Quote Originally Posted by Viking View Post
I think I get what you mean.
I think I've found a good comparison to illustrate: HP Lovecraft (colonial Anglo) and TE Lawrence (British Anglo).

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Tell me you don't see it? Now the next step if my notion has any validity would be to identify any systematic proportion among the general population of this facial model - maybe it's just a weird coincidence. (Well, the proper first step would be to parametrize the putative facial model but...)

Koreans and Latin Americans can have similar skin tones, so in the absence of any relevant groups of Asians to join, a group of Latin Americans (or natives) would in practice be the group where his physical appearance would be the most similar to the other members.
Considering the great variation in appearance within the groups "Asian" and "Latin American" (of whom the latter comprise everything from overwhelmingly European-ancestry countries like Argentina and overwhelmingly Amerindian (and minimally-admixed mestizo) countries like Bolivia), that's too sweeping an assessment. At any rate, it isn't helpful to dignify sorting by appearance or color.

I would like to emphasize that in the five-factor model, the starting point is not that the aspects of a person's personality that it describes tend to be heavily affected by a person's background (the model is not supposed to describe a person's personality exhaustively, at any rate). In theory, a preference for the same holiday destination every year is independent of your current and past wealth; though I suppose greater wealth could lead to more expensive habits. If you are very rich, maybe you'll take a cruise in your personal yacht to the same five destinations every year instead of sticking to just one destination. The key is a preference for doing the same rather than trying something new.

I also want to emphasize that the five-factor model does not operate with dichotomies; for every facet, most people fall somewhere in the middle between the two extremes, but it is easier to understand the facets by looking at the extremes.

Now for why I think he has that personality trait: one thing that really stood out, is the language. It is possible he has difficulty learning Korean, but my theory is that he doesn't really care to learn Korean, which would be consistent with a low score on this facet. His personal style, like the way he dresses, also seems a bit like he is stilling living his old life. Granted, if a person has been forced to live a very different life, they could try to hold onto something from their old life because it relates to their identity, even if they have a general preference for trying out new things.

He did say that he was a "little bit" excited to get out of his old lifestyle; but it also seems that this excitement was about leaving behind a life he didn't really enjoy rather than being excited at the prospect of moving to a new country and integrating into a new culture.

In personality theory, I think success is generally associated with the dimension of conscientiousness. The facet of ambition, which I mentioned above, belongs to this dimension. He could have scores that are average or above on some other facets of that dimension as well, such as self-discipline (cf. his reference to "hard work").
OK, like any model of personality insight more data (interview material, professional examination) is better, but I understand where you're coming from.


Quote Originally Posted by Philippus Flavius Homovallumus View Post
It's not a scale between one and three, it's a scale between something like one and seven.

You have the nobility, broken down into the Royal family, containing the Cyning and the Æthelings, his sons, brothers, nephews etc., then the mass of the þeȝns from whom the king selected his Æorldormon and from which class came most of the non-monastic bishops. Then, below them, you have the mass of the ceorles, who were themselves subdivided into a, the geneats - the "peasant aristocracy" distinguished from the lower Þeȝns by being primarily landholders and farmers as opposed to warriors, the mass of men - the kotsetlas - and the bottom rung, just hanging on, the geburs who were tenant farmers often economically tied to a given estate.

Then you have slaves, mostly non-Saxons.

You'r just engaging in reductio ad absurdem - a geneat would be indistinguishable from a less affluent Þeȝn in the street or in the shieldwall - both mean "follower" or "retainer", the distinction is not one of wealth or even necessarily practical function, both could serve as landlords, the distinction is that one has access to the royal family in a direct way (in theory) and the other does not.In Anglo-Saxon England its all about personal relationship - status is defined (formally) by who you owe your loyalty to and in what context. Þeȝns are warriors first and foremost and it is from this that they derive their status and their privileged access to the royal court, not wealth, not even necessarily birth. Oh, I know you're going to mention Huscarls next - so let me preempt you by pointing out that huscarls are not self-supporting, they're professional paid soldiers as opposed to simply being retainers. Þeȝns were also farmers with their own lands who equipped themselves out of their own pockets. Incidentally, both þeȝns and ceorles fought in the Fyrd together as mounted infantry, in addition to weapons and armour they had to provide their own horses. That's why the property qualification for a þeȝn was five hides, or the equivalent of five small-holdings, because every hundred was required to provide one man for every five hides - þeȝns were that man for their own landholdings, ceorles might send someone else.
This is well-worn ground by now, and it reinforces the logical necessity of the proposition that churls are the lowest class of freemen. The internal structure of the churl class does not change the external hierarchy!

"You've lost credibility" was what you said.

You don't like it when people call you out for your bad behaviour, well suck it up - you once told Furnunculus his "caution [was] not respectable."
Your bad behavior was the problem here!

Outside the US class is inherited regardless of wealth. Go re-watch Downton Abbey, it's a study in class relationships, right down to the perpetually awkward position of the Early's American wife and brother-in-law.
All class at all times is a matter of networking above wealth. Formal title applies to very few humans today, and it's not the meaningful thing.

So you acknowledge that the most wealthy in America, those "holding the reigns" so to speak were not born into it. Do you understand how different this is to a class-system where people are born into a certain class and that defines their social standing? Do you understand that the only was to access a higher class in those circumstances is through personal patronage of the person at the top of that class (the monarch) and no amount of money will ever get you in?
Almost all megamillionaires and billionaires have been created in the past two or three generations, because of contingencies in the global economy that are fluid. Even adjusted for inflation there were almost no such people a hundred years ago. You're born into it after the first generation, similar to how an immigrant family in America will always give birth to lifelong Americans regardless of their own original status.

But before that, it's applicable at all points in modern history. If, for instance, you've read anything about early America you'll notice that people from wealthy, landed, educated families were falling into destitution all the time. Some even died penniless or in debtor's prison. Yet even so they were typically able to maintain access to capital, professional opportunities, other influential bourgeois people, political power, etc. Why? Because they were from the "right" families! Ain't you ever heard of the Boston Brahmins? And that's just New England, it was all over the country like that. The Southern slavers, who were in any sense an aristocratic throwback, had almost all their wealth destroyed in the Civil War. Guess what happened in the aftermath? Most of those slavers picked up and re-enslaved the blacks and rebuilt their wealth and political power. With the invention of sharecropping where planters could not rely on slaves they literally transformed the blacks into serf-like tenant farmers, who could leave or demand remuneration at the risk of their lives.

To this day descendants of the aristocratic families are disproportionately represented in Southern business and politics.

Privilege of wealth is not privilege of class. They aren't the same and your insistence on trying to equate them demonstrates that a refusal to believe that class works differently outside a Republic like the US. Compare the Anglo-Saxons and the Romans.
You don't understand how class works today.

And this is the part you refuse to accept, Anglo-Saxon society doesn't work like that'. Status is conferred by access to the King, he decides if you're a þeȝn or a ceorl - and then everyone else agrees with him. So how do you make the change? Pretty simple really, you demonstrate loyalty to the king and an ability to kill his enemies. Anglo-Saxon society is totally militarised, all free men serve, and even priests and bishops can be found in the shield wall. If you don't have the requisite five hides, well, the king will just [I]give you land.
Again, this doesn't affect the analogy because the analogy does not depend on these specific relationships.

In this society deeds grant access and access grants wealth. Wealth does not, by itself, grant access.
A wealthy enough landowner will always have access to the king, unless it's war. Obviously.

You're engaging in Marxist historiography again, insisting on seeing other times and places in the context of your own society. In this case you're comparing an absolute monarchy with a completely militarised (free) population against a largely demilitarised republic. Apples and oranges.
Wrong. This is because you fundamentally don't understand the comparison. I don't think I can help you.