The unfortunate reality in today's world is that from a firm's perspective, it is more advantageous to recognize the problem employees than the outstanding performers.
If your personality test can reliably indicate who the top performers are, then your employees could use this information to negotiate a better salary. OTOH, if the test is only capable of weeding out the personality problems, then you have good grounds for not hiring someone you strongly suspect is a problem candidate. This is even more important when the problem candidate is a minority with a propensity for litigation.
I too, really hate personality tests. But they are useful from an employer's perspective, and serve to put you on notice that your employer is NOT going to be your friend. In a way, a personality test says a lot more about the employer's attitude toward people than you'd ever be able to discern in an interview (the process works both ways, you know).
If this was how they were used (to weed out the psychologically dysfunctional) it would not be a problem.
That's not how they're used though. They're used more like the "e-harmony" test, where anyone who doesn't have a personality as vapid as the commercial is excluded.
You can't find a job because you're shooting too high. People seem to think college entitles them to something. Try being a temp worker in your field for a while. You'll gain experience, you can easily bail if you hate the place, and it's pretty easy to get hired if you can put on your job application that you already work there.
I will be pompous on this messageboard, but don't mistake the breadth of market i'm targeting here.
I've contacted many major temp agencies, and they all require 2 yrs+. They don't work for you, they work for the companies, and hold the same ridiculous standards.
Maybe i've just been using the wrong agencies, but i've asked around and it seems the only agencies I can think of which actually work for you are in the UK and EU
You have no idea how many people with different personalities from those you know were excluded. Perhaps people who had personalities with more facets than the test could examine, or with facets none of "kennedy's wiz kids" (who designed the test the same way they ran vietnam) have ever seen.
The inherent inaccuracy of self-confidence.
self-confidence is a relative thing.
People who are interviewing for a job generally have their fundamental ability to eat and pay rent at stake. Those are much, MUCH higher stakes than "this is a new client, let's do a good job" and as such is subject to greater risk aversity.
Analytical capability:
Various positions require various levels of analysis, and my experience is those robotic tests do not provide adequate clues as to the level of analysis which should be applied.
And its not mumbo jumbo that drives this. Its just freaking statistics.
because we all know statistics cannot be manipulated, misrepresented, improperly gathered, etc.
Employment prospects are more like a scatter plot with high variance, and these tests are like the most simplistic best-fit regression lines. They WILL exclude wide swaths of excellent candidates based on arbitrarily placed limits. This is especially true for testing services contracted from outside.
o everyone a huge favor by helping to ensure that the people we offer jobs to will do well in them and be happy
Isn't that what interviews and training programs are for? acquainting them with company policy, teaching them the procedures, filling them in on how to do their job?
God knows what the answers are! There were grammatical errors on my test so I am not sure how much the answers really matter. The results of my assessment said I wasn't qualified for a job I had been doing for 10 years. No explanation was offered, just a "not recommended" result. I'd like to know why a company put that kind of authority in the hands of another company, and how such a conclusion could be drawn from a 100-question test.
Nobody should feel compelled to change who they are in order to get work.
Then don't search for work in the service sector, look for a job that doesn't require you to be an unabashed extrovert. Or, if you don't like to do research, don't look for a job at a cutting edge technical research firm.
Oh, so I should move to india?
Any job which is not facing a customer is either in mumbai or soon will be. There are exceptions, provided you can wrangle yourself a nobel or some contacts in congress.
Really? Your story encompassed years. In particular, it was about 1/5 of your life.
That's a LOT of time for your personality to evolve.
By the way, try hanging out with ANYONE you're describing when you can't get a job in the first place.
Hurray, another catch 22.
So now, if I get 4-5 new credit cards and run them up running down to trendy districts and hanging out I might get a job in 5 years? I'm sorry but that doesn't counter my point.
Employers are not allowed to include religion, so why should they include the core philosophy upon which you operate?
This is a HUGE thing. If everyone operates on the same core philosophy, nobody will balance it out, and nobody will innovate.
The trend against hiring pessimists is a very good example.
No pessimists in the highly competitive investment banking job market makes the world a sad panda!
'jobs today have a higher technical requirement than back in the day, so while i don't agree that just turning up is enough to get the job'
Your average person turning up has a higher technical capability today than back in the day as well. Almost every position is trainable in any case. Personality checks, credit checks, drug tests, etc are all worthless garbage on the hiring front but what is worse is this obsession with trying to find the already perfectly qualified candidate.
I'm a technician. I work in the field, on a daily basis I encounter systems and software and must master them quickly enough to resolve problems encountered by people who work with those systems all day everyday for a living and make them think I knew more about it than them all along. I have been doing so successfully for years. Yet, despite this, I have been turned down for positions before because I lacked experience with a particular application, perhaps backup application, etc.
When did people lose sight of the fact that working a position within a single company generally involves a skillset that a competent fast learner can master within two months? The fact that two months of training is too much to invest in an employee these days says a great deal about the direction companies are moving in.
Exactly!
This is my major complaint. I graduated in spring 08 and can't find a job.
The reason?
I focused on the task i was supposed to: school!.. I took a double major and did well at both of them.
Apparently the capacity to focus and train two separate tracks at the same time means NOTHING.
They want "canned labor".
Training your workforce is something to do in india, where there will be none of this "cost of living" stuff.
I give it about 10 more years before they realize there's no such thing as a free lunch, and killing peoples' wages will kill revenues. (they should be learning it now, but the government is bailing them out >.)
How about interviewing candidates normally, THEN put those who are in sensitive positions through a psych eval by an actual person rather than some automated testing service?
I suggest watching the second episode of ghost in the shell, second gig.
The entire exercise was a psych eval of someone who represented considerable danger.
The ultimate conclusion: certain nuances in his psyche mean he will never act upon his violent fantasies.
Subjecting people to automated tests as a qualify/disqualify factor BEFORE examining their resume and interviewing them smacks of minority report and only serves to kill off the "eccentric geniuses" who have the greatest potential to bring ground breaking ideas to your organization.
This story is all fine and good, but I don't understand how this provides a counter to my point.
Nobody should feel compelled to change who they are in order to get work.
I'm still searching and have seen a LOT of these tests. The implication is clear: we don't want ANYONE remotely introverted... never mind most people have the capacity adopt a "game face".
you can always lie. unless you are stupid. in which case you would not be qualified for the position anyway. think intelligence test not personality test.
Ah, so it's designed to weed OUT the intelligent.
an intelligent person would understand that different sectors, firms within sectors, and departments within firms place different values upon divergent priorities.
Efficiency is composed of accuracy and speed. How is each of these weighted?
Work dynamic is composed of the independence vs the subordination of workers to the chain of command. How are those weighted?
I received a test which asked questions on subjects like this as if I should know their specific internal policy before I'm even allowed to ask.
As far as I'm concerned, it simply punishes the extremely stupid.
If you can't even figure out how a "good employee" would answer for most of the questions, then I highly suspect you stand little chance of actually being one.
Except you have NO IDEA how a "good employee" would answer.
Policies differ from company to company, department to department, and even in sub-departmental work units.
This type of material should be covered in training.
It's like demanding a medical school applicant perform cutting edge neuro-surgery in order to be accepted.
Companies that have formalized tests of personality might be opening themselves up for a discrimination lawsuit, unless there is a way to map personality type to a tangible requirement for the job. (IANAL.)
There are federal laws banning the use of polygraphs in interviews, but this type of thing is VERY similar.
These personality tests are, imho, worse then polygraphs.
Polygraphs only determine if you lie or feel discomfort, but these tests determine whether you conform to some arbitrary personality type.
"rejected from e-harmony" commercial anyone? Apparently not being a blithe, extroverted yes-man on some arbitrary test now means you can't get a job. Talk about social darwinism.
I've taken very similar tests on sites which give ME the results and it shows that, while I possess many good qualities, my reserved nature makes me hard for others to read, particularly in that my expression of happiness or enthusiasm are externally muted.
In fact, my personality type is represented by 0.003% of the population.
I'm a pessimist and an introvert. This does NOT interfere with my ability to put on a professional face and be friendly to clients, but it does cause a great deal of stress when a potential job is at stake. Further, being a pessimist, while many people frown on it, has many positive qualities in a work environment, such as a propensity to properly assess and prepare for likely hurdles on a project.
This doesn't matter though, as the slightest sign of discomfort or non-conformity is construed as some kind of black mark.
Job ad says "we need free thinkers", personality test says "sorry you don't meet the 99.99999999% match we require with our VP's personality." Interestingly the most brilliant and talented people tend to be eccentric. A classic example of mediocrity rising to the top... except now only mediocrity is allowed in the door period.
The academic equivalent would be someone being passed up who knows their stuff but doesn't test well, while an incompetent who's good at telling people what they want to hear gets top marks.
I would also like to know if this falls afoul of discrimination laws.
Your personality is far more deeply ingrained than your religion. You should not be disqualified because of it unless you are severely psychologically impaired.
I know it's not anywhere near the same thing, but as a jew (and i'm sure any previously oppressed minority can relate) I find it rather disgusting that they're trying to label specific articles of expression (albeit entertainment) with unfounded misinformation.
It reminds me of those tales of jewish people eating babies.
Granted this is merely a physical object of trivial social value, but misinformation is misinformation.
Far from being unfair this is actually socially ideal. In the ideal limit people pay for something exactly what it is worth. depsite the fact that some folks pay more than others,
actually, that's economically ideal in the simpler static models.
over all nearly everyone, including the people paying the higher price, are paying LESS than they would have to pay if it was sold for a fixed price, because of the increased demand lowers the per capitia fixed costs.
introductory micro courses say otherwise, and that fixed costs are not a factor in pricing, only marginal cost.
That is, once again, in an ideal economic model designed to illustrate market forces. Later courses teach these markets are far from ideal, and that prices often exceed marginal cost, but NOT because of fixed costs.
I will ask you. Please name one product which used differential prices which provided savings to anyone compared to the original price structure?
Not buying it. If maturity were *solely* about "how you look at and treat people", then how do you square that with your valuing of "intellectualism"? Meaning, do you think that those with college degrees are more "mature" than those without?
I'm not referring to "intellectualism" in terms of degrees. I'm talking about intellectualism as the capacity and willingness to learn and change your beliefs based on new information. Those who do not are immature.
Your derision against people who are working menial jobs while trying to advance their careers is rather hypocritical considering the traditional conservative "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" mentality. So which is it? "enjoy your sucky life" or "pull yourself up by your bootstraps"?
Aren't those the same people whom you called "dittoheads" and who are "spewing bigoted nonsense, pseudo-intellectual fallacy, or living in their own dream-world"? That's derision. Then again, maybe derision is acceptable for those who are sufficiently intellectual.
Um, i'm referring to the GP poster (justsomeguy), who turns around and hypocritically and ironically spews invective about people who are doing exactly what conservatives predominant in the heartland keep spewing on and on about.. They're working to advance their careers. Apparently these reasonable people on the coast who actually DO what they need to instead of crowing about it on hannity are damned if they do and damned if they dont.
A book I'm positive you would enjoy is "What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" by Thomas Frank. It's probably already on your bookshelf! It's a tremendous apologetic for the contempt/compassion hypocrisy that enlightened intellectuals have towards the backward poor.
You mean a rabid frothing piece of sophistry designed to mischaracterize the compassion and understanding with which the enlightened, many of whom have actually been the "backward poor" approach sociopolitical problems.
How the hell do you get +3 informative for just making shit up?
Actually i've seen it tested on ballistics gel.
While the analogy is a little off the effect is pretty much the same.
Musket shot has a low muzzle velocity, which causes greater trasnfer of energy into the target.
It results in considerably greater organ trauma, and the wounds often had a tendency to be septic (as opposed to modern rounds which travel fast enough to sterilize themselves).
Assuming there's an exit wound, it will be incredibly broad. I would liken it to giving modern rounds an explosive payload.
No, I likened it to racism, or the application of stereotypes to the uninsured and/or those with chronic conditions (that they made poor life choices and thus should not be allowed said care).
The claim that he is not referring to someone whose condition is beyond their control is moot. The "lifestyle choice" dead horse is still being beaten, and people like me are still suffering because of it.
Further, there are many people who made "lifestyle choices" back when everyone was saying it's perfectly harmless or even conducive to good health. (cigarette ad campaigns, various pesticides, a famous white castle fast food burger campaign)
I suppose those people, who could easily be classified as victims, are supposed to pay for partaking of something they were told at the time was safe?
Would you accept smokers into universal healthcare if you provided mandatory, but free detox?
I was not directly referring to your post, but a general observation regarding this "indignation" people have at losing a few "$freedoms" to allow a few people to actually function.
Slashdot Mirror
The unfortunate reality in today's world is that from a firm's perspective, it is more advantageous to recognize the problem employees than the outstanding performers.
If your personality test can reliably indicate who the top performers are, then your employees could use this information to negotiate a better salary. OTOH, if the test is only capable of weeding out the personality problems, then you have good grounds for not hiring someone you strongly suspect is a problem candidate. This is even more important when the problem candidate is a minority with a propensity for litigation.
I too, really hate personality tests. But they are useful from an employer's perspective, and serve to put you on notice that your employer is NOT going to be your friend. In a way, a personality test says a lot more about the employer's attitude toward people than you'd ever be able to discern in an interview (the process works both ways, you know).
If this was how they were used (to weed out the psychologically dysfunctional) it would not be a problem.
That's not how they're used though. They're used more like the "e-harmony" test, where anyone who doesn't have a personality as vapid as the commercial is excluded.
You can't find a job because you're shooting too high. People seem to think college entitles them to something. Try being a temp worker in your field for a while. You'll gain experience, you can easily bail if you hate the place, and it's pretty easy to get hired if you can put on your job application that you already work there.
I will be pompous on this messageboard, but don't mistake the breadth of market i'm targeting here.
I've contacted many major temp agencies, and they all require 2 yrs+. They don't work for you, they work for the companies, and hold the same ridiculous standards.
Maybe i've just been using the wrong agencies, but i've asked around and it seems the only agencies I can think of which actually work for you are in the UK and EU
I can see points of bias in your tests already.
The exclusion bias.
You have no idea how many people with different personalities from those you know were excluded. Perhaps people who had personalities with more facets than the test could examine, or with facets none of "kennedy's wiz kids" (who designed the test the same way they ran vietnam) have ever seen.
The inherent inaccuracy of self-confidence.
self-confidence is a relative thing.
People who are interviewing for a job generally have their fundamental ability to eat and pay rent at stake. Those are much, MUCH higher stakes than "this is a new client, let's do a good job" and as such is subject to greater risk aversity.
Analytical capability:
Various positions require various levels of analysis, and my experience is those robotic tests do not provide adequate clues as to the level of analysis which should be applied.
And its not mumbo jumbo that drives this. Its just freaking statistics.
because we all know statistics cannot be manipulated, misrepresented, improperly gathered, etc.
Employment prospects are more like a scatter plot with high variance, and these tests are like the most simplistic best-fit regression lines. They WILL exclude wide swaths of excellent candidates based on arbitrarily placed limits. This is especially true for testing services contracted from outside.
o everyone a huge favor by helping to ensure that the people we offer jobs to will do well in them and be happy
Isn't that what interviews and training programs are for? acquainting them with company policy, teaching them the procedures, filling them in on how to do their job?
Check this out.
God knows what the answers are! There were grammatical errors on my test so I am not sure how much the answers really matter. The results of my assessment said I wasn't qualified for a job I had been doing for 10 years. No explanation was offered, just a "not recommended" result. I'd like to know why a company put that kind of authority in the hands of another company, and how such a conclusion could be drawn from a 100-question test.
you mean they make themselves appear more productive by taking credit for the work of others, or through some other shell game.
Then it's time we added a new criteria to title VII:
race, color, religion, sex, national origin, psychological state short of major impairment.
Might I add that my current insult is in the service sector.
I call it an insult because food delivery is not a job for a degreed professional.
In this environment i'm quite capable of providing service with a smile and prompting golden reviews.
I'll still fail every personality test though. I guess nobody has ever seen someone with a personality deeper than plywood.
Nobody should feel compelled to change who they are in order to get work.
Then don't search for work in the service sector, look for a job that doesn't require you to be an unabashed extrovert. Or, if you don't like to do research, don't look for a job at a cutting edge technical research firm.
Oh, so I should move to india?
Any job which is not facing a customer is either in mumbai or soon will be. There are exceptions, provided you can wrangle yourself a nobel or some contacts in congress.
Really? Your story encompassed years. In particular, it was about 1/5 of your life.
That's a LOT of time for your personality to evolve.
By the way, try hanging out with ANYONE you're describing when you can't get a job in the first place.
Hurray, another catch 22.
So now, if I get 4-5 new credit cards and run them up running down to trendy districts and hanging out I might get a job in 5 years? I'm sorry but that doesn't counter my point.
Employers are not allowed to include religion, so why should they include the core philosophy upon which you operate?
This is a HUGE thing. If everyone operates on the same core philosophy, nobody will balance it out, and nobody will innovate.
The trend against hiring pessimists is a very good example.
No pessimists in the highly competitive investment banking job market makes the world a sad panda!
'jobs today have a higher technical requirement than back in the day, so while i don't agree that just turning up is enough to get the job'
Your average person turning up has a higher technical capability today than back in the day as well. Almost every position is trainable in any case. Personality checks, credit checks, drug tests, etc are all worthless garbage on the hiring front but what is worse is this obsession with trying to find the already perfectly qualified candidate.
I'm a technician. I work in the field, on a daily basis I encounter systems and software and must master them quickly enough to resolve problems encountered by people who work with those systems all day everyday for a living and make them think I knew more about it than them all along. I have been doing so successfully for years. Yet, despite this, I have been turned down for positions before because I lacked experience with a particular application, perhaps backup application, etc.
When did people lose sight of the fact that working a position within a single company generally involves a skillset that a competent fast learner can master within two months? The fact that two months of training is too much to invest in an employee these days says a great deal about the direction companies are moving in.
Exactly!
This is my major complaint. I graduated in spring 08 and can't find a job.
The reason?
I focused on the task i was supposed to: school!.. I took a double major and did well at both of them.
Apparently the capacity to focus and train two separate tracks at the same time means NOTHING.
They want "canned labor".
Training your workforce is something to do in india, where there will be none of this "cost of living" stuff.
I give it about 10 more years before they realize there's no such thing as a free lunch, and killing peoples' wages will kill revenues. (they should be learning it now, but the government is bailing them out >.)
How about interviewing candidates normally, THEN put those who are in sensitive positions through a psych eval by an actual person rather than some automated testing service?
I suggest watching the second episode of ghost in the shell, second gig.
The entire exercise was a psych eval of someone who represented considerable danger.
The ultimate conclusion:
certain nuances in his psyche mean he will never act upon his violent fantasies.
Subjecting people to automated tests as a qualify/disqualify factor BEFORE examining their resume and interviewing them smacks of minority report and only serves to kill off the "eccentric geniuses" who have the greatest potential to bring ground breaking ideas to your organization.
There have also been studies pre-dating the civil rights era which correlate skin color with job performance.
I suspect bringing the NEO-PI-R to the supreme court with actual, competent lawyers would produce not-so-surprising results.
This story is all fine and good, but I don't understand how this provides a counter to my point.
Nobody should feel compelled to change who they are in order to get work.
I'm still searching and have seen a LOT of these tests. The implication is clear: we don't want ANYONE remotely introverted... never mind most people have the capacity adopt a "game face".
you can always lie. unless you are stupid. in which case you would not be qualified for the position anyway. think intelligence test not personality test.
Ah, so it's designed to weed OUT the intelligent.
an intelligent person would understand that different sectors, firms within sectors, and departments within firms place different values upon divergent priorities.
Efficiency is composed of accuracy and speed. How is each of these weighted?
Work dynamic is composed of the independence vs the subordination of workers to the chain of command. How are those weighted?
I received a test which asked questions on subjects like this as if I should know their specific internal policy before I'm even allowed to ask.
They didn't ask you what you would do you you were out in the desert and you found a turtle on its back roasting in the sun?
it's a hackneyed question.
Everyone knows you're hot helping because you're also a turtle on its back.
why not just leave them in there for 6 to 10 days and then hire the one or two still alive?
As far as I'm concerned, it simply punishes the extremely stupid.
If you can't even figure out how a "good employee" would answer for most of the questions, then I highly suspect you stand little chance of actually being one.
Except you have NO IDEA how a "good employee" would answer.
Policies differ from company to company, department to department, and even in sub-departmental work units.
This type of material should be covered in training.
It's like demanding a medical school applicant perform cutting edge neuro-surgery in order to be accepted.
Companies that have formalized tests of personality might be opening themselves up for a discrimination lawsuit, unless there is a way to map personality type to a tangible requirement for the job. (IANAL.)
There are federal laws banning the use of polygraphs in interviews, but this type of thing is VERY similar.
These personality tests are, imho, worse then polygraphs.
Polygraphs only determine if you lie or feel discomfort, but these tests determine whether you conform to some arbitrary personality type.
"rejected from e-harmony" commercial anyone?
Apparently not being a blithe, extroverted yes-man on some arbitrary test now means you can't get a job.
Talk about social darwinism.
I've taken very similar tests on sites which give ME the results and it shows that, while I possess many good qualities, my reserved nature makes me hard for others to read, particularly in that my expression of happiness or enthusiasm are externally muted.
In fact, my personality type is represented by 0.003% of the population.
I'm a pessimist and an introvert. This does NOT interfere with my ability to put on a professional face and be friendly to clients, but it does cause a great deal of stress when a potential job is at stake. Further, being a pessimist, while many people frown on it, has many positive qualities in a work environment, such as a propensity to properly assess and prepare for likely hurdles on a project.
This doesn't matter though, as the slightest sign of discomfort or non-conformity is construed as some kind of black mark.
Job ad says "we need free thinkers", personality test says "sorry you don't meet the 99.99999999% match we require with our VP's personality." Interestingly the most brilliant and talented people tend to be eccentric. A classic example of mediocrity rising to the top... except now only mediocrity is allowed in the door period.
The academic equivalent would be someone being passed up who knows their stuff but doesn't test well, while an incompetent who's good at telling people what they want to hear gets top marks.
I would also like to know if this falls afoul of discrimination laws.
Your personality is far more deeply ingrained than your religion. You should not be disqualified because of it unless you are severely psychologically impaired.
I know it's not anywhere near the same thing, but as a jew (and i'm sure any previously oppressed minority can relate) I find it rather disgusting that they're trying to label specific articles of expression (albeit entertainment) with unfounded misinformation.
It reminds me of those tales of jewish people eating babies.
Granted this is merely a physical object of trivial social value, but misinformation is misinformation.
ooohkay..
let's try this then.
Take windows and commercial education suite licenses allocated for next year.
Contract out devs to write equivalent apps for linux during this year.
Switch to linux as the licenses lapse.
Next year's budget now has 25% less required for information technology (to maintain the code)
Far from being unfair this is actually socially ideal. In the ideal limit people pay for something exactly what it is worth. depsite the fact that some folks pay more than others,
actually, that's economically ideal in the simpler static models.
over all nearly everyone, including the people paying the higher price, are paying LESS than they would have to pay if it was sold for a fixed price, because of the increased demand lowers the per capitia fixed costs.
introductory micro courses say otherwise, and that fixed costs are not a factor in pricing, only marginal cost.
That is, once again, in an ideal economic model designed to illustrate market forces. Later courses teach these markets are far from ideal, and that prices often exceed marginal cost, but NOT because of fixed costs.
I will ask you. Please name one product which used differential prices which provided savings to anyone compared to the original price structure?
Not buying it. If maturity were *solely* about "how you look at and treat people", then how do you square that with your valuing of "intellectualism"? Meaning, do you think that those with college degrees are more "mature" than those without?
I'm not referring to "intellectualism" in terms of degrees. I'm talking about intellectualism as the capacity and willingness to learn and change your beliefs based on new information.
Those who do not are immature.
Aren't those the same people whom you called "dittoheads" and who are "spewing bigoted nonsense, pseudo-intellectual fallacy, or living in their own dream-world"? That's derision. Then again, maybe derision is acceptable for those who are sufficiently intellectual.
Um, i'm referring to the GP poster (justsomeguy), who turns around and hypocritically and ironically spews invective about people who are doing exactly what conservatives predominant in the heartland keep spewing on and on about.. They're working to advance their careers.
Apparently these reasonable people on the coast who actually DO what they need to instead of crowing about it on hannity are damned if they do and damned if they dont.
A book I'm positive you would enjoy is "What's the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America" by Thomas Frank. It's probably already on your bookshelf! It's a tremendous apologetic for the contempt/compassion hypocrisy that enlightened intellectuals have towards the backward poor.
You mean a rabid frothing piece of sophistry designed to mischaracterize the compassion and understanding with which the enlightened, many of whom have actually been the "backward poor" approach sociopolitical problems.
How the hell do you get +3 informative for just making shit up?
Actually i've seen it tested on ballistics gel.
While the analogy is a little off the effect is pretty much the same.
Musket shot has a low muzzle velocity, which causes greater trasnfer of energy into the target.
It results in considerably greater organ trauma, and the wounds often had a tendency to be septic (as opposed to modern rounds which travel fast enough to sterilize themselves).
Assuming there's an exit wound, it will be incredibly broad. I would liken it to giving modern rounds an explosive payload.
No, I likened it to racism, or the application of stereotypes to the uninsured and/or those with chronic conditions (that they made poor life choices and thus should not be allowed said care).
The claim that he is not referring to someone whose condition is beyond their control is moot. The "lifestyle choice" dead horse is still being beaten, and people like me are still suffering because of it.
Further, there are many people who made "lifestyle choices" back when everyone was saying it's perfectly harmless or even conducive to good health. (cigarette ad campaigns, various pesticides, a famous white castle fast food burger campaign)
I suppose those people, who could easily be classified as victims, are supposed to pay for partaking of something they were told at the time was safe?
Would you accept smokers into universal healthcare if you provided mandatory, but free detox?
I was not directly referring to your post, but a general observation regarding this "indignation" people have at losing a few "$freedoms" to allow a few people to actually function.