Equal distribution assumption

[Wynch]

I would say that equal distribution may be valid on a global scale, but in a microcosm therein there can be clustering. For instance, my home town exists to support the employees of the neighboring nuclear research facility. It's a small town, about 4200 people, and the vast majority of those people are employees of AECL, the children of employees or retired employees. If you believe that certain types are naturally predisposed to certain areas of study, then you have to agree that the logical conclusion is that an isolated region built to foster one specialized and technical facility would have an uneven distribution of types. That doesn't mean that it exludes certain types entirely, but one would expect a huge influx of logicals (which seems to hold true).

[Exodus]

It can mess your typings up like something really messy.

I never would have expected, say, a college campus to have equally distributed types. But large municipalities I would have figured are a safe bet. Perhaps not and there could be integral types which are biologically-based rather than just culturally. It's not that difficult to imagine if, say, economic conditions cause different types to migrate to different areas. Whether because strengths complement the regional opportunities or because quadra values and psychological comfort. It would also not suprise me if a "gender dichotomy" had some role: the ratio of favorable intertype relationships like duality (among the individuals, besides and in addition to with respect to the place.) What are your observations of your area?

I've heard that autism is becoming more frequent because of intermarriage in engineering schools/companies, which could say something about type being somewhat related to profession+genetics.

[iAnnAu]

I would say that equal distribution may be valid on a global scale, but in a microcosm therein there can be clustering. For instance, my home town exists to support the employees of the neighboring nuclear research facility. It's a small town, about 4200 people, and the vast majority of those people are employees of AECL, the children of employees or retired employees. If you believe that certain types are naturally predisposed to certain areas of study, then you have to agree that the logical conclusion is that an isolated region built to foster one specialized and technical facility would have an uneven distribution of types. That doesn't mean that it exludes certain types entirely, but one would expect a huge influx of logicals (which seems to hold true).

I went to Jr & Sr high school in Oak Ridge, TN - one of the former secret cities of the Manhattan Project. Back in the 40's, the gov't shipped out the locals, shipped in a bunch of research scientists & their families, and made the whole city of 75K classified. After the war, when the gates came down, many families stayed because they'd already been there for years. Generations later, the town continues to cater to highly specialized industries, and two of the three research facilities continue to do secretive stuff.
It was an extremely strange place to be a kid. Many of my friends had parents who both had Ph.D.s, and the public high school always beat the shit out of all the other schools in the area - in academics, sports and music/ marching.
Of course, you also had the kids from hardcore redneck families, some of whom were honest-to-god inbred, already losing teeth in their teens, already had two kids before 18, etc. It was, I repeat, one fucked-up place to be a kid.
I honestly can't imagine that the type distribution comes anywhere close to even.

As an aside, after 19 or 20 pages of this debate, I would think that the whole premise of even distribution of types would be "over time, across a self-sustaining society". Rick somewhere in his blog talks about how when one trait comes to be over-represented, the dichotomous trait becomes valued by its scarcity. Whether type is preset from the genes or if it is affected by life circumstances, I would think that this means that at any given time there is a very low likelihood of an equal distribution of types, and only as a part of the swinging of the pendulum in the process of some trait or another gaining ascendancy.
It's dynamic, right?

[Ezra]

Society works on a supply and demand basis. Whatever is needed, is got. So of course these nuclear research sites will have an influx of logicals. In ancient Sparta, there was probably a 90% population of Beta STs. All the other quadras died out through social Darwinism; the only ones who survived were those that forced themselves to adopt a certain way of being (obviously Beta STs felt right at home). In Athenian politics, Betas flourished. Gammas flourished. Deltas flourished. Alphas flourished. It was far more meritocratic, far more balanced, and this is why Athens thrives as a city today, and Sparta, the unbalanced nation, does not. What's the moral of the story? The societies that flourish are those that have a healthy mixture of the quadras, and who utilise every type to their full capacity. Don't kill the Delta NF because (s)he can't fight properly; turn them into a social worker or a councillor. Why should we eliminate the SEE because they're wild beings, when they make perfect personal trainers? Each plays his part. If the ruler is wise (be this a single individual, or a market, or whatever other entity), the supply and demand principle works to optimum effect. People's skills are utilised because society recognises that everyone - everyone - has some use to it. If it doesn't, shit befalls the people, and society doesn't work properly.

[Phaedrus]

In ancient Sparta, there was probably a 90% population of Beta STs.

Absolutely not. How stupid are you? Don't you know anything about statistics and probability theory?