Do nice guys finish last?

[EvaCassini]

Each one of our personalities are nice and unique due to mostly genetics and mutation...but the thing that dwindles that down to a much lower number is nurture and conformity/society. Due to our parent's upbringing and where we live, greatly diminishes that high number you speak of.

Millions upon millions in the US have very similar traits and from that and the way they live and interact with others, make those "million" indistinguishable from a million in Germany, UK, or elsewhere. Yes, some may be nicer than others, some may even play more videos games, or eat too much chocolate, but still count on at least a million others doing the exact same thing you are doing right now. Acting the same way you are right now. Feeling the exact way you are now.

Think of it like this...Hipsters.

Hipsters use to deviate away from the "norm". Now, think of how many hipsters there are...too many to count. They all deviated away from the norm, to, unbeknownst to them, inevitably create a norm. Conformity and society hinders unique traits.

[trish]

Interesting.

I was thinking that for each trait we had 1/4 of a chance of not having it, 1/4 of a chance of having in a low amount, 1/4 chance of having it a medium amount and 1/4 chance of having in a high amount. So the probability that a random person shared that one trait in the same degree as myself would be 0.25. The probability that they shared all twenty basic traits to the same degree as myself would be 0.25 to the 20th power; i.e. 0.0000000000009 .

But what you've just suggested is that nurture biases these probabilities. So given a particular trait I have a high probability of having it to the same degree as my parents, or my friends who influence me. For each of the twenty basic traits suppose there's a 90% chance that a randomly chosen friend has that trait to the same degree as myself. Then the probability that he or she shares all twenty traits to the same degree as myself is 0.9 to the power of 20; i.e. approximately 0.1257 . Low, but significant.

Suppose I'm in a room with 30 other people. What's the probability that at least one person has all twenty traits to same degree as myself? Well the probability that none of them have the same personality type as me is (1-.1257...)^30. More precisely (1 - (.9^20))^30 which works out to about 0.02. So there's a 98% probability that someone in the room matches me exactly!

This could be why we have the illusion that there are only a few handfuls of personality types. Taking your suggestion of nurture and combining it with our interpretation of Jamie's theory that there are only 20 relevant traits, there are actually more than a trillion personality types. But given the winnowing effect of cultural influence and nurture there's a low but significant probability (namely 0.1257) that a random person has all 20 traits to the same degree as myself. Given a random selection of 30 people there's a 98% chance that at least one of them will have all twenty traits to the same degree as myself.

Somewhat ironic that Astrology (usually criticized for it's paucity of determining factors; i.e. 16 + 12 = 2 8 ) allows for over a quadrillion personality types...a thousandfold greater range of personality than the theory we just came up with. (I kinda think there are many more traits than 20 and many more than 4 levels for each trait).

This has some similarities with the birthday phenomena. There's only 1 chance in 365 that a random person shares your birthday. But in a room of thirty people there's a favorable probability that at least two people will share a birthday.

[muh_muh]

you realise all theories from astrology to probabilities to the 20 are completel bs as what youre saying is "look at this random completely baseless number i just made up"

[gaysian71]

Why do nice guys finish last? Or is it just me? I was taught to treat people the way i wanted to be treated. I treat women with respect and it seems im always getting looked over for a bad boy. And then later they break up with em because he wasnt what they thought he would be. So am i doing something wrong? I just dont know.

Nice guys don't finish last. Hopeless fools finish last. You may be a nice guy, you may be a great guy. But if you are a hopeless fool, you will finish last and you will never ever get the girl of your dreams. If you want that girl, you have to go and get her. Not wait for the "bad boys" to leave her alone so you can look at her and hope she comes to you. It just doesn't work that way.

[EvaCassini]

lol ^ nice. @Muh Muh

[trish]

you realise all theories from astrology to probabilities to the 20 are completel bs as what youre saying is "look at this random completely baseless number i just made up"

Yeah we already agreed Astrology was complete hokum. The 20 comes from our interpretation of Jamie's suggestion that there are only 20 or so personality traits. Also a debatable number, but it is recommended to her by her experience.

[Jamie French]

Don't pick apart people's hyperbole, you just end up murdering humor.

Yeah we already agreed Astrology was complete hokum. The 20 comes from our interpretation of Jamie's suggestion that there are only 20 or so personality traits. Also a debatable number, but it is recommended to her by her experience.

[trish]

So enough time as past for yesterday's bludgeon to become today's humor. Right then. I'll let off.

[muh_muh]

Yeah we already agreed Astrology was complete hokum. The 20 comes from our interpretation of Jamie's suggestion that there are only 20 or so personality traits. Also a debatable number, but it is recommended to her by her experience.

thing is we dont even have a proper definition of "personality" "personality trait" and "unique personality" without those how do you expect to count them?

the only thing we know for sure is that a very limited number of simple (they have to be otherwise people in marketing with business degrees (ie brainless blithering idiots) wouldnt be able to use them) manipulation techniques works on large numbers of people
which should be usable as some sort of upper bound on the number of truely unique people

[trish]

thing is we dont even have a proper definition of "personality" "personality trait" and "unique personality" without those how do you expect to count them?

the only thing we know for sure is that a very limited number of simple (they have to be otherwise people in marketing with business degrees (ie brainless blithering idiots) wouldnt be able to use them) manipulation techniques works on large numbers of people
which should be usable as some sort of upper bound on the number of truely unique people

Agreement from me on all points. I was just having fun...and apparently so was Jamie.

[On the side: the one "serious" motivation I had was to demonstrate that even starting with rather restrictive assumptions with a paucity of factors (as is the case with Astrology) there can be a multitude of personality types.][Use of brackets is for humorous effect only][Yeah, and you don't need to tell me...it's not funny]