Watch the video on YouTube.

New to OPS? Read our Introductory Series to OPS from the start.

What a Surprise

Huh?!

I thought that channel was long dead.

I was pretty perplexed when the old, inactive DaveSuperPowers YouTube channel came back to life in January 2018.

When I first discovered them, I had enjoyed those old videos from circa 2012. Snappy and funny, they broke down MBTI types in terms of their cognitive functions, giving more nuance to the meaning of cryptic letter combinations like I-N-F-J.

But while initially interesting, I quickly came to understand that those personality types were merely pseudoscience, and engaging with them further would be a waste of time.

I remained subscribed to DaveSuperPowers, but forgot all about it.

However, when it came back as Objective Personality, the channel had changed. The videos addressed the common typology criticisms and my personal doubts. It promised a system with a scientific approach that could make precise predications based on falsifiable statements.

I was hooked right from the start. I couldn’t get enough of the short videos, teasing me with hidden depth.

More than 6 years later, OPS has become my favourite tool for self-understanding and behavioural change. But if you encounter the OPS YouTube channel these days, getting into it is a messy affair. There are more than 600 videos on the channel and no proper series that introduces the system step-by-step.

And this is not its only issue.

In our latest video, Holly and I break down the good, the bad, and the ugly of Objective Personality.

But since that list was never meant to be exhaustive, this article offers a deeper look at one more good, one bad, and one ugly aspect of the system, to help you stay clear of the snags while reaping the rewards.

A Bad Legacy

While the OPS YouTube channel is a mess of disjointed videos, it’s not the only reason the system feels confusing and hard to get into.

Objective Personality started as an outgrowth of the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. That legacy still shows—and not in a good way.

The creators of OPS had an inkling that MBTI was onto something, since its 16 types could be used for marketing. There was a real world effect to them, measurable in numbers.

However, showing the validity of MBTI, using its vague, non-binary, nonsensical definitions proved to be futile. You couldn’t use them to track personality when typing with two independent operators.

They had to come up with something new, something different.

They ended up combining MBTI with other concepts, like the human needs, and original ideas, like saviours and demons, which allow the tracking of binary coins.

The Objective Personality System emerged as a brand-new typology.

OPS is not MBTI. They’re related. There’re commonalities. But they are different systems.

Not just because there are more types—no. Even the common aspects have different definitions. The cognitive functions exist in both system, but they mean one thing in MBTI—what exactly, I couldn’t tell you—and another in OPS.

Then there’s the original 16 types with initials like INTJ and ENFP. OPS uses the very same initials for groups of subtypes. There’s not just one kind of ESTJ, in the original OP system, there are 32 different subtypes of ESTJ.

But it gets worse.

For many of those subtypes, the label ESTJ is completely contradictory. In MBTI, ESTJ stands for Extroverted-Sensing-Thinking-Judging. In OPS, there are ESTJ subtypes such as Holly’s, FM-Te/Ne-PC/S(B), which are neither sensors nor overall extroverted. At least, Holly is actually a thinker.

Understanding the intricacies of a system with 2048 types would be hard enough if the terminology was well-chosen. Alas, it is not—which makes it so much more confusing for every curious MBTI aficionado who stumbles onto OPS.

We’d like to see (and contribute) to a change in the upcoming years that cleans this confusing mess up and makes it more accessible.

In the meantime, you can start with our streamlined introductory series to OPS, if you’re still feeling lost.

An Ugly Weapon

The first time I joined the stage of an OPS Clubhouse meeting (back when that was a thing), a community member asked me right off the bat: “You’re an ISTP, right? Having Fe as your last function must be tough…”

It felt like a gut punch. I was nervous already, just coming on stage to speak at this public forum, and then someone—who should know better—asked me about my biggest issue in life.

Flustered, I awkwardly mumbled something vague in return.

I managed to deal with an uncomfortable situation with just enough poise to not embarrass myself. But it showed me how easy it is to weaponise the knowledge OPS gives us, once we know someone’s type—even if we don’t mean to.

After all, the binary coins in OPS track a person’s fear.

If you know someone’s last function, you know their biggest fear. You know what keeps them up at night, and you know their greatest struggle. This is a huge responsibility.

It gives us the power to become more self-aware, to understand our own patterns and change them. And it gives us a tool and a language to support others in their growth.

But it also gives us the power to sprinkle salt into someone’s wounds, to make them feel scared and unwelcomed. You could easily create an environment the snuffs out the possibility for growth right from the start.

What happened on the Clubhouse stage was a minor issue. It didn’t hurt me, it merely made me uncomfortable.

But OPS gives you the knowledge to cause someone tremendous pain. So be mindful of that.

A Better Perspective

You do not see reality as it is.

This is the conclusion cognitive scientist Donald Hoffman lays out in his book The Case Against Reality. His research has been a driving influence of Objective Personality from the very beginning.

For a long time, we’ve known that we don’t perceive all of reality. Compared to other animals, the spectrum of light we can see and the sound frequencies we can hear are limited.

But Hoffman’s claims go further.

He proved that our perception of the world, what we can see, hear, smell, and taste, is not even close to objective reality.

Instead, your perception works like a desktop interface.

Your computer desktop is designed for using a computer effectively. It doesn’t do that by showing you the reality inside the computer, its circuits and hard drives. No, the desktop hides this truth from you for your own benefit.

As Hoffman found out, a truthful perception is not an effective perception.

You don’t give a fuck about the complicated ins and outs of the machine sitting on your desk. You want to send emails, play games, surf the web, and read insightful articles. The desktop interface is designed for your needs, to make using the computer easy for you.

It’s the same with your perception. It doesn’t show you the truth because that wouldn’t be helpful. Your perception evolved to hide the truth from you for your own benefit, so you can do what you want relative to your individual needs.

OPS adds further nuance to Hoffman’s insights.

For example, Holly’s needs are different from mine, and our different perceptions reflect that. Holly’s ESTJ interface is different from my ISTP interface. We feel different about the same situation because it is shown to us differently.

Every personality type has their own unique interface.

Once you know that you’re missing something, and what you’re missing, you can self-correct and align yourself more closely with reality for more effective action.

Who knows, you might even be able to go deeper. Like a computer programmer accessing the hidden depths of the machine from a layer beneath the interface.

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