INTPf Brains Trust - Our Collective Expertise

[Hadoblado]

Continuing on with the recent themes of meta-cognition and collaboration, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to share what we're good at. Please list your interests and some indication of your level of expertise.

If you list yourself here, you're volunteering to be @ ed to weigh when your listed interest comes up.

This does not an invitation to appeal to authority. Please don't anyone take from this that someone with credentials or experience should be deferred to without making their case.

 

[Hadoblado]

• Honours in Psychology
• Honours thesis in neuroscience (interhemispheric inhibition)
• 7 years of experience in pedagogy
• Just starting a degree in engineering. I'm still garbage at this stuff but I'm learning a lot and it's very engaging.
• Heavy interest in science and science literacy, statistics, and statistical literacy
• I've got about a first-year knowledge in philosophy, logic, sociology
• Moderate interest in writing and cinema, feminism, politics, journalism, debate
• A lot of strategy games, TCG, RTS, rogue-likes, simulators, boardgames, poker, games of social deduction
• Waning interest in tabletop RPGs (I still enjoy gaming systems and writing characters, I just don't play them anymore)
• Recently taken up badminton which I am all about. I play 2-3 times a week and haven't enjoyed myself so much in years and years.
• I was an avid drummer up until my early 20s. It was fun but I lacked the discipline to learn anything outside my comfort zone.
• Wanky genre bending music
• Speculative biology (@Cognisant I think you would enjoy this too). Evolution for non-earth environments etc.
• Recently took part in action research regarding leadership styles in the ECE sector.

 

[birdsnestfern]

BBA/A (Bachelor of Business Administration/Accounting)

20 Years Experience (just retired) in US Government Accounting
Certifying Officer transmitting funds thru Treasury Websites using complex details of agreements.

Certified in Tax Preparation, (worked at H&R Block seasonally for three years).
Certified in about 15 different government classes like procurement law, Standard General Ledger, Proprietary and Budget Accounting, too many to list.

Certified in Therapeutic Massage, (CMT) Swedish Massage, knowledge of Trager Massage, Accupressure, Self Taught Reiki Healing.

4 Classes shy of degree in Computer Information Technology (Cobol).
Certified in Electronics Assembly (Knowlege of NASA Standards, reading components, soldering, repairing, wiring, reading schematics and blueprints.
6 years experience as Quality Assurance Inspector in Electronics (Hung out at Walkers Wagon Wheel with other QA Inspectors). https://invention.si.edu/historic-silicon-valley-bar-and-restaurant-review . Grew up smack dab in Silicon Valley, a few houses away from Mr. Hewlett of HP, and our elementary school got to try the very first computers ever. Worked in the next building to Atari when those first Pong games came out, and bought some for $2 on the factory floor of Atari.

Enjoyed many academic topics, but I was not an honor student, I was usually a procrastinator and did last minute study at the last possible moment.

 

[dr froyd]

- BSc in math & computer science, MSc in mathematical finance
- career mostly focused on equity- and derivatives trading
- would say I have a pretty good understanding of probability theory and statistical modeling, and working with it on daily basis
- published some open-source statistical libraries which I wish I could link to but it has my name on it
- don't have a degree in economics but picked up most of it via exposure to financial markets
- trading stocks all day long and need a massage from @birdsnestfern

 

[EndogenousRebel]

Credentials are riddled with almosts because mental illness and overreaching ambitions.

Health Science Associate
Business Tech Certifications
Undergrad International Relations Studies
Undergrad Strategic Communication Studies

Producing a specific type of media is my most developed skill, but apps and social media makes everyone think that now-a-days, so that isn't all that marketable.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

@Hadoblado
"Interhemispheric inhibition" piqued my interest. Do you have any books to recommend if I'd like to understand the functioning of the brain on an academic level?
I'm most interested in parallel processing and modularity of the brain. To my untrained intuition it seems like the brain is a collection of systems that work together in parallel most of the time with only one system capable of "voicing" the thoughts.
So essentially only one component of the brain can produce thoughts or speak and all the other parts of the brain can silently perform their tasks or redirect the person's attention without using words. Most of the time this works fine, but there are definitely cases when one component could be competing for attention or focus over others.
Looking for things that explain how this network functions and shares attention, or things that disprove that sort of idea with some mainstream theory.

I'm mostly interested in developing my creative skills, but there are a few things I know well enough to say something reasonable about:
- C++ / C# programming, about 10 years of experience, CS degree with circuit design and electrical engineering extra credits
- storytelling, writing fiction, 14 years of experience. My super power is that I can improvise any story on any topic on the spot and I can keep storytelling until I run out of water to drink, I'm good enough to hypnotize people to the point that they get lost in the experience for hours, though I have to know who I'm working with first.
- game design, game development, 10 years of experience, mostly strategy and rpg games and their subsystems
- turn based strategy games, in particular I'm a tournament expert of heroes 3 and civ 5, also an expert of Dwarf Fortress and expert at roguelike strategy

 

[Hadoblado]

Books I read over the course of my degree:

Spoiler

I couldn't tell you which ones were good, it's all a blur. There were some really good online resources that I made extensive use of, but can't find them atm. I'll link it if I do find it.

You're probably looking for cognition and attentional resources. Anything that touches consciousness is rough, but there's a lot out there on attention iirc.

While my highest level of accomplishment is in neuroscience, and my understanding of this very singular area is the greatest expertise I have achieved in anything, my overall understanding of neuroscience is a lot weaker than in other areas. My degree didn't have much of it, and it's not the sort of thing that comes up in conversation often so I rarely update or exercise this knowledge.

Spoiler: My comments on your intuition:

That’s true but it’s more complicated than that. Systems within systems within systems and a lot of the circuits are parts of multiple systems and the channels between them are shifting and at times poorly understood. Most areas are bilateral. Interhemispheric specialisation is greatly exaggerated for everything but language. Even with language, it’s more complicated than “left brain wordy boi”. The right Broca’s area plays a support role to the left, you have a specialised right brain area for language and it puts in a similar amount of work to the left, but it doesn’t produce speech on it’s own so gets no credit.

What would count as “a system” can be different between individuals (e.g. left handedness – deviation originates in the brain), and different within an individual over time. This is also the case for interconnectivity between modules and systems and networks. If you tried to Ship of Theseus the brain, a lot of it would self-cannibalise and rearrange in response as a giant fuck you.

Many systems have inhibitory systems attached as well, meaning that there are additional networks in place for which, when they fire, specific other processes are terminated. These inhibitory systems can have their own inhibitory systems etc

While it might be tempting to think of the brain as a structure (it technically is), I think of it more as a compact and extremely complex ocean in fast forward.

Spoiler

There are currents and zones and patterns and inputs and outputs but any attribution of “module” or “system” is somewhat artificial in order to simplify it for our (ironically) incompetent brains.

TLDR I believe you're basically right, but you haven't captured the immense complexity.

edit: woah this came across as way more intense than I meant it. Holy shit did I wake up thinking in straight lines. Sorry!

 

[BurnedOut]

Still a student.

• Majors in Political Science with a BA
• 5 years of coding experience - general system scripting and data scraping and now creating a framework for neovim. I can code in 4 languages pretty well - ruby, python, bash, lua. Apart from these, I also know perl, powershell, javascript, java and clojure. My coding skills are employment-grade and I am completely self-taught.
• Playing guitar since 2018 - can improvise at this point and create my own music but I ignored sheet reading due to lack of time and interest. I primarily play heavy metal and metalcore. Again, self-taught.
• My domain specific language is greatest in psychology, economics and political science. I can read any text of these field except until hard statistics and math is involved. On top of that, I have read books on forensics. Other than that, my practical skills when it comes to general mechanics is good. I also understand how the stock market works although I am not well-versed in financial mathematics.
• Academically, I am more or less autodidactic. I am hunting for a good university for my masters which is going to be in PS and International Relations. On top of that, I am also planning to work as a part-time analyst given that I have a majors in PS and I can do basic data analysis. Going to start machine learning in about a year as well.
• Motorcyclist since 2018. Today I rode 250 km in 5 hours which is the longest I have rode until now.
• Was an avid gamer until I turned 14. My games of choice are FPS and I love violent video games. I don't game now because my PC is too old but I did Splinter Cell Trilogy last year.
• Know a bit of mandarin (till hsk 4). Since I am Indian, I can speak 3 languages fluently - Marathi, Hindi and English
• Am a former gymnast and a traceur. My physical condition is being mentioned here because my fitness determines my cognitive competency. I am a peripatetic thinker and won't be surprised to know that you all are as well.
• Lastly, my practical psychology are well developed in the field of communication and relationships because I have a strong base in psychology theories, body language and, to some extent, psycholinguistic analysis.
• Planning to write SF novels in a few years. Right now I am educating myself in the art of expresssion by devouring SF books.
• I have suffered from major depression for half a decade. That got resolved, however, I am stuck with anxiety.

 

[BurnedOut]

Clearly I am the infant of the block. If we take Brain Trust in the same sense as HadoBlado, all of you are qualified for moderating quality of threads and simultneously adding to it except me, who in my opinion, is good for pointing at red flags and question the foundational logic as I think I know a bit of everything well

 

[Hadoblado]

Haha it's not about that. I think I made it a bit weird by bullet-pointing as if it were a resume, which set a particular tone. It's not really supposed to be about qualifications, but more about knowing who's good to ask stuff about and increasing interpersonal connectivity.

There were a few parallel thought processes behind it, but the main one was that usually, the people I get along well with online are the people that know stuff I don't and can communicate it on a shared wavelength. I'm not social enough to just want to talk to people without having something in it for me and thought maybe others might be the same. By making people's wealth of knowledge transparent, I was hoping we'd be able to identify more common ground.

Another was the large number of times I've been mistaken for something I'm not, or I've mistaken others for something they're not. I was once in an RTS clan for years and they all thought I was a programmer (I'm very not).

I'm gonna go back and add some more interests that are less qualification based to try and retcon the tone a bit.

 

[Rook]

@Hadoblado Thoughts on Numenera? I've only ever played 3 dnd 5e one-shots over discord but im getting heavy into Numenera source material. Lore-wise it's majestic, system-wise it makes practical sense.

 

[Hadoblado]

I haven't played but I've heard only good things? The last big interest I had was the black sun setting which is like mad max medieval. When I'm into the lore of something I typically go for summaries rather than playing - the act of playing tends to be secondary these days.

 

[BurnedOut]

I genuinely feel that none of here have really put in effort to elucidate on a topic. It came as a shocker to me to see all of you being a highbrow intellectual crowd and I feel that we all behave like damn sophists or engage in socratic questioning that makes most of the threads incomprehensible to the ones not involved. If we are calling ourselves a Brain Trust, we need to start acting like one because there are not many threads that are genuinely groundbreaking and amusing - the one with the dating apps and statistics that I kept failing to grasp - turns out was one of the rare moments in my life where i was fighting for the life of my argumentation. The scene was amazing because previously demure Hado and Dr Floyd and Rook and all others suddenly kicked into high gear and we were having a good debate with takeaways from everyone.

I admit that I am a sophist. Most of my posts don't contain citations and the ones that do end up sounding like a newspaper article than a genuine critique. It's like I am running my little textual YouTube channel with a pseudointellectual vibe. I mean, man, i am going to ramp up my quality of posting. Intpf is going through such an ostracising time that even the quality of contemporary shitposts have gone up significantly

 

[Hadoblado]

I've never been called demure before :P

I'm not sure that's what a sophist is? Can you elaborate on ostracism? I feel as if the forum is humming along better than it has in a while.

I believe the questioning is more a symptom of communication difficulties. People here come from different walks of life and often forget to unpack their assumptions for people who don't think exactly like them.

 

[Cognisant]

The quality of shitposts hasn't gone up, the quality of posts has gone up and there's been a dire lack of shitposting.

 

[scorpiomover]

I've never been called demure before :P

There's a first time for everything.

I'm not sure that's what a sophist is?

Google search for sophistry

The use of clever but false arguments, especially with the intention of deceiving.

Can you elaborate on ostracism?

The posters who are posting on threads seems to have shrunk to a very small and select clique, who seem to mostly agree with each other, almost as if the people who might express alternative opinions have felt so unwelcome that they've gone somewhere else.

I feel as if the forum is humming along better than it has in a while.

If you used to be in a group with a lot of accusations of racism, but now, all your friends seem to get on, it might be because the racists in the group have stopped being racists, or it might be because the racists drove everyone else away, and now it's just all racists who agree with each other.

Do not know which one of those, this site has become.

I believe the questioning is more a symptom of communication difficulties. People here come from different walks of life and often forget to unpack their assumptions for people who don't think exactly like them.

It's not hard for other people to understand that you might be afraid of massive floods, forest fires and box jellyfish, even if they don't experience those things in their countries.

But it can get hard for you, when Brits want to make themselves seem superior to Aussies and Singaporeans in every way, and so Brits refuse to show consideration for your countries' issues.

 

[BurnedOut]

I'm not sure that's what a sophist is? Can you elaborate on ostracism?

Due to other social media

I'm not sure that's what a sophist is?

We are not exactly sophists, more like socratic but we turn sophistic after receiving criticism. We keep arguing and nobody gains anything from it. MBTI is bullshit pseudoscience - one of the examples. Other examples include my cyberpunk rants.

Secondly, all of us are more concerned about seeming right. That is understandable but now that this thread is made, i think about all the potential loss that happened from us not knowing our domain specific skills

Lastly, i would like to say that we can actually try social experiments because lurkers don't participate, none of us here are interested in shitposting. Might as well turn intpf from reddit+ to stackexchange where everybody freely shares useful information and nobody judges anybody for anything - even the simplest things.

So i'll make a new thread, everybody here can share what metrics they would like to see of intpf. We can do an excellent linguistic analysis. The verity of our experiment is not an issue, we have coders, sociologists, business experts and statisticians here.

 

[Hadoblado]

We've had a lot of people leave. All of the mod clique left (mostly lefty). All of the more ardent right-wingers left. I don't feel as if I consistently agree with anyone consistently. A few people I rarely disagree with but I think that's more about how careful they are.


At times I feel as if others here want an echo chamber (and historically I'm certain this has happened) but relative to the timeline I'm optimistic about our diversity. I disagree with most premises of most threads and that keeps me happy because otherwise I'd be bored and leave.

Burned out:
Who are the ostracised?
I disagree with you about only wanting to seem right but agree that this is a greater issue than many would like to admit.

I certainly disagree with you that none of us are interested in shitposting.

 

[PiedPiper]

Where's @Raiden when you need him.

 

[birdsnestfern]

Tee hee, just noticed you needed a massage Dr. Froyd.

Now I'm going to smile for the rest of the day. : )
Trager is fantastic, its like falling asleep in a rocking boat on the sea and you just let go...
Very good for you.

 

[Puffy]

Hmm for me:

Art stuff

* BA in History, MA in Literature
* Main accomplishments with that were two publications, in film criticism (on Alfred Hitchcock) and graphic narrative [i.e. comics] criticism (thesis on Alan Moore).
* I also used to do creative writing a lot and wrote a short play that I got to direct (student society level)
* On that note, have a few years experience in amateur theatrics, like street performance level. Mostly improvisation as I can't stand working from scripts.
* Pretty well read in film & comics and well listened in modern alternative music.

Tech stuff

* 2 years experience to a junior software developer level. Basically front-end javascript with some knowledge of node.js (backend) as well.
* 5 years experience in user experience as a user researcher. Basically designing and implementing qualitative research studies for web and mobile applications.

Spiritual stuff

* Eastern esotericism - primarily 8 years of self-practice in energy-work through Daoist internal alchemy, qi gong, tantra and yoga
* Indigenous spirituality - I've been participating in ceremonies with the Shipibo, Huni Kuin, Yawanawa, Wirrarika and Q'ero for the last 6 years. Still feel like a beginner though.
* I'm mentored by two Q'ero paqos (mystics) in their ceremonies and healing methods that I've been doing for clients for the last 2-3 years. I have qualifications in energy healing that I've mixed in.
* Currently apprenticing with a friend in body-work. I'm going to get qualifications in Thai massage first so I can work in his clinic and then study other areas with him. Ultimately it's my goal to leave technology to run my own clinic synthesising the above and other areas I train in over time.

 

[Rook]

i once tried to spear a catfish but it's skull was too hard so it shrugged it off like a mothafucxka

 

[scorpiomover]

Continuing on with the recent themes of meta-cognition and collaboration, I was thinking maybe it would be a good idea to share what we're good at. Please list your interests

Computers, theology, religions, mythology, good public policies, etymology, linguistics, physics, chemistry, biology, epidemiology, ethics and morality, rationality, psychology, mental health, personality theories, and evolutionary theory, to name a few.

and some indication of your level of expertise.

43 years coding. 26 years professionally. Coded for Windows, *nix, microcontrollers, mid-range mainframes. Coded in Assember, Basic, Pascal, Visual Basic 6, VB.NET, C#, RPG/400, RPG ILE, CLI, DDE, Java, C/C++, HTML, CSS, PHP, SQL, DOS, and more.

4.5 years in a religious seminary, and learning by myself ever since. Read the entire Old Testament in the original Hebrew & Aramaic. Studied Classical Hebrew and Classical Aramaic extensively.

First book about science was at age 6. Knew the 5 basic theories of the Big Bang, basic nuclear fission and fusion, by age 7. Studied biology by 9. Doing my own psychological experiments at age 9. Continued to analyse things since then. Predicted that saturated fats were harmful 20 years before they were publicly declared to be harmful. Predicted that diabetes would be likely to show remission, 20 years before the evidence came out.

Have a BSc(Hons) in Maths.

Studied lots of religions, and lots of mythologies my whole life.

Studied MBTI & Jungian typology for 30 years. Done plenty of experiments.

Studied rationality and mental health for over 40 years.

Been having discussions about politics and reading up on that, for over 40 years.

Generally said to be excellent at anything theoretical and at problem-solving, by pretty much everyone I've met, IRL.

If you list yourself here, you're volunteering to be @ ed to weigh when your listed interest comes up.

OK with that.

But I tend to say things that are true, even when everyone else already says the opposite, and tend to have solid arguments to back me up. So expect that some people might not like what I say.

This does not an invitation to appeal to authority. Please don't anyone take from this that someone with credentials or experience should be deferred to without making their case.

I hate it when people "take my word for it", as they can sometimes come back later on and claim that I misled them and blame me for their mistakes in being too trusting of what I said.

So I prefer it when people check what I've said.

 

[sushi]

know chinese , english , learning other languages (if you want to know and exchange feel free to pm me), from asia continent

have some primitive understanding of space time nothingness

and also some astrophysics

have a degree in accounting and finance, which i dont know what to do with

want to learn about more about the human body and mind

interested in emerging technologies and stock investing

personality theories other than mbti is good , anything but mbti

my personal philosophy is probably nihlism

i used to be interested in politics but i hate it now because its the business of idiots.

 

[BurnedOut]

scorpiomover is my favourite boomer.

 

[scorpiomover]

scorpiomover is my favourite boomer.

Thanks.

But I'm Gen X. I was born 5 years too late to be a Baby boomer.

Maybe Gen X could be alien boomers?

 

[Old Things]

I'm a big dummy who doesn't have a college degree.

I can't really think of anything to say...

I once finished a wrestling match with a snapped tendon in my elbow (not "intelligence" related).

I got in the top 50 in the world for Futuremark for 2 GPUs with a full bench on air (don't ask me how I did it because I don't know).

A Christian Black Metal band is using one of my poems for the lyrics to a song they are writing (I heard a pre-demo of it already).

I scored in the top 93% for science and reasoning on the ACT.

When after I completed the Rey Auditory Learning Test I was doing for a study the administer of the test said I did better on the test than they would have.

People tell me I'm smart/insightful. Recently a person at my apartment complex was struggling to compliment me in finding the right word to tell me I based my beliefs on the knowledge I have. They said I have a "strong base" or something like that.

I'm currently writing a book.

I wear the same style shirt Mon-Sat. Band shirt on Sunday. I have two different styles of pants I wear, two different styles of shorts, and two different styles of socks. All black. I didn't plan to have two different styles of everything, it just worked out that way.

BORRRRRRIIIINNNNNNGGGGG!

 

[Hadoblado]

Just FYI, this thread is less about accomplishment and more about knowledge/understanding. Accomplishment is a good way to substantiate your knowledge/understanding but it is not what the thread is about.

You don't have to have a degree or anything like that. In fact, I think if you've worked in an area for a substantial amount of time this implies a greater level of expertise than having a degree, albeit in a different and perhaps simpler area.

For instance, whether you have a formal education in it or not, you seem to be really into your religion. If I had a question about it, could talking to you garner insight? Probably.

 

[Old Things]

Just FYI, this thread is less about accomplishment and more about knowledge/understanding. Accomplishment is a good way to substantiate your knowledge/understanding but it is not what the thread is about.

You don't have to have a degree or anything like that. In fact, I think if you've worked in an area for a substantial amount of time this implies a greater level of expertise than having a degree, albeit in a different and perhaps simpler area.

For instance, whether you have a formal education in it or not, you seem to be really into your religion. If I had a question about it, could talking to you garner insight? Probably.

I'm little more than a hobo even though I have my own place.

I suppose when you study Christianity as much as myself you are bound to have some knowledge about the subject. Only been studying since about the end of 2018 though.