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You Are What You Blog
YOU ARE WHAT YOU BLOG....Via Andrew Sullivan, this is just scary. The Typealyzer sucks in the contents of your blog and spits out your Myers-Briggs personality type about two seconds later. Like pretty much everyone of a certain age who's worked in the business world, I've taken the Myers-Briggs test a couple of times, and the typealyzer got my personality type exactly right. (Though my recollection is that it was a close call on the Sensing/Intuition scale.) This is especially impressive considering that upwards of a third of the text on the blog is excerpts from news articles and other blogs.
Methinks the web is getting too smart for its own good. Granted, my personality type probably isn't too hard to figure out even from a 30-second conversation, but it's a little unnerving that some heap of silicon can do it. If they can already do this, how long will it be before our robot overlords take over completely?
INTJ is *not* the scientist type. It's the mastermind type. Get it right.
The question is how do you register on the Voight-Kampff Test.
Rats. The commenting system stole my evil laugh, making my comment sound petulant rather than mastermindly.
It's pretty dumb - you can even enter cnn.com, etc into this "analyzer".
Jebus Kevin,
The Meyer Briggs stuff is junk science. And Andrew Sullivan is an asshole who never deserves a link or a read.
Jerry,
I think Andrew Sullivan is now a reformed asshole. :-)
Wow, I tossed my blog into the Typealizer and it nailed me as a Performer. Then I wondered, this was based on the current front page of my blog, has my personality changed over time? So I selected a monthly archive from a few years back, it described me as a Doer. Hmm.
On a whim, I decided to test the Typealizer on itself. I fed it its own URL, it merely replied, "An error occured when downloading 'http://www.typealizer.com'." So don't worry about our "robot overlords," they are not yet self-aware.
I, for one, welcome our new silicon overlords.
Hey, somebody had to say it!
And they basically nailed my Myers-Briggs type, too.
I think Andrew Sullivan is now a reformed asshole.
With modern surgery, hemorrhoid cremes, and bleaching, anything is possible, but reformed or not, the output of an asshole is still the same.
I just put in the URL for my "Notes" (blog) on Facebook, and the Typealyzer responded:
"Detected language Thai. The only supported languages are English and Swedish. But stay tuned, we are expanding."
Aside from a smidgen of Spanish, English is my only language, and the language of my Notes. Do not fear the silicone overlords just yet.
I have two blogs. And two personalities, if this test can be believed.
Color me doubtful.
Myers-Briggs is not junk science. It is a pop science simplification of real personality science. The four continuum of the Myers-Briggs correspond well to four personality factors in models accepted by mainstream academic personality science, although most of real science models use five or more factors.
I would imagine that two statistics as simple as avg. length of paragraphs and avg. number of paragraphs might already indicate a lot about a person.
I have two blogs and I tried each one. I got two different results with almost no overlaps, Performer and Guardian.
Only got one of three right for me, assuming my type hasn't changed.
I'm an MBTI practitioner, and a confirmed INTJ. The typealyzer got me as ISTJ. Couldn't be more wrong. I don't have a responsible or dutiful bone in my body.
I agree, Kevin. This is just scary. I have a website, not a blog, but there's a lot of content, all of which I wrote.
ENTP, the Typealyzer said. Dead on.
Good lord, you're right--that's just scary! I mean, what are the odds that something could just randomly guess the correct answer out of sixteen possibilities?!?
As it happens, I maintain two blogs. Apparently when I'm typing in one of them I'm an ESTP and in the other I'm an ISFJ: Different in three of the four possible dimensions.
My wife also maintains two different blogs, and she's an ISFP and an INTJ. Again, different in three of the four.
It probably goes without saying that none of these answers actually matches our real Myers-Briggs types.
The blog is ESTP. In a former existence as a systems architect I was an INTP like every other software geek on the planet. The blog is about vintage stereo restoration, so the mention of a soldering iron seems to indicate I like to play outdoors.
And our robot overlords will have to vanquish our alien-gene-spliced illuminati overlords before they get to pull our strings. If you are not going to do paranoia right, please don't do it at all.
Yeah, I wouldn't sweat this at all. Every time I've ever taken the M-B, I've come back as an INTP. And those aren't partial tendencies.
Typealizer thinks I'm an ESFP.
So close to getting me 100% wrong!
I mean, what are the odds that something could just randomly guess the correct answer out of sixteen possibilities?!?
And even more scary, how is it possible that a largely complimentary description of oneself could possibly be taken as being untrue? It's amazing. This is the best thing since horoscopes and fortune cookies!
I gather that the MB inventory derives ultimately from Jung's ideas. I want a test based instead on Freud, to see what period in his childhood Andrew Sullivan's stuck in.
I've taken the MB test about a dozen times over the last 20 years and the results are amusing. I've scored as all eight of the Introvert types. I am an introvert, but otherwise it's useless.
I'm apparently stricken with multiple personality disorder. On my regular blog (regular in subject, sadly not in posting), I got:
ISTP - The Mechanics
which nails me as some sort of problem solving pragmatist. Put my Political blog in, though, and I get clustered in with
ESTP - The Doers
Oh, but it gets better. I write fiction on my third blog, so there, I am grouped in with
ISFP - The Artists
Or maybe I'm more complex than my blog. Oh well.
I got four different personality types for four different archive months...
I got four different personality types for four different archive months...
All four types are of the 'thinking' variety, but you don't need a personality test for that.
INTJs UNITE!
And how do we know that Kevin isn't actually a construct of our robot overlords?
I tried, and it told me the language detected was Turkish, but it only works in English and Swedish for now, so I should try again later.
I dunno. It says I'm ISTJ. Every time I take the M-B, my score comes back strongly I, strongly N, strongly T, weakly J. So maybe how you blog is only partly who you are.
OK. It got me. INTP
I'd sure like to know what the analysis algorithm is.
Decnavda, the MB is based on two factors, each with two different ends. You can see the factors on the graph presented at the end of the analysis. As I recall, the MB is based on forced choice questions (either/or) and depending which choice you make you move on point one way or the other on one of the two factors.
One factor is thinker/feeler. The other is practical/idealist. You are correct that more modern models use five or more factors.
Kevin,
What did you submit to get analyzed? If you did a Friday Catblogging post wouldn't you be a INKBT?
I note that Andrew Sullivan had the same personality type as Kevin Drum did.
Atrios and Matt Yglesias don't compute with this system, for some reason.
Glenn Greenwald turned up as INTP - The Thinkers:
The logical and analytical type. They are especially attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.
They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
That does sound a lot like Glenn Greenwald.
That having been said, though, this system isn't perfect. I entered two different blogs by the same person into it and it came up with two different personality types.
For both my current blogs, the tool gave me the EXACT opposite of how I tested 15 yrs ago. My first one was closer, though what was interesting was how dead-on its description: it could have said why that first one was such a failure....
I note that Andrew Sullivan had the same personality type as Kevin Drum did.
If Andrew Sullivan is a Thinking type, I'll... well, did anyone ever make that hat-shaped cake for Kevin?- anyway, Sully's got Feeler written all over his highly emotive output.
And the internet's full of INTJs, because it's easier than talking to real people.
Yeah, I hoped to nail this aspect first, but I write book reviews and when I dump in different review links I get different personality types. I'm a Mechanic, a Performer, a Visionary, a Thinker, and a Midnight Toker, apparently.
The Myers-Briggs test is supposed to be administered five or six times, at different times of day, days you work, days you don't...It's supposed to show where you fall on a spectrum. I've tested as everything with a P. On the spectrum, I'm hugging the middle of all the other scales, but I'm way on the end of the P scale.
Uncannily accurate.
"Detected language Not enough data to determine language.. The only supported languages are English and Swedish. But stay tuned, we are expanding."
Put in the link for William Kristol's columns and you get ESFP - the exact opposite of Kevin Drum! (including that "brain activity" triangle.)
Most of the profile seems silly, but for Kristol, this rings true: "They live in the present moment and don't like to plan ahead."
I've taken the test many times, always intj or infj. My blog on the other hand is ESTP. The Typealyzer gets it 75% wrong; the T that it gets right is the weakest characteristic. I've attempted to make my blog sound just like me. Clearly I failed ;-)
In Typealyzer's defense, I would expect different blogs by the same person to be analyzed differently. Otherwise, why are the blogs different ?
i have a blog about living in a tiny u.s. exclave on the u.s/canadian border. (getthewholepicture.blogspot.com)
took the test: turns out i'm the exact opposite on the blog of what i am in real life. the difference may be that the blog writer creates something of a persona?
Is a blog really not enough navel-gazing? We now have to analyze the blog itself? And blog about it? What does this say about us? Who's going to spend time doing real things?
Myers-Briggs is not science. It was not developed by scientists. It's more pop culture than pop science.
I was once forced to take one of these on the job. With not even 5 minutes of prep work, I was able to game the results to turn out exactly as I wished them to.
http://skepdic.com/myersb.html
Yes. The MB is crap.
When I was in graduate school , alot of people actually took a COURSE in it, and, would swear by it! It is truly junk. I was amazed the school offered it (as an elective)
If you go to a therpist who tries to "type and treat" you by this test---run.
Having wasted entirely too much time taking various "personality type" tests for various jobs over the years, I'm definitely with the skeptics here - not least because most of my college elective classes were in Psychology. For my money, the only really useful (and easily verifiable) personality metric was described, if I remember correctly, by the late Colonel David Hackworth in his memoir, "About Face." Geared toward military organizations, it ranks people as either Brilliant or Stupid, and Industrious or Lazy, yielding four categories which can be summarized as follows:
Brilliant/Industrious people make the best staff officers - smart enough to figure out what to do, and persistent enough to surmount the bureaucratic and political obstacles in their path.
Brilliant/Lazy people make the best field officers, as they excel at finding the easiest way to get something done.
Stupid/Lazy people are naturally undesirable, but as long as you spread them out thinly enough in your organization the Brilliant ones won't have any trouble picking up the slack.
Stupid/Industrious people, however, are to be avoided at all costs - they're best at rapidly screwing up everything they can get their hands on!
Hillary is also an INTJ.
It's worth asking what is actually surveyed by this software. Let's see -- what characteristics could be tallied, by a program which (I assume) cannot fathom the meanings of the text it reviews?
Rules of grammar -- whether sentences and given names are capitalized, possibly whether they also have clear subjects and verbs...
Word choice, size of vocabulary and variety of words used...
Structure, size and number of paragraphs...
All this is not very determinative -- or accurate, as we can see from the comments. Nevertheless it gets some things right. It pegged me (lightningjoe.blog-city.com) as INTP.
But one could ask what it was thinking, when it makes James Joyce out consistently to be a "Guardian," ESTJ, a label more fitting an HMO Human Resources hinge, more than an epochally talented writer.