here, although some feelings ripple across many individuals like currents. I don't think they ripple across everyone.

It is important to understand these tribal societies for our future is an electonic tribal society, not unlike a traditional tribal society.

Why? Suppose no one did. What then?

Look, you are presenting the conventional viewpoint of the literate individual. All this came to an end in 1964 with, "Understanding Media", by Marshall McLuhan.

How could this be so? There was nothing like INTPc around at the time. I can't remember whether or not the internet existed in some rudimentary form back then, but whatever might have been a precursor to INTPC was used by a very limited audience, if anything even existed that could be said to be a precursor. How could he have explained the internet if he wrote before there really was an internet? I very much doubt someone in 1964 used the term "e-tribe".

Marshall McLuhan is regarded as the patron saint of the internet, yet you haven't read him. How can you possibly understand what you are doing here on Central if you don't understand McLuhan?

Same way a mechanic can know how to fix a car without reading about it.

All you can do is repeat back like a parrot the conventional wisdom of the literate individual.

I parroted nothing. Those are my own thoughts I assembled at the time of my posts. If other people share those sentiments, I'm glad to not be alone, but I'm not repeating them.

 

[Mole]

How do you know that those societies are the same as early human societies?

I highly doubt this. And this certainly does not happen here, although some feelings ripple across many individuals like currents. I don't think they ripple across everyone.

Why? Suppose no one did. What then?

How could this be so? There was nothing like INTPc around at the time. I can't remember whether or not the internet existed in some rudimentary form back then, but whatever might have been a precursor to INTPC was used by a very limited audience, if anything even existed that could be said to be a precursor. How could he have explained the internet if he wrote before there really was an internet? I very much doubt someone in 1964 used the term "e-tribe".

Same way a mechanic can know how to fix a car without reading about it.

I parroted nothing. Those are my own thoughts I assembled at the time of my posts. If other people share those sentiments, I'm glad to not be alone, but I'm not repeating them.

I'm afraid you have been reduced to arguing for the sake of arguing.

Arguing for the sake of arguing takes us nowhere and is only an ego defence.

You present of someone with something of interest to say, but as this is not the case, you are reduced to your ego defence.

And I would prefer not to have my intelligence insulted.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I was actually trying to have an honest intellectual discussion this time, instead of engaging in sarcastic quips. If you can't handle either, I have nothing more to contribute.