NSFW Charles Murray, Richard Lynn, Tatu Vanhanen and the difficulty in finding data on a censored internet

[PoBoy84]

Start explaining why he won't have friends like other kids, won't like the things other kids like, and that he will receive constant backlash and bullying..
One thing to keep him from hating everyone is to explain that there ARE people like him. 99.x percentile? If he meets 500 people, chances are none of those will understand him at all.

There are about 40 to 100 million people as smart or smarter than him. He must have this information if he hasn't figured it out by himself.

He loves statistics and probably already has that one memorized as well. He'll tell you the percentiles of the most random groups, about facts that really don't matter, just because he knows it. When he was 2 he was rattling off shit like that, (he was speaking full sentences before then, waaay too early) and his sister said, I bet you can't say the alphabet backwards. He had never tried, and did so on the spot in front of us in less than 5 seconds. It's fucking ridiculous.

Since he is so smart, and self aware, we never told him the IQ test was an IQ test, (he figured it out immediately) but we never told him his score. He was completely uninterested in knowing and never cared to ask however. I found that odd.

SORRY FOR ANOTHER HIJACK

 

[[486]]

I look to Plato and his ship of fools (ship of state) for this. The person in charge of education must be a philosopher, a person who has been educated from their earlier years to direct their choices by reason only and an unbiased search for the common good.

But this is fundamentally impossible.
The 'common good' varies so wildly from person to person and most opinions there of are contradictory in irreconcilable ways.

Nobody has the absolute correct idea on what is right for them self, and nobody is really all that wrong either, thus leaving it up to everyone to decide for themselves which directions of growth are the most worthy of their efforts.

If you let education into the hands of the free market, you get what we have with colleges. Back step to "only the rich can get educated".
So I must disagree that the free market will "make good schools". Public schools in "bad" demographics are really bad - underfunded et cetera.

I am not sure which is worse, having an idiot in charge of curriculum, or an idiot with a need to own a yacht in charge of it.

We really do not have a free market of educations or educators, and we're always straying further from that.
Market control may not make the absolute best schools possible, but collectivization runs into where you need to get society to agree that schooling is more important than any other money sink like infrastructure, or throwing money away on welfare policies.

That's where the worst areas tend to fail, they're spending all their money/capital/effort on rent and malt liquor rather than meaningful things. The rich have a head start for sure, but the poor are much more class-mobile in a... classically liberal style of societal order than in a collectively planned caste system.

Sure, idiots would rather have drugs than housing, but that is a problem that solves itself if you only let it come to its own conclusion.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

He is on such a level of self, and surroundings awareness that he knows. He figured this out himself when he was still in pre K, and confronted me about it when I picked him up one day. I wish folks on here could talk to him for a few minutes. He has several good friends, and his classmates seem to love him which is good, but he has to dumb himself down. He hates school, but has learned to get through it. He's 9 now, and his situational awareness is off the charts. It can be depressing when your 1st grader or whatever comes home after a few weeks at school with his head hung down, basically telling me the work they are learning he's known how to do for a long time, and he has nothing he can talk about to the other children because they all act like babies. This was KG I think. He has learned to mix OK, but inside he's not met anyone he can relate to, and likely won't for years. If there is something we can't figure out as a family, we ask him and he knows instantly. He also remembers every exact date and time he did anything ever, lol. He corrects us all the time about things we say. "No, that happened before lunch time on Dec 2nd 2017. Once he reads or sees something, he memorizes it instantly and retains it forever. Beats all the shit I've ever seen, like the movies or something. I don't know where he got it. I'm a pretty intelligent guy, but I don't have his makings by far.

But, as said above hear, it can be relative is some ways. He cannot ride a bicycle, and isn't the most coordinated person ever. He will never follow in my footsteps of playing all the sports, and being involved in extreme activities etc. He weighs the risk/reward for everything he does. I've got my fucking hands full with this one. All I have to teach him is life lessons, and common sense. He already knows the rest before I get a chance to teach him stuff by teaching himself. His brain works much faster than mine.

I can relate to your son, I don't know if I was quite as sharp as you describe him to be at his age but I had many of the same issues with my peers. I would recommend keeping him with you and your friends as much as you can. Some of my best friends at that age were the older men that my dad knew. I was naive in how I approached them, because youth and ingnorance, but my interests and theirs were much aligned and they were the only ones that I could truly relate to. My best friends that are my peers I didn't really get along with until around high school, before that school was pretty lonely for me. Those old men were my best friends at a rough time, and I've lost too many of them, but I appreciate everything they gave me.

He loves statistics and probably already has that one memorized as well. He'll tell you the percentiles of the most random groups, about facts that really don't matter, just because he knows it. When he was 2 he was rattling off shit like that, (he was speaking full sentences before then, waaay too early) and his sister said, I bet you can't say the alphabet backwards. He had never tried, and did so on the spot in front of us in less than 5 seconds. It's fucking ridiculous.

Since he is so smart, and self aware, we never told him the IQ test was an IQ test, (he figured it out immediately) but we never told him his score. He was completely uninterested in knowing and never cared to ask however. I found that odd.

SORRY FOR ANOTHER HIJACK

At one time all my siblings were tested, around the same time. I was 7? maybe? Mom never told me what any of us scored, but it was after that they started throwing me a bunch of advanced work and started pushing me to jump a grade or two. I was an odd enough kid the folks never pushed for it, and by the time it was my choice I chose not to (I don't know in our rural area how that would have went, I was so different from my peers and picked on that what few people I got along with I didn't want to leave).

I will say this, I've seen many high-intelligence kids (in my estimation) get ruined by their peers and their schools, through a combination of praise for things that come easy, social pressure to 'just get along', and not being pushed to excel in a real way (meaning, pushed to work). I was -almost- one of those people. We do intelligent kids who are awkward a disservice by letting the academics come easy and not push them in other areas (social, physical).

My path to ruin was all the praise from teachers who didn't have to work to teach me, much of the advanced classes not really being anything more than a time-waste for a kid who needed distraction. Nobody cared how isolated and depressed I was, made worse by the fact that I only really had my intelligence to lean on so I flaunted it too much to my detriment. I wasn't pushed to work on social skills and barely pushed to work on my physicality.

Thankfully? I discovered football, then girls, then booze (that last one is double-edged). I loved playing football so I decided to get good at it. I wanted a girl even though I had no knowledge of what to do (that wasn't so easy). I started drinking (which I liked) and all of a sudden, after 6 beers or so, I could be interested in things my peers were (this led to problems later on). It also led me eventually to depression as once I gained some acceptance for sports and booze I let some of my lofty dreams die. Once out of school I'd changed life directions quite a bit. Ended up in way to many career paths where I was the smartest person on the job but had know way of turning that into success. Just because you're smart doesn't mean your right.
THE BIGGEST HINDERANCE TO MY SUCCESS HAS BEEN MY INTELLIGENCE AND NOT HAVING THAT PUT IN ITS PROPER PLACE AT THE CORRECT TIME IN MY DEVELOPMENT
There. Make sure your son knows that intelligence is a tool. Like a roll of wrenches, a sidearm, an automobile, a shovel. Now, its a tool that can be universally applied, but if you are not taught that it NEEDS TO BE APPLIED it may as well just be a party trick. Because I was smart, all the work I did during my education was exceedingly easy. Many tasks in my working career were exceedingly easy. It insults people in a mixed work environment to not struggle where they struggle. It also keeps you from building a proper relationship with work. Thankfully my dad, who was proud of his intelligent son, still make me split barge-boxes of wood every weekend to heat his shop.
I drifted for a couple years out of school, waiting for someone to recognize how DAMN SMART I was and pay me. When that didn't work I was thoroughly beat mentally and took some menial hard work with little future. I eventually built myself a little niche in that job that set the stage for me doing what I do right now with none of the typical qualifications, but its not the path I'd choose for anyone.

Thread derail? My thread, and nobody can derail like me

 

[PoBoy84]

I can relate to your son, I don't know if I was quite as sharp as you describe him to be at his age but I had many of the same issues with my peers. I would recommend keeping him with you and your friends as much as you can. Some of my best friends at that age were the older men that my dad knew. I was naive in how I approached them, because youth and ingnorance, but my interests and theirs were much aligned and they were the only ones that I could truly relate to. My best friends that are my peers I didn't really get along with until around high school, before that school was pretty lonely for me. Those old men were my best friends at a rough time, and I've lost too many of them, but I appreciate everything they gave me.

At one time all my siblings were tested, around the same time. I was 7? maybe? Mom never told me what any of us scored, but it was after that they started throwing me a bunch of advanced work and started pushing me to jump a grade or two. I was an odd enough kid the folks never pushed for it, and by the time it was my choice I chose not to (I don't know in our rural area how that would have went, I was so different from my peers and picked on that what few people I got along with I didn't want to leave).

I will say this, I've seen many high-intelligence kids (in my estimation) get ruined by their peers and their schools, through a combination of praise for things that come easy, social pressure to 'just get along', and not being pushed to excel in a real way (meaning, pushed to work). I was -almost- one of those people. We do intelligent kids who are awkward a disservice by letting the academics come easy and not push them in other areas (social, physical).

My path to ruin was all the praise from teachers who didn't have to work to teach me, much of the advanced classes not really being anything more than a time-waste for a kid who needed distraction. Nobody cared how isolated and depressed I was, made worse by the fact that I only really had my intelligence to lean on so I flaunted it too much to my detriment. I wasn't pushed to work on social skills and barely pushed to work on my physicality.

Thankfully? I discovered football, then girls, then booze (that last one is double-edged). I loved playing football so I decided to get good at it. I wanted a girl even though I had no knowledge of what to do (that wasn't so easy). I started drinking (which I liked) and all of a sudden, after 6 beers or so, I could be interested in things my peers were (this led to problems later on). It also led me eventually to depression as once I gained some acceptance for sports and booze I let some of my lofty dreams die. Once out of school I'd changed life directions quite a bit. Ended up in way to many career paths where I was the smartest person on the job but had know way of turning that into success. Just because you're smart doesn't mean your right.
THE BIGGEST HINDERANCE TO MY SUCCESS HAS BEEN MY INTELLIGENCE AND NOT HAVING THAT PUT IN ITS PROPER PLACE AT THE CORRECT TIME IN MY DEVELOPMENT
There. Make sure your son knows that intelligence is a tool. Like a roll of wrenches, a sidearm, an automobile, a shovel. Now, its a tool that can be universally applied, but if you are not taught that it NEEDS TO BE APPLIED it may as well just be a party trick. Because I was smart, all the work I did during my education was exceedingly easy. Many tasks in my working career were exceedingly easy. It insults people in a mixed work environment to not struggle where they struggle. It also keeps you from building a proper relationship with work. Thankfully my dad, who was proud of his intelligent son, still make me split barge-boxes of wood every weekend to heat his shop.
I drifted for a couple years out of school, waiting for someone to recognize how DAMN SMART I was and pay me. When that didn't work I was thoroughly beat mentally and took some menial hard work with little future. I eventually built myself a little niche in that job that set the stage for me doing what I do right now with none of the typical qualifications, but its not the path I'd choose for anyone.

Thread derail? My thread, and nobody can derail like me

I'm not sure my son will follow ANY of my footsteps etc, hahaha. He makes straight A's etc as expected at school. I told him most public school is BS anyway, and to do the best he can. Both my kids have missed probablly 25% of the school year. Niether one of them needs anything the school has to offer beyond the social aspects of school. Both of them are highly intelligent. I suppliment the kids at home, but honestly as far as academia goes, they teach themselves mostly. There's no other option for me here, geographically, or financially to do anything different until they are old enough for college should they choose to go. I'm sure both mine will be post grad kids. Neither however, are getting a liberal arts degree from an Ivy League on my dime though. You'll need to pick something better.

EDIT:

The boy has some rainman skills going on, albeit he's not on the spectrum or anything. Is just able to count and memorize etc. like that. He does love hanging with me and buddies though. I'm sure for the reasons you stated. Even many of the things he wants to talk about are over all of my friend's heads anyway. I have only one of those super philosophical friends who ponders daily about "x", and it is hilarious listening to them go back and forth. My son doesn't cuss, but all my adult friends say literally anything around him as they forget he's a kid after a bit. I learn alot from that kiddo. I do wish he had a couple buddie's on his level though. He's well liked, but I don't think he has EVER had a friend that he's the same as.

 

[PoBoy84]

Thread derail? My thread, and nobody can derail like me

It happens, lol.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

PoBoy84 I think in this age of all the knowledge you want at your fingertips the lack of location or resources is moot, so long as you recognize the need. When I was growing up my parents recognized the need, but the only resource they could get me is a library card, which I'm thankful for. You being engaged and helping to guide in the proper direction is probably enough so long as they are intelligent and curious and learn how to work and apply the knowledge. to a good dad. Remember (back to the topic), there's not much you can do to increase intelligence, but you can strangle it, and that's been well-documented.

 

[PoBoy84]

PoBoy84 I think in this age of all the knowledge you want at your fingertips the lack of location or resources is moot, so long as you recognize the need. When I was growing up my parents recognized the need, but the only resource they could get me is a library card, which I'm thankful for. You being engaged and helping to guide in the proper direction is probably enough so long as they are intelligent and curious and learn how to work and apply the knowledge. to a good dad. Remember (back to the topic), there's not much you can do to increase intelligence, but you can strangle it, and that's been well-documented.

Osmosis. That's how I learned most of the shit I actually use. Hoping he's picking up on stuff the same when he's hanging in the shop with me, or just in general. I can't teach him too many booksmarts he doesn't already have, but I can teach him skills that actually matter. Only things I have memorized are a shit load of mechanical and electrical formulas, etc. That's about all the math and such I can teach him. He's one of those kids that would likely be more into astrophysics than TIG welding or something.

 

[PoBoy84]

IowaOffRoad here's the lovely and polite duo. The boy would never throw the bird, lol. The girl will be 13 tomorrow.

 

[Yota Up]

When they say "white people made the IQ test" then that does have merit. It's a scale tailored to our modern western ways of thinking and doing.
It is a meter of adaptability for other "ways" of living.

The white people turned out to have the most twirly moral compass, and are happy to twirl it for money and/or power.

White people didn't just make the IQ test. White people made everything, so now your stupid approach goes tits up to cover the planet for any idiotic thought you put forward.



White people, moral compass? GTFO.
You mean like 13% of the population committing 55% of all murders?

 

[rockota]

Can someone PM me when this thread is available on audible? Too damned many words.

Thx

 

[MChat]

In my professional opinion, as a carpenter, Intelligence Quotient tests are flawed in that they may consider the Ashkenazi jew who kicks ass at math, but can't track a moose across a mud flat to be very intelligent, but not a bushman who can track a snake across a flat rock and tell you what it ate for breakfast...both people who are very smart, but different practical applications. There is not, that I'm aware of, a better way to measure one's mental abilities.

This hits the nail on the head when testing people of various cultures' IQ. Even tests that "take into consideration age and education level" are still going to end up biased in testing for the things that we equate to intelligence. By the time a child has reached an age in which he or she can be even tested, they have already been introduced to cultural influences that will affect their ability to score well on said test.

Take the Ames Window Illusion as an example. Simply growing up in an environment with rectangular windows has prepositioned our mind to see the illusion rather than the reality. And even when we are told and shown how the illusion works, we still see the illusion rather than the reality. Meanwhile, your "pigmy" or "bushman" that scored poorly on an IQ test will instantly see the reality and not the illusion because their mind has not been trained to see the trapezoid as a window. If we use only that illusion to demonstrate intelligence, then the Pigmy and Bushman are shown to be highly intelligent and all of us "Westerners" as being unintelligent.



The bottom line is our tests for intelligence will only demonstrate an individual's capacity for what we deem to be important in order to be considered "intelligent".

Having said that, people of specific ethnicities that grow up in our western culture are given the advantage of developing their brains in the same way that we have deemed important to our culture. Which then brings up the question, why do these ethnicities still do worse than others that grow up in this same "western" environment? This is where genetics and (micro) "evolution" come into play. Generation after generation of having a different measurement for what is "intelligent" is going to affect the offspring of anyone from that genetic group. When the ability to do math is less important than being able to "track a snake across a flat rock" is multiplied over hundreds of generations, and then you come along and try to measure their ability to do math as a sign of intelligence, of course they're going to score poorly on such a test.

Over time, this genetic predisposition can be overcome in the same way that it was created in the first place. Generation after generation growing up in a culture where math is more important than tracking snakes is going to result in offspring that are increasingly better at math. Given that "doing math" makes one more attractive to the opposite sex than tracking snakes that is.

Meanwhile you take any of us and transplant us into the middle of the African jungle and we're going to seem like idiots compared to the natives that are there. We're going to make mistakes that their toddlers wouldn't make. We're not going to be able to do things that their children are experts at. The tribal elders are going to view us and treat us as "simpletons that just aren't smart enough to know better".

 

[MChat]

THE BIGGEST HINDERANCE TO MY SUCCESS HAS BEEN MY INTELLIGENCE AND NOT HAVING THAT PUT IN ITS PROPER PLACE AT THE CORRECT TIME IN MY DEVELOPMENT

Analysis paralysis.

There are a few variations of the same "personality type" quiz such as the DISC assessment. One of the personality types is invariable referred to as "the Analyst" (or something similar). What I don't like about most of these types of personality assessments is they tend to present it as "this is who you are" when in reality, it is more of a "this is your dominant behavior." You are not a "People Pleaser", an "Analyst", a "Doer" or an "Influencer" you are all of these things. And truly successful people find a way to balance these out in a way that works for them.

When the Analyst becomes the dominant personality trait, it can be crippling. And often really intelligent people end up becoming predominantly the Analyst. When you're young and you "get the right answers" more often than not, then you get praise, then you want to get the right answer more and more. In order to get the right answer, you read more than your peers, you study more than your peers, you pay attention in class more than your peers. In the end you become more and more often the Analyst.

The problem with the Analyst is that personality type can't make a decision. In order to make a decision, you have to influence yourself, you have to become the Influencer because only the Influencer can make a decision. The problem is we want to make the "right" decision and thus we think the way to make the right decision is to rely on the Analyst And we feed the Analyst more and more information, but the more information the Analyst gets, the more he wants. In reality, the Analyst needs to get to the point where there is enough information for the Influencer to make a good decision and then we need to let our Influencer decide.

The Analyst and the People Pleaser are very rarely (if ever) confident. It is the Influencer and the Doer that are confident. Ironically, confidence is something the Analyst wants, but the more information he gets, the less confident he becomes. People who are predominantly Influencers and Doers end up being leaders, particularly if their Influencer is strong enough to actually influence other people, not just themselves. A Doer/Influencer combo makes decisions and moves on and if that decision is wrong, they'll usually make a correction, decide on something different and continue moving forward. They will have made multiple mistakes and moved on toward success while the Analyst is still trying to decide on his first move. And if the Analyst's decision is wrong, it will take them longer to admit it and alter course.

Having that balance is key. Be enough of a People Pleaser to build rapport and get people on your team to "like you", get enough information to have the Analyst come up with 2 or 3 different choices, then hand off the decision to the Influencer who will get the team on board and then switch to the Doer and get to implementing the plan and decision that the Analyst came up with and the Influencer decided on. Rinse and repeat about 1000 times a day.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

This hits the nail on the head when testing people of various cultures' IQ. Even tests that "take into consideration age and education level" are still going to end up biased in testing for the things that we equate to intelligence. By the time a child has reached an age in which he or she can be even tested, they have already been introduced to cultural influences that will affect their ability to score well on said test.

Take the Ames Window Illusion as an example. Simply growing up in an environment with rectangular windows has prepositioned our mind to see the illusion rather than the reality. And even when we are told and shown how the illusion works, we still see the illusion rather than the reality. Meanwhile, your "pigmy" or "bushman" that scored poorly on an IQ test will instantly see the reality and not the illusion because their mind has not been trained to see the trapezoid as a window. If we use only that illusion to demonstrate intelligence, then the Pigmy and Bushman are shown to be highly intelligent and all of us "Westerners" as being unintelligent.



The bottom line is our tests for intelligence will only demonstrate an individual's capacity for what we deem to be important in order to be considered "intelligent".

Having said that, people of specific ethnicities that grow up in our western culture are given the advantage of developing their brains in the same way that we have deemed important to our culture. Which then brings up the question, why do these ethnicities still do worse than others that grow up in this same "western" environment? This is where genetics and (micro) "evolution" come into play. Generation after generation of having a different measurement for what is "intelligent" is going to affect the offspring of anyone from that genetic group. When the ability to do math is less important than being able to "track a snake across a flat rock" is multiplied over hundreds of generations, and then you come along and try to measure their ability to do math as a sign of intelligence, of course they're going to score poorly on such a test.

Over time, this genetic predisposition can be overcome in the same way that it was created in the first place. Generation after generation growing up in a culture where math is more important than tracking snakes is going to result in offspring that are increasingly better at math. Given that "doing math" makes one more attractive to the opposite sex than tracking snakes that is.

Meanwhile you take any of us and transplant us into the middle of the African jungle and we're going to seem like idiots compared to the natives that are there. We're going to make mistakes that their toddlers wouldn't make. We're not going to be able to do things that their children are experts at. The tribal elders are going to view us and treat us as "simpletons that just aren't smart enough to know better".

The argument about intelligence being biased has merit, but there are versions of IQ tests that are not dependent upon the written word and give researchers the ability to test children who cannot speak or write. Considering how saturated most of the world is with western culture and the basics of IQ tests aren't dependent on mastery of technology, or even familiar with it (much of the world even 30-40 years ago was already at a post-WW2 level of sophistication) for your argument against to really hold merit you'd have to go back to first contact with "the west" to even have a chance at truly debunking the tests on those merits.
I've seen that curiosity show episode. Do you think than anybody who is aboriginal Australian today hasn't had tons of experience with windows? Do you suppose their 10yo kids wouldn't fall for the same optical illusion. Many arguments against IQ tests depend on a racist caricature of "Hollywood Indians" or "Crocodile Dundee Aborigines" like the majority of those groups still live that way.
All an IQ test is supposed to determine is your reasoning and problem-solving abilities. Not how many factotums you can recite. Not whether you've heard of a Kardashian or know how to run an iPhone. We measure western civilization based upon the problems it has solved. One of the dangers of today is we deny it's ability to do that at just the time we supposedly need it. Africa has had famine and starvation for generations, just like centuries before Europe did. Africa is now facing an obesity and diabetes problem due to a large-scale adoption of western farming techniques adapted for the region in countries who's governments who will get out of the population's way. Property rights is another mostly western invention, and enforcement of property rights in the wests former colonies had been more or less directly tied to the health outcomes of the citizens of those countries, due to the wealth-creation that is only available if someone who invests in something actually owns it.
Hey, I don't give a damn who your parents are or what they look like. I do think that finding correlations between things like IQ, property rights, health outcomes, relative wealth compared to others in the world, violent crime, and other factors should all be looked at seriously and not debunked just because some people feel that it doesn't "feel" right to judge. Every ideal is a judge. Nobody wants to be judged.

You tell me, with no other information, would you want your kid to perform on the left or right side of the bell curve in one of these tests? If sub-saharan Africans would be at the top of this list would you have the same opinion of it? What if Asians were at the bottom?
All studies and all datasets deserve to be challenged with the rigor in which they were done. All conclusions should be challenged in the same way in which they were arrived at. "I don't think that's right" is the beginning of the dissertation in which you take the results you don't like down, not the end of it.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Analysis paralysis.

There are a few variations of the same "personality type" quiz such as the DISC assessment. One of the personality types is invariable referred to as "the Analyst" (or something similar). What I don't like about most of these types of personality assessments is they tend to present it as "this is who you are" when in reality, it is more of a "this is your dominant behavior." You are not a "People Pleaser", an "Analyst", a "Doer" or an "Influencer" you are all of these things. And truly successful people find a way to balance these out in a way that works for them.

When the Analyst becomes the dominant personality trait, it can be crippling. And often really intelligent people end up becoming predominantly the Analyst. When you're young and you "get the right answers" more often than not, then you get praise, then you want to get the right answer more and more. In order to get the right answer, you read more than your peers, you study more than your peers, you pay attention in class more than your peers. In the end you become more and more often the Analyst.

The problem with the Analyst is that personality type can't make a decision. In order to make a decision, you have to influence yourself, you have to become the Influencer because only the Influencer can make a decision. The problem is we want to make the "right" decision and thus we think the way to make the right decision is to rely on the Analyst And we feed the Analyst more and more information, but the more information the Analyst gets, the more he wants. In reality, the Analyst needs to get to the point where there is enough information for the Influencer to make a good decision and then we need to let our Influencer decide.

The Analyst and the People Pleaser are very rarely (if ever) confident. It is the Influencer and the Doer that are confident. Ironically, confidence is something the Analyst wants, but the more information he gets, the less confident he becomes. People who are predominantly Influencers and Doers end up being leaders, particularly if their Influencer is strong enough to actually influence other people, not just themselves. A Doer/Influencer combo makes decisions and moves on and if that decision is wrong, they'll usually make a correction, decide on something different and continue moving forward. They will have made multiple mistakes and moved on toward success while the Analyst is still trying to decide on his first move. And if the Analyst's decision is wrong, it will take them longer to admit it and alter course.

Having that balance is key. Be enough of a People Pleaser to build rapport and get people on your team to "like you", get enough information to have the Analyst come up with 2 or 3 different choices, then hand off the decision to the Influencer who will get the team on board and then switch to the Doer and get to implementing the plan and decision that the Analyst came up with and the Influencer decided on. Rinse and repeat about 1000 times a day.

This makes me question your whole DISC assessment. That was not it at all.
My optimism for my future was shrunk down to nothing due to the realization that what I'd wanted to do for several years (astrophysicist, don't laugh, loved "A brief history of time") didn't jive with my hatred of the establishment of school by the time I turned 16. The Trig and Calculus classes I was taking at the time were almost a waste of time due to the fact they were full of a bunch of NHS girls who were taking AP math classes so it would look good on a college app. School wouldn't flunk them out so there was a bunch of time-wasting make-work assignments for extra credit that drug the class to a standstill. Also, there's the realization that, in the days before computers being readily available to me I'd have to hand-write a bunch of stuff to not even get enough scholarships to go do a high-risk, low-reward career that would lead me to paying off student loans that at the time would have been a nice house in town. Now, much of this wasn't true, but the general attitude of my parents and siblings about a future like that for anyone from our income level was very poor reaching such goals ate away my spirit regarding that. But, I was still left with my intelligence right? Surely that would be enough? I shouldn't have to go to school, I'll just get someone to hire me, a Bright Young Man™, and I will be on my way to success.
No.
My older sister left college (no degree) around the time I graduated, wasting 4 years of loans and whatever support money my parents could scrape up. She is very smart herself, but ended up at a factory, and for a while doing absolutely nothing. I realized later what I suffered from, from age 17 to about 20, is what she had from about 16 to 35. Intelligence poorly directed leads to one thing:
You think smart is enough.
You think that, whether you work hard or not, whether you know anything about the job or not, you should not have to pay dues, you should be brought to the head of the line, you shouldn't be insulted by a starting wage. When my sister finally decided to get her shit together, in about 5 years she went from part-time at DG, to managing the DG in 6 months, to managing a group of stores in 18 months. In about 2.5 years from the start of that she headed QC and an ammunition manufacturer (liberal that hates guns, she'd have never stooped to a job like that 20 years prior), to now helping to start a gun and gun parts manufacturing facility as shipping/receiving/QA and employee #5. I'm super proud of her. She even owns a gun now as the owner told her she needed to be familiar with the product and made her build one out of parts
I never had a bad work ethic but I still had a sense of entitlement... until about 20, in which case I 'took a job' that was only supposed to be temporary and worked my way into a pretty good position, then a series of events that led me where I'm at now.
I have rarely had issues making a decision and am happy to put my name on the decision, right or wrong. I'd rather take the credit or the blame that waste time hem-hawing. My number 1 refrain to my kids is "DO SOMETHING".

 

[fordguy]

IowaOffRoad here's the lovely and polite duo. The boy would never throw the bird, lol. The girl will be 13 tomorrow.

dude you need to change your kids haircut and get him some new glasses. maybe a couple tattoos while youre at it.

 

[holdmypocket]

I don’t think the channels you’re searching is the issue, I think there’s just not a whole lot on this subject published on the internet where people are cancelled from everything they care about if they offend someone (intentionally or not).

 

[PoBoy84]

dude you need to change your kids haircut and get him some new glasses. maybe a couple tattoos while youre at it.

Lol. The kid hates getting his hair cut, and will only wear that model of glasses. With a kid as smart as him, ya gotta take the quirks with it.

 

[MChat]

The argument about intelligence being biased has merit, but there are versions of IQ tests that are not dependent upon the written word and give researchers the ability to test children who cannot speak or write. Considering how saturated most of the world is with western culture and the basics of IQ tests aren't dependent on mastery of technology, or even familiar with it (much of the world even 30-40 years ago was already at a post-WW2 level of sophistication) for your argument against to really hold merit you'd have to go back to first contact with "the west" to even have a chance at truly debunking the tests on those merits.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that IQ tests have no merit at all for your argument, which for the most part I agree with. However, it does need to be recognized that even the best IQ tests are going to be biased in ways that cannot be anticipated. This doesn't mean that IQ tests are completely inaccurate here, just that the numbers will be skewed to favor people with certain socio-economic lifestyles.

For example, even on "non-verbal intelligence tests" any child that played with one of these toys, will automatically score higher than a child who had never seen any of these shapes prior to taking the test:

Your original post shows African Bushmen and Pygmies scoring lower than the estimated intelligence of chimpanzee's. According to IQ (estimated or measured) alone then, the slavers hundreds of years ago would have been better off capturing, training and enslaving chimps rather than the Bushmen and Pygmy tribal people.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that IQ tests have no merit at all for your argument, which for the most part I agree with. However, it does need to be recognized that even the best IQ tests are going to be biased in ways that cannot be anticipated. This doesn't mean that IQ tests are completely inaccurate here, just that the numbers will be skewed to favor people with certain socio-economic lifestyles.

For example, even on "non-verbal intelligence tests" any child that played with one of these toys, will automatically score higher than a child who had never seen any of these shapes prior to taking the test:

Your original post shows African Bushmen and Pygmies scoring lower than the estimated intelligence of chimpanzee's. According to IQ (estimated or measured) alone then, the slavers hundreds of years ago would have been better off capturing, training and enslaving chimps rather than the Bushmen and Pygmy tribal people.

Our intelligence tests rely on the assumption of self-awareness in the human sense and the ability to predict the future, traits that we only guess at in other animals. As far as we know we could just be anthropomorphizing IQ in this way and a test to do it properly can't be created by a species with an entirely different mind.
It would be racist to claim that those with different genetics have a fundamentally different brain than cannot be evaluated to a standard. It would be the same as claiming that those with different genetics are a different species.

 

[MChat]

But, I was still left with my intelligence right? Surely that would be enough? I shouldn't have to go to school, I'll just get someone to hire me, a Bright Young Man™, and I will be on my way to success.

By the time I got to High School, I hated school as well. It was too easy for me, and especially in the lower grades I was bored, a lot (I "got" the lesson about 5 minutes in, but hours later the teacher was still trying to teach dumbest kid). Even in AP math, the other kids in my class would struggle, while I sat in the back of the class, ignoring the teacher and reading Hot Rod magazines; then I'd go home, read the book, do some of the homework and go in on Fridays and ace the quiz/test.

Some teachers were "good" with the way I learned while others apparently hated me for it. My sophomore math teacher (AP "Advanced Plane Geometry") ruined math for me. She would assign 30 homework problems each day, if you did all 30 and got all 30 wrong (but "showed your work") you got a 100. If you did 29 out of 30 (or did 30 out of 30 but didn't "show your work") and got them all correct you got a 0. It was the "show your work" part that I abhorred the most; it was like trying to explain how I breathed to a chimpanzee. I stopped doing her homework pretty much altogether (I'd do enough to "get" the lesson and not bother turning in anything since she was going to give me a 0 anyway).

She swore up and down that I was cheating somehow. Made me move my desk right next to hers so she could watch me when I took a test. Made me come back afterschool to retake a test I'd already aced. Had a teacher's aide sit and stare at me, watching while I took the test. None of it convinced her that I wasn't still cheating somehow. After dealing with her for 2 semesters I wanted nothing more to do with "higher math." I took Trig my junior year and that satisfied my graduation requirements, and I never took another math class again. In my 25+ years as a software engineer, I've used Trig ONCE while writing a program to figure out seat placement in an arc around a stage.

I don't recall ever having a "I deserve this because I'm smart" mentality. It might be that my parents seemed disinterested in how smart I was, partly due to the fact that my brother struggled with reading (something similar to dyslexia, but he only saw the first couple of letters and the last couple of letters in a word, everything in between "didn't exist" so he'd "guess" at the word). While I got A's and no praise, he'd get C's and a whole bunch of praise (at least that's how my mind remembers it). I also recognized that while I learned certain things so quickly that it seemed like I just "already knew it", there were other things which I struggled with (Spanish class, for instance).

I also joined the Army on the delayed entry program my Senior year of HS. If I did have any "entitlement attitude" when I arrived for Basic Training, it was definitely gone by the time I graduated it. Ironically, I "fell" into the software engineering industry. I never took a class for it, just sat down and started coding. In the mid-late 90's between the .com boon and Y2K stuff anyone that could write a line of code could get a job as a programmer. Coding concepts came as naturally as breathing to me and I quickly progressed to be a Senior Software Engineer. My social skills, however, left a lot to be desired: I was the stereotypical programmer from the 90's, the geek you kept in the basement, fed carbs and Mt Dew, dumped requirements on his desk and he'd churn out code like a machine, but you didn't let him talk to anyone because he'd creep them out (or something).

I had no interest in being a Lead, no interest in being a Mentor and no interest in being a Manager. I was content to churn out code, even though I'd hit a plateau in my career. It wasn't until I went through a divorce and had a girlfriend introduce me into the "Personal Development" world. It was those courses on Human Communication that shifted the way I communicated with myself and others to the point now, that I find being an Influencer (Leader, Mentor and Manager) exciting and rewarding in ways that churning out code could never have accomplished.

Ironically, for me, then "being smart" (being the Analyst) was enough. Enough, at least, at the beginning. But once I hit a certain point, being the Analyst wasn't enough. When I first learned the 4 personality types at the Personal Development event I went to, we wore "nametags" for each personality type and practiced being that personality type. For my "Influencer" name, I chose a name from the Family Circus comic: "Not-Me". I could identify with the People Pleaser and the Doer personality types (in reality I was like 45% the Analyst and 40% the Doer, or no code would have actually been written), but I did not identify with the Influencer at all.

I also got a ton of the "that's not for people like us" from my parents while growing up; it took me awhile to break out of that mentality. I remember when I bought a brand-new BMW M3, ordered it from the dealership, waited 3-4 months for it to get built and shipped here. The entire time I waited, there was part of me that expected a phone call ("We're sorry sir, we checked our records, and this car isn't for people like you". Even the day I picked it up, I kept expecting the sales manager to come out and give me the bad news. Thinking about that, I'd say if anything I got the exact opposite of an "entitlement attitude" from "being smart".

I have rarely had issues making a decision and am happy to put my name on the decision, right or wrong. I'd rather take the credit or the blame that waste time hem-hawing. My number 1 refrain to my kids is "DO SOMETHING".

Sounds like you have a healthy amount of the Doer in you, as well as more Influencer than I used to have. I guess one of the key differences between us might have more to do with "Human Rights" than our relative intelligence. It sounds like you received way more of the Right to Be than I did. The Right to Be is what you get when your parents (or other important people in your life) tell you that you are important, that you are unique, you have value, or that you are appreciated, etc... Between the praise my brother received that I didn't and being told (repeatedly) "the world doesn't revolve around you", I got very little of the Right to Be growing up.

People with a lot of the Right to Be, do end often end up with a least a little bit of an entitlement attitude. The participation trophy generation got A LOT of the Right to Be and we see that when they think that they are an "exemplary employee" simply because they show up for work.

 

[MChat]

It would be racist to claim that those with different genetics have a fundamentally different brain than cannot be evaluated to a standard. It would be the same as claiming that those with different genetics are a different species.

That is a valid point. The question is then, at what point does a difference in genetics equate to a different species? The Chihuahua and the Great Dane are the same species, while two butterflies that takes a lepidopterist to see the differences are different species.

And at what point is a different IQ test required between species or "sub-species"? If we can't use a human IQ test to test a Chimpanzee, then why is using that test acceptable for a Pygmy/Bushman? This may actually be a racist view, and I am willing to admit that from a purely intellectual position, even to the point of falling into the same trap as our ancestors did in treating other races as "sub-human" (e.g., the advocation for a different IQ test). From a humanitarian and Christian perspective however, my argument is simply that the bias in an IQ test may be "selling them short" of their actual intelligence.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

By the time I got to High School, I hated school as well. It was too easy for me, and especially in the lower grades I was bored, a lot (I "got" the lesson about 5 minutes in, but hours later the teacher was still trying to teach dumbest kid). Even in AP math, the other kids in my class would struggle, while I sat in the back of the class, ignoring the teacher and reading Hot Rod magazines; then I'd go home, read the book, do some of the homework and go in on Fridays and ace the quiz/test.

LOL it's like you described my sophomore year Honestly, I bet more than a few here can relate.

Some teachers were "good" with the way I learned while others apparently hated me for it. My sophomore math teacher (AP "Advanced Plane Geometry") ruined math for me. She would assign 30 homework problems each day, if you did all 30 and got all 30 wrong (but "showed your work") you got a 100. If you did 29 out of 30 (or did 30 out of 30 but didn't "show your work") and got them all correct you got a 0. It was the "show your work" part that I abhorred the most; it was like trying to explain how I breathed to a chimpanzee. I stopped doing her homework pretty much altogether (I'd do enough to "get" the lesson and not bother turning in anything since she was going to give me a 0 anyway).

My last AP class I passed with a 61% due to refusal to do any of the BS homework that was weighted at 50% of the grade that would take 3 hours/night due to my terrible handwriting so I just did what I could in class. I aced every test, so that's how you pass with a D-

She swore up and down that I was cheating somehow. Made me move my desk right next to hers so she could watch me when I took a test. Made me come back afterschool to retake a test I'd already aced. Had a teacher's aide sit and stare at me, watching while I took the test. None of it convinced her that I wasn't still cheating somehow. After dealing with her for 2 semesters I wanted nothing more to do with "higher math." I took Trig my junior year and that satisfied my graduation requirements, and I never took another math class again. In my 25+ years as a software engineer, I've used Trig ONCE while writing a program to figure out seat placement in an arc around a stage.

I was never accused of cheating, though I had to be separated at times from all the NHS whores that needed to copy off me during tests so their test scores could match all their copy/paste homework.

I don't recall ever having a "I deserve this because I'm smart" mentality. It might be that my parents seemed disinterested in how smart I was, partly due to the fact that my brother struggled with reading (something similar to dyslexia, but he only saw the first couple of letters and the last couple of letters in a word, everything in between "didn't exist" so he'd "guess" at the word). While I got A's and no praise, he'd get C's and a whole bunch of praise (at least that's how my mind remembers it). I also recognized that while I learned certain things so quickly that it seemed like I just "already knew it", there were other things which I struggled with (Spanish class, for instance).

It went from praise to expectation around 3rd grade, after that I was pilloried for a B. Foreign languages in written form are somewhat easy (romance languages and Germanic languages) but wrapping my mouth around them was... difficult. Had 1 year of french and noped right out of that. The "I deserve this because I'm smart" came from the culture that really started in the 90's of "if your smart you should get these grades (check), then you go 4-8yrs through college (realized about 1/2 way through HS that wasn't for me), then you WILL BE A SHINING SUCCESS". No where in there was "work your ass off and earn your place", basically education=value. In my mind, I already was scoring on standardized tests and by ACT score high enough to be considered at a 16.9-18.4 grade level in almost all subjects (it was explained that meant I was already at liberal arts BS/Masters level, whatever the fuck that meant in 1998) so why bother with another 4-8 years of drudgery? Give me what I've 'earned' now! Goes to show that all those tests aren't measuring the correct thing, but also shows what is so wrong with the educated elite now. I understand them better than many in my station now, but what little sympathy I have is buried by the contempt I have for them not figuring out how much that attitude is a personal, professional, and moral failing.

I also joined the Army on the delayed entry program my Senior year of HS. If I did have any "entitlement attitude" when I arrived for Basic Training, it was definitely gone by the time I graduated it.

Should have joined the military, would have definitely made the old man proud. Would have beat that out of me before I would have ever let it poison me. Alas, I am also independent and hard-headed, so the old man essentially running a boot camp for 18 years (he was 20y military) poisoned me on volunteering for it. One of my biggest regrets

Ironically, I "fell" into the software engineering industry. I never took a class for it, just sat down and started coding. In the mid-late 90's between the .com boon and Y2K stuff anyone that could write a line of code could get a job as a programmer. Coding concepts came as naturally as breathing to me and I quickly progressed to be a Senior Software Engineer. My social skills, however, left a lot to be desired: I was the stereotypical programmer from the 90's, the geek you kept in the basement, fed carbs and Mt Dew, dumped requirements on his desk and he'd churn out code like a machine, but you didn't let him talk to anyone because he'd creep them out (or something).

I basically did the same thing with industrial CNC programming, never took a class, turned a 2 week temp stint trained as button-pusher into de facto running the machining cell and programming all the new and difficult product.

I had no interest in being a Lead, no interest in being a Mentor and no interest in being a Manager. I was content to churn out code, even though I'd hit a plateau in my career. It wasn't until I went through a divorce and had a girlfriend introduce me into the "Personal Development" world. It was those courses on Human Communication that shifted the way I communicated with myself and others to the point now, that I find being an Influencer (Leader, Mentor and Manager) exciting and rewarding in ways that churning out code could never have accomplished.

When I got popped for DUI when trying to have kids as a newlywed that's when I became more concerned with the inner self, so I guess that's similar.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Ironically, for me, then "being smart" (being the Analyst) was enough. Enough, at least, at the beginning. But once I hit a certain point, being the Analyst wasn't enough. When I first learned the 4 personality types at the Personal Development event I went to, we wore "nametags" for each personality type and practiced being that personality type. For my "Influencer" name, I chose a name from the Family Circus comic: "Not-Me". I could identify with the People Pleaser and the Doer personality types (in reality I was like 45% the Analyst and 40% the Doer, or no code would have actually been written), but I did not identify with the Influencer at all.

I also got a ton of the "that's not for people like us" from my parents while growing up; it took me awhile to break out of that mentality. I remember when I bought a brand-new BMW M3, ordered it from the dealership, waited 3-4 months for it to get built and shipped here. The entire time I waited, there was part of me that expected a phone call ("We're sorry sir, we checked our records, and this car isn't for people like you". Even the day I picked it up, I kept expecting the sales manager to come out and give me the bad news. Thinking about that, I'd say if anything I got the exact opposite of an "entitlement attitude" from "being smart".


Sounds like you have a healthy amount of the Doer in you, as well as more Influencer than I used to have. I guess one of the key differences between us might have more to do with "Human Rights" than our relative intelligence. It sounds like you received way more of the Right to Be than I did. The Right to Be is what you get when your parents (or other important people in your life) tell you that you are important, that you are unique, you have value, or that you are appreciated, etc... Between the praise my brother received that I didn't and being told (repeatedly) "the world doesn't revolve around you", I got very little of the Right to Be growing up.

People with a lot of the Right to Be, do end often end up with a least a little bit of an entitlement attitude. The participation trophy generation got A LOT of the Right to Be and we see that when they think that they are an "exemplary employee" simply because they show up for work.

One of my (and probably many of the others here who push back on your jargon-y self-help televangelist preacher speak) is because it has a tendency to put people in boxes they don't fit into.
To give this hokum some credit, it attempts to break down heady psychological concepts into words/phrases the reader/listener is more familiar with it, but ends up creating jargon that ends up sounding corny and puts off those you are attempting to describe with it.

Correlation does not equal causation though, as what you are describing as "right to be" was most certainly not created at home, and later in childhood not even by the school. It was as much a push-back against those peers/teachers who wanted to call me stupid because either A) I knew something they didn't and couldn't believe and there was no google to back me up or B) my social awkwardness made me commit some faux pas that made me seem stupid. That made me push back harder to "show them" which later in life made me make sure I did have 'all the facts' which is my nature, but act on them to conclusion before I could be told it wouldn't work. I just gave them the results of my knowledge and skill. That's essentially how I ended up running the machining department, I just did stuff better, faster, and before they even knew its what they wanted. If I asked permission I'd be told no, if it was already done they'd have to figure out a way to chew my ass for success. They ended up just leaving me alone regardless of what I was doing.

 

[MChat]

One of my (and probably many of the others here who push back on your jargon-y self-help televangelist preacher speak) is because it has a tendency to put people in boxes they don't fit into.

Funny, I think of it as trying to get people out of boxes.

For instance, DISC wants to put you in one of 4 boxes (D, I, S, or C), but I tell people that they are all of them and can choose to use any of them. People get told that they are an introvert (or extrovert) or are an optimist (or pessimist), I show them how they are both and introvert and an extrovert and both an optimist and a pessimist. Some "doctor" will tell someone they have ADD or ADHD and I show them how they can run their "Focus" program without drugs.

But I can also see how you could come to the conclusion of putting people in boxes and you're right, sometimes the boxes don't necessarily fit. But then I am trying to figure out your model of the world based on 7% of communication (words are only 7%, tonality is 38% and body language is 55%); this makes it a bit of a challenge. Understanding someone's model of the world is extremely important for communication as the majority of miscommunication stems from lack of that understanding.

There are things that I notice about people that other people aren't even aware exists. Reading tonality and body language are critical to that observation, which is why I prefer to work with someone either in person or over a Zoom (or other Video) call. For instance (at the risk of putting you in another "box" and at the risk of still being wrong), based on what you said in your last post, I would be inclined to believe you are "reverse polarity". That being, if someone tells you that you can't do something, you'll do it if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

So, you're right, you shouldn't read anything that I write, and definitely shouldn't consider anything that I've said within the given context, because if you actually listened to me, you might learn something about yourself and that isn't something that you'd want to learn from someone else, particularly some random guy on the internet. After all, if you did listen to me, then you might just find something that helps you be happier. But that's not who you are.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

Funny, I think of it as trying to get people out of boxes.

For instance, DISC wants to put you in one of 4 boxes (D, I, S, or C), but I tell people that they are all of them and can choose to use any of them. People get told that they are an introvert (or extrovert) or are an optimist (or pessimist), I show them how they are both and introvert and an extrovert and both an optimist and a pessimist. Some "doctor" will tell someone they have ADD or ADHD and I show them how they can run their "Focus" program without drugs.

But I can also see how you could come to the conclusion of putting people in boxes and you're right, sometimes the boxes don't necessarily fit. But then I am trying to figure out your model of the world based on 7% of communication (words are only 7%, tonality is 38% and body language is 55%); this makes it a bit of a challenge. Understanding someone's model of the world is extremely important for communication as the majority of miscommunication stems from lack of that understanding.

There are things that I notice about people that other people aren't even aware exists. Reading tonality and body language are critical to that observation, which is why I prefer to work with someone either in person or over a Zoom (or other Video) call. For instance (at the risk of putting you in another "box" and at the risk of still being wrong), based on what you said in your last post, I would be inclined to believe you are "reverse polarity". That being, if someone tells you that you can't do something, you'll do it if for no other reason than to prove them wrong.

So, you're right, you shouldn't read anything that I write, and definitely shouldn't consider anything that I've said within the given context, because if you actually listened to me, you might learn something about yourself and that isn't something that you'd want to learn from someone else, particularly some random guy on the internet. After all, if you did listen to me, then you might just find something that helps you be happier. But that's not who you are.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

MChat many here take offense to your "gibberish" but I just like to poke fun while push back against it, like testing the limits of a theory.

If you'll notice by many of my posts here I can 'devil's advocate' many discussions, I find that steel-manning the other side in my own mind in order to either find areas of agreement or the best possible counter to the argument yields the most fruitful results. One of my concerns, as listed in the OP, was how these conversations degenerate into ad hominin attacks and knee-jerk and prejudice. I've been proven delightfully wrong and it's been a productive conversation, though it has steered away from the original premise somewhat.

I will say that most of the 'rules-of-thumb' about these compartments that the techniques you describe don't apply to outliers in the way they may to the general pop, and many here on IBB would probably be of that misfit type (affectionately, I might add). Most of what people learn about me from my body language is incorrect as I'm probably autistic and the feelings you are trying to pick up on don't show up the same. What I've learned about that in the last 8 years or so dealing with an autistic son has given me much insight into myself and many others. I'm often accused of being dour or serious, and my jokes land flat among strangers at times as I "deadpan" too much. This stretches the limitations of training such as yours dealing with folks you may find here as I'll bet the rate of ASD on IBB is a standard deviation or more higher than the general pop, even accounting for the predominance of males here.

 

[MChat]

No doubt many here are the exception rather than the rule, I would hope that they wouldn't "take offense" on anything that I share, but rather simply pat themselves on the back for being "different". Exceptions, however, are often where body language and tonality come in to play most often.

Take for instance "reverse polarity" the visual clues are whether they are left-handed or right-handed and their eye-cues. When the eye-cues are "backward", either the person is left-handed or reverse polarity.

Box or no box, autism or not, I've found that eye-cues are 100% accurate. I even worked with a blind software engineer and his eye-cues were no different. Maybe someone who was born blind might be different, but I haven't met anyone that was.

"Reverse Psychology" for people who are truly "Reverse Polarity" (some people imagine themselves to be but aren't really) really does work. I remember reading that Milton Erickson (the "father of modern hypnotherapy") once recognized that his patient was reverse polarity and put him into trance by telling him to "resist me and whatever you do, don't get comfortable".


Using these communications techniques are both easier and more effective when in person, even over a video call it can be more challenging. For instance, I helped a co-worker with "depression" when I noticed that every time that she talked about being depressed, she put her hand behind her back and contorted her fingers in a painful looking way. I made her hold a cup of coffee in that hand and she had a hard time "remembering" what it was like to be depressed; she even attempted to switch the coffee to the other hand, and I stopped her. She just couldn't "find" her depression program without putting her hand behind her back. I would have never picked up on that on a "head and shoulders" Zoom call.

It is also different communicating with an audience that you can't see, and therefore receive no feedback unless they respond (with either a "like" or written response). If you look, you will see that often times when I really want to draw a picture targeting the whole audience that I use words from each representational system (visual, auditory and kinesthetic) so that everyone can precisely hear the message that I am sending and so that they can really grasp what I am trying to get across, clear as a bell. When I am responding to an individual, most often I'm targeting what I perceive to be their preferred communication style.

 

[IowaOffRoad]

You bring up something interesting about the facial cues being reversed, and perhaps one of many reasons why my 12yo is probably doing better socially than I did at his age. Did the thought ever occur to you that those who's physical cues are 'reversed' is because they had to learn how to 'act human' consciously?
That is my theory, one of the reasons why (once I quit masking my issues with booze) I became interested in people and human psychology where I'm really a "hands on" type of person and still do better communicating with others through writing, then talking on the phone/zoom, then in person (in descending order of skill). I feel that as someone who is built skewed heavy on being interested in "things vs. people" that I basically had to learn how to 'be human' as and adult. I consciously see things that my wife and what few friends I feel I can speak freely with about the subject only notice if you tell them, they just unconsciously get it already. I can more easily be caught off-guard in social situations if I'm not paying attention by changing dynamics that my wife and others "get" without having to be looking for it. This phenomenon may explain why atypical people present this way. As my son has spent a bunch of time around me perhaps he's picked up on these 'reverse cues' that are then mirrored back to him in the 'correct' way so he then isn't perceived to be as odd to others as I was.
I really do believe that I've had to train my mind to 'fit in' as an adult, which I also do believe has led to my interest in matters of the mind as an adult starting about age 28. I've known my entire life that I didn't really 'fit in', it was around that age when I figured I should do something about that for the sake of my new family, both to support them properly and teach them properly.

 

[MChat]

You bring up something interesting about the facial cues being reversed, and perhaps one of many reasons why my 12yo is probably doing better socially than I did at his age. Did the thought ever occur to you that those who's physical cues are 'reversed' is because they had to learn how to 'act human' consciously?

That is an interesting thought for sure, in fact I was thinking earlier that there may be a correlation between autism and reverse polarity. If nothing else, I would bet that reverse polarity shows up more often in an autistic group of people than "normal".

Even still, being an example for your son to follow is without a doubt going to make it easier for him. Especially if you talk about it. That is one of the big things that I've learned from the "Human Communications" courses I've attended. There were a lot of things that other people seemed to do naturally that was unnatural to me. However, because of the training I was able to learn how to do what came naturally to other people even to the point of surpassing their "natural" ability.

I can more easily be caught off-guard in social situations if I'm not paying attention by changing dynamics that my wife and others "get" without having to be looking for it.

This, again, was totally me. Before taking control of my mental programs, I was so socially awkward that I just didn't bother with social situations. I never attended a single High School dance, I didn't go to the football games, I didn't "hang out" with other kids. It wasn't that I didn't want friends, it was just that making friends was something I couldn't really figure out how to do, so I didn't.

As an example of a typical interaction with a small group of people, a topic would come up for which I honestly had on opinion, but then I'd go so deep in my head formulating what I was going to say and how I was going to say it that by the time I opened my mouth the conversation had already moved on to a different topic, so either I responded to a topic that was already done with, or I remained silent.

For the longest time, I would say nothing simply because I couldn't decide on the words that I was going to say. First time I took the "representational system" test, I maxed out Auditory-Digital (also referred to as "Internal Dialog"). High-AD people typically have long conversations with themselves internally before opening their mouths externally. High-AD people also tend to eat the same foods, at the same restaurants, or go to the same stores and shop with the same patterns, even use the same urinal or toilet at work (I used to turn around and leave and come back later if "my toilet" wasn't available).

Going through the Human Interaction Technology program was like getting invited to a secret class where they taught you how to interact like a normal human. Although it was and is much, much, much more than that. I took the material and practiced it until it became second nature. I never truly realized how far I came until about 3 years ago one of the junior developers on my team said that he admired how I could walk into any room and connect with anyone there.

It was such a game changer for me that I started reading book after book after book on the subject. And is also why I so readily spend time to type out long responses in order to share the information I have learned with others. Like you said, there are a lot of "exceptions to the norm" type people here, and if I can share something that helps someone in some way then I am happy to do so.