When someone makes extraordinary claims about the "tyranny of extroverts" and says that the 10 most innovative minds couldn't carry a conversation if it had handles, then I think that person has shown a critical research failure to miss Feynman. He's not exactly an obscure figure and he's an obvious counterpoint to this guy's flame.
As for the other points I mentioned, they arise because his entire thesis is based on unsubstantiated conjecture. His very thesis, "society rewards extroverts" seems sound, but he's not exploring any of the reasons for this. Maybe society rewards extroverts because society is, by definition, a group activity and people who enjoy group activities will tend to gain the favor of the group.
Maybe society rewards extroverts because without communication skills, no idea will ever leave the mind that thought it. It's the human equivalent to the "if a tree falls in the forest" koan. Or maybe this guy is right, and society rewards extroverts because the bastards have it in for introverts and it's a tyrannical conspiracy. This guy jumps right to my last point. His justification? That society is run by extroverts to the detriment of thinking people everywhere.
He conflates extroversion, a defined psychological term meaning, roughly, the tendency to derive pleasure and energy from social interaction, with conversational skills. The two overlap but it doesn't take a great deal of insight to see the difference - one can have exceptional "people skills" without deriving pleasure or energy from them. I suspect that more than one of the D.C. extroverts he tried to skewer in his opening paragraph are, in fact, introverts who have simply developed their ability to communicate in an effort to get stuff done.
He then points out that there are people who prefer things to people, and that we should make room for them in society instead of fixing them. Guess what. There is already room for these people - as engineers. Nobody is hunting introverts down and shooting them in the street. We aren't having pogroms. Society has simply made a decision about what it values and has set the rules of the game, so to speak. If these thing-preferring people he mentions are smart enough, they'll figure that out and actually work on communication skills and being able to work as a team because that's how you get influence in society. Olin wants its alumni/ae to be successful and well-known after graduation, so it provides opportunities for students to develop these traits. No conspiracy there.
For myself, since you point out that I seem to want his blessing - I don't care about his conclusions. I actually agree with them to a degree, but I take issue with the sloppy thinking he takes to get there.
tl;dr - This guy jumps to unwarranted, overdramatic conclusions about society's preference for extroverts and makes huge leaps in logic to try to justify what is essentially just his opinion.
As for the other points I mentioned, they arise because his entire thesis is based on unsubstantiated conjecture. His very thesis, "society rewards extroverts" seems sound, but he's not exploring any of the reasons for this. Maybe society rewards extroverts because society is, by definition, a group activity and people who enjoy group activities will tend to gain the favor of the group.
Maybe society rewards extroverts because without communication skills, no idea will ever leave the mind that thought it. It's the human equivalent to the "if a tree falls in the forest" koan. Or maybe this guy is right, and society rewards extroverts because the bastards have it in for introverts and it's a tyrannical conspiracy. This guy jumps right to my last point. His justification? That society is run by extroverts to the detriment of thinking people everywhere.
He conflates extroversion, a defined psychological term meaning, roughly, the tendency to derive pleasure and energy from social interaction, with conversational skills. The two overlap but it doesn't take a great deal of insight to see the difference - one can have exceptional "people skills" without deriving pleasure or energy from them. I suspect that more than one of the D.C. extroverts he tried to skewer in his opening paragraph are, in fact, introverts who have simply developed their ability to communicate in an effort to get stuff done.
He then points out that there are people who prefer things to people, and that we should make room for them in society instead of fixing them. Guess what. There is already room for these people - as engineers. Nobody is hunting introverts down and shooting them in the street. We aren't having pogroms. Society has simply made a decision about what it values and has set the rules of the game, so to speak. If these thing-preferring people he mentions are smart enough, they'll figure that out and actually work on communication skills and being able to work as a team because that's how you get influence in society. Olin wants its alumni/ae to be successful and well-known after graduation, so it provides opportunities for students to develop these traits. No conspiracy there.
For myself, since you point out that I seem to want his blessing - I don't care about his conclusions. I actually agree with them to a degree, but I take issue with the sloppy thinking he takes to get there.
tl;dr - This guy jumps to unwarranted, overdramatic conclusions about society's preference for extroverts and makes huge leaps in logic to try to justify what is essentially just his opinion.