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P.J. O'Rourke

Offog

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Nov 13, 2010
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99
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INTP
Have you read any of his stuff? He's definitely an ENTP:

The implications of division of labor are surprising, but only if we don't think about them. If we do think about them, they are, like most economic principles, a matter of common sense. There are, however, a few things about economics that don't seem to make sense at all. Todd G. Buchholz, in his book New Ideas from Dead Economists, says, "An insolent natural scientist once asked a famous economist to name one economic rule that isn't either obvious or unimportant." The reply was "Ricardo's law of competitive advantage."

The English economist David Ricardo (1772-1823) postulated this: If you can do X better than you can do Z, and there's a second person who can do Z better than he can do X, but can also do both X and Z better than you can, then an economy should not encourage that second person to do both things. You and he (and society as a whole) will profit more if you each do what you do best.

Let us decide, for the sake of an example, that one legal thriller is equal to one pop song as a Benefit to Society. (One thriller or one song = 1 unit of BS.) John Grisham is a better writer than Courtney Love. John Grisham is also (assuming he plays the comb and wax paper or something) a better musician than Courtney Love. Say John Grisham is 100 times the writer that Courtney Love is, and say he's 10 times the musician. Then say that John Grisham can either write 100 legal thrillers in a year (I'll bet he can) or compose 50 songs. This would mean that Courtney Love could write either 1 thriller or compose 5 songs in that time period.

If John Grisham spends 50 percent of his time scribbling predictable plots and 50 percent of his time blowing into a kazoo, the result would be 50 thrillers and 25 songs for a total of 75 BS units. If Courtney Love spends 50 percent of her time annoying a word processor and 50 percent of her time making noise in a recording studio, the result will be one half-completed thriller and 2.5 songs for a total of 3 BS. The grand total Benefit to Society will be 78 units.

If John Grisham spends 100 percent of his time inventing dumb adventures for two-dimensional characters and Courtney Love spends 100 percent of her time calling cats, the result will be 100 thrillers and 5 songs for a total Benefit to Society of 105 BS.

(Just to make things more confusing, note that Courtney Love loses 40 percent of her productivity by splitting her time between art and music, while John Grisham loses only 25 percent of his productivity. She has the "comparative advantage" in making music because her opportunity costs will be higher if she doesn't stick to what she does best.)

David Ricardo applied the Law of Comparative Advantage to questions of foreign trade. The Japanese make better CD players than we do, and they may be able to make better pop music, but we both profit by buying our CDs from Sony and letting Courtney Love tour Japan. And if she stays there, America has a definite advantage.

-- from Eat the Rich.
 

Mal12345

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I've read a few of his books. There is an issue with determining type when the ENFP appears to be a thinking type. And so the ENTP call is not to be made on the basis of a snap judgment. There is O'Rourke's political stumping, and his early liberal hippie days to consider. These are idealist N traits, and the ENFP is particularly political. On the other hand, ENTP's are some of the wittiest types around. So there seems to be some tertiary effect from the Te side.
 

Mal12345

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P.J. was an English major. "The MBTI was administered in this study to 112 English major students at a Hong Kong university. (92 female, 20 male, mean age 24)." In this study, the ENFP (at 8.9%) was 3 times more common than the ENTP (2.7%) . However, ENFPs were less common than the ISFJs and the ISFPs.

Also, for the ENFP - "In national sample “Leisure Activities,” overrepresented in “Writing,” “Appreciating art,” “Playing musical instrument,” “Listening to music,” “Reading”". The ENFP tends to go for Art, English, and Music, while the ENTP goes for Art and Science. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MvbA2VzfJ7sJ:myerbriggs.tumblr.com/page/2+p.j.+o'rourke+mbti&cd=7&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=www.google.com
 

Mal12345

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The reason Ne, and Ni also, can come across as quite intellectual is that they have to filter their iNtuitive ideas through a thinking process in order to communicate them. And iNtuition in general is more abstract than concrete Sensing. Ni writing is more obscure and ponderous but more detailed than Ne. Ne thinking is broader in scope.

Notice that PJ's writing revolves around humanistic issues on a more general plane, although satirically. Satire also makes his writing more palatable. That PJ is Ne has not been questioned yet. But his humanistic approach is very obvious. In order to see it otherwise, you pretty much have to ignore the content of everything he writes on.
 

Offog

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Nov 13, 2010
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99
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"Humanistic approach" != Fi. Just as ENFPs can access tert Te, ENTP can access tert Fe. But I don't have time to debate this further tonight.
 
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