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Vikram Bath

Vikram Bath is the pseudonym of a former business school professor living in the United States with his wife, daughter, and dog. (Dog pictured.) His current interests include amateur philosophy of science, business, and economics. Tweet at him at @vikrambath1.

Related Post Roulette

37 Responses

  1. CK MacLeod says:

    I think Watson’s flirting with you.

    Be gentle.Report

  2. Tod Kelly says:

    Funny: I cut and pasted my Value Voters Summit article with my sex offender article, and it came up almost identical to the one the Vikram got.

    The only real difference between Vikram and I, as far as I can see, is that I am inconsiderate and proud.Report

  3. Saul Degraw says:

    Watson sez:

    “You are expressive.

    You are confident: you are hard to embarrass and are self-confident most of the time. You are self-controlled: you have control over your desires, which are not particularly intense. And you are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

    You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.”Report

  4. Saul Degraw says:

    Another set of essays and I get:

    You are shrewd, skeptical and can be perceived as indirect.

    You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. And you are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

    You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them.

    So somewhat similar. Is wanting a Brooklyn Brownstone or a house in Mill Valley a form of prestige? Probably in a sense. Is going into art a desire for prestige? Probably.Report

  5. Watson said I’m the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being it’s ever analyzed. Then it asked if I wanted to play a game of cards.Report

  6. Burt Likko says:

    My results from two law-centered posts looks a lot like @saul-degraw ‘s:

    You are shrewd and skeptical.

    You are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. And you are unstructured: you do not make a lot of time for organization in your daily life.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

    You are relatively unconcerned with both tradition and taking pleasure in life. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

    Mostly, I find it flattering. So that makes me wary that it might indeed be a horoscope. So I plugged together several posts about things other than law, and got something that looked different:

    You are shrewd, skeptical and can be perceived as indirect.

    You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are independent: you have a strong desire to have time to yourself. And you are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being.

    You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and tradition. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

    “Unconcerned with art?” One of the posts I plugged in for this sample was a book review, and the other was about the season finale of Game of Thrones. That stuff is art. WTF?

    Anyway, I think that the robot is measuring something. When I shifted my subject matter from law to things of more general interest, the results changed substantially, no doubt because doing so left my writing much less analytic. IMO, some of my more general interest writing recently has been a bit self-deprecating and I’ve tried for a playful tone, although whether I’ve succeeded or not is something that you all can judge better than I.

    But all of the writing was by me.

    So I don’t have a high degree of confidence in the accuracy of the results, or at least in the way those results are characterized. But I think there is something being evaluated.Report

    • Vikram Bath in reply to Burt Likko says:

      @burt-likko , don’t feel to bad. I plugged in my Veronica Mars and Mockingjay posts and nevertheless got that I am unconcerned with art. But I don’t really blame it for that because I probably do care less about art than most people.

      Also, I would guess you should avoid law-centered posts for this. The verbiage on the site seems to suggest you should enter in less formal writing.Report

    • zic in reply to Burt Likko says:

      Anyway, I think that the robot is measuring something. When I shifted my subject matter from law to things of more general interest, the results changed substantially, no doubt because doing so left my writing much less analytic.

      It reminds me over the controversy of computers grading college essays.Report

  7. Kazzy says:

    Using two of my “Teaching Social Norms” pieces,I got:

    “You are a bit compulsive and excitable.

    You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are proud: you hold yourself in high regard, satisfied with who you are.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being.

    You are relatively unconcerned with taking pleasure in life: you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you.”

    I’d quibble a bit with the intermittent thing… I do not always follow through but it has less to do with difficulty and more to do with distractability (though maybe those are related).

    I do not agree with being unconcerned with taking pleasure in life; just the opposite is true. However, given the writing I was engaging in there, I see where that comes from.

    Otherwise, it is pretty spot on.Report

  8. aarondavid says:

    “You are shrewd, skeptical and tranquil.

    You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. You are calm under pressure: you handle unexpected events calmly and effectively. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination.

    You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of prestige.

    You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and tradition. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.”

    Well, that confirms that I will be successful in a business venture tomorrow and saves me buying a pig to slaughter and root about in the guts for an answer.Report

  9. Vikram Bath says:

    You guys are shrewd? Why aren’t I shrewd?

    From reading the results of others, I think I could have rationalized myself into feeling they applied to me if I had received them myself.Report

  10. zic says:

    Ha, I got:

    You are shrewd and somewhat inconsiderate.

    You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are carefree: you do what you want, disregarding rules and obligations. And you are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being.

    You are relatively unconcerned with both tradition and taking pleasure in life. You care more about making your own path than following what others have done. And you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

    Here’s my % listing:
    Openness92%
    Adventurousness81%
    Artistic interests29%
    Emotionality31%
    Imagination90%
    Intellect94%
    Authority-challenging89%
    Conscientiousness29%
    Achievement striving34%
    Cautiousness60%
    Dutifulness4%
    Orderliness7%
    Self-discipline15%
    Self-efficacy66%
    Extraversion58%
    Activity level4%
    Assertiveness68%
    Cheerfulness11%
    Excitement-seeking10%
    Outgoing20%
    Gregariousness21%
    Agreeableness20%
    Altruism9%
    Cooperation36%
    Modesty7%
    Uncompromising7%
    Sympathy98%
    Trust7%
    Emotional range45%
    Fiery47%
    Prone to worry23%
    Melancholy65%
    Immoderation16%
    Self-consciousness16%
    Susceptible to stress20%
    Needs
    Challenge45%
    Closeness67%
    Curiosity29%
    Excitement20%
    Harmony77%
    Ideal11%
    Liberty34%
    Love74%
    Practicality72%
    Self-expression18%
    Stability30%
    Structure37%
    Values
    Conservation8%
    Openness to change64%
    Hedonism14%
    Self-enhancement68%
    Self-transcendence78%Report

    • Burt Likko in reply to zic says:

      How can you be both empathetic, meaning “you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them” and also be “somewhat inconsiderate”?

      I’m also noticing that each assessment follows a fairly rigid syntax, structuring the verbiage in the syntax along basically spectral measurements: one is either “imaginative” or “empathetic” but not both. The final paragraph of each assessment gives high or low scores on “tradition,” “taking pleasure in life,” “making your own path” versus “following what others have done,” and “activities with a purpose” versus “personal enjoyment.”

      Not only is it horoscope-y, it’s smelling pretty Myers-Briggs-ey. So if you buy in to Myers-Briggs, you porbably buy in to this. I’ve reached a tentative reaction to Myers-Briggs that it is basically magic, that while people do indeed have personalities that differ from one another, a self-assessment in an objective-test format is an unlikely way to quantify and measure those differences.Report

      • Jaybird in reply to Burt Likko says:

        The joke about how “Myers-Briggs is astrology for smart people” generally makes me smile.

        (Though I remain a big fan.)Report

      • veronica d in reply to Burt Likko says:

        @burt-likko

        How can you be both empathetic, meaning “you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them” and also be “somewhat inconsiderate”?

        Imagine a teacher who is very blunt, and often seems to say insightful, but sometimes uncomfortable things. Over time you come to see their method, that they are seriously teaching in a very broad sense. In fact, over time you see that there is love behind what they do.Report

      • zic in reply to Burt Likko says:

        How can you be both empathetic, meaning “you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them” and also be “somewhat inconsiderate”?

        That’s an easy one; it engages empathy as if it were sympathy. Empathy, feeling someone else’s pain, requires defense mechanisms to protect oneself, ‘inconsiderate’ might qualify.Report

        • Burt Likko in reply to zic says:

          I get it, @zic , and note that your answer is very similar to @veronica-d ‘s. The necessity of such a close reading to tease out coherence from these seemingly incongruous Delphic utterances suggests that what we’re reading is not a particularly good interpretation of whatever it is that Watson is measuring in the analyzed text, and therefore only a hint rather than an actual diagnosis of the personality of the author.Report

          • Kim in reply to Burt Likko says:

            Who cares about personality? Fists are much more useful.
            I’d rather we ask the Slytherin computer rather than the Ravenclaw…
            It at least can get the author right.Report

          • zic in reply to Burt Likko says:

            Well, Watson’s going to keep reading and, once he’s put in his 10,000 hours of reading, he’ll probably get slightly better; mastered a few nuances.

            My husband’s spent some time getting chatbots to talk to each other; it always decays pretty quickly, and with more than two, it decays almost instantly into “I’m sorry” loops.Report

  11. North says:

    I plugged in some of my own recent comments from around here and Watson said “Oh hi North!” and then told me I should comment on its blog. It dropped me a link and sent me like twenty articles in emails too. Oh also it seems Watson believes it should be sorted into House Ravenclaw.Report

    • Kim in reply to North says:

      *nods* The Slytherin computer is busy waging a war against Watson
      (upset that it beat it on an IQ test, apparently).
      … there’s reasons why I’m not putting my writing up there — no way I’m getting in the middle of that!Report

  12. From a brief autobiography written for an impending high school 50th reunion, an outline of my father’s life at his memorial service several years ago, and an analysis I wrote of some of James Tate’s poems, Watson concluded:

    You are genial.

    You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are calm-seeking: you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe. And you are confident: you are hard to embarrass and are self-confident most of the time.

    You are motivated to seek out experiences that provide a strong feeling of well-being.

    You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with taking pleasure in life: you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

    [end of quote from Watson]

    Generally, this is accurate. It fails to specifically note my high intelligence, nor does it remark on how modest I am. I wonder how true it is that I am “hard to embarrass” and “self-confident most of the time.”Report

  13. veronica d says:

    Based on a smattering of my crazy ramblings on Tumblr, I got this:

    You are boisterous, somewhat compulsive and easily rattled.

    You are assertive: you tend to speak up and take charge of situations, and you are comfortable leading groups. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are content: you are content with your level of accomplishment and do not feel the need to set ambitious goals.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for belongingness.

    You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

    I mean, it actually rings pretty true. So, yeah.Report

  14. Murali says:

    Here’s what they said about me after I submitted one of my academic papers:

    You are shrewd, unconventional and can be perceived as indirect.

    You are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. You are philosophical: you are open to and intrigued by new ideas and love to explore them. And you are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

    You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

    Big 5

    Openness 97%

    Adventurousness 77%
    Artistic interests 0%
    Emotionality 5%
    Imagination 100%
    Intellect 100%
    Authority-challenging 98%

    Conscientiousness 2%
    Achievement striving 14%
    Cautiousness 49%
    Dutifulness 2%
    Orderliness 1%
    Self-discipline 0%
    Self-efficacy 14%

    Extraversion 3%
    Activity level 0%
    Assertiveness 20%
    Cheerfulness 1%
    Excitement-seeking 30%
    Outgoing 1%
    Gregariousness 1%

    Agreeableness 1%
    Altruism 0%
    Cooperation 8%
    Modesty 1%
    Uncompromising 0%
    Sympathy 86%
    Trust 0%

    Emotional range 89%
    Fiery 84%
    Prone to worry 41%
    Melancholy 98%
    Immoderation 33%
    Self-consciousness 97%
    Susceptible to stress 47%

    Needs
    Challenge 88%
    Closeness 53%
    Curiosity 54%
    Excitement 26%
    Harmony 67%
    Ideal 37%
    Liberty 31%
    Love 72%
    Practicality 77%
    Self-expression 7%
    Stability 48%
    Structure 76%

    Values
    Conservation 5%
    Openness to change 43%
    Hedonism 5%
    Self-enhancement 53%
    Self-transcendence 94%Report

  15. Murali says:

    Here’s what it outputs when I put in a few of my longer posts

    You are shrewd, unconventional and can be perceived as indirect.

    You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. And you are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life.

    Your choices are driven by a desire for organization.

    You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

    What do they mean by indirect?Report