INTJs and Florida Sinkholes
I have been meaning to write about this for a while now. I remember reading an article a while back that INTJ's are the least likely to give to charity. I looked and looked but can not find that anywhere now. So I will talk about what I do remember and explain why I agree with it. The article said that the reason we do not give, it's not that we are giving, is that we are so driven by our motto "Bottom line, does it work." We are not swayed by emotions. We have very little empathy/sympathy. We are focused inwards on our own problems. I will explain all these points as well as add in my own views on our cold detached nature and interest in violent natural phenomenon.
1. Does it work? Most of these charity things you see are meant to pull at the heart strings of people and of all the types even the NT's INTJ's don't have them. So when they show you pot bellied picks of kids in Africa we probably don't think, "Poor things I want to help." A common reaction I get out of those photos is "Hum, that sucks. Glad it's not me." If we bother to look at what's involved in most of these "charities"/scams we are instantly turned off because these are not solutions to world hunger or saving whales or any other thing like that. They are temporary patches that do not solve the greater issue and we are not interested in something that really does not help and does not solve the big picture problem. I for some reason was getting a magazine about give a goat to a poor family. Just the fact they were begging from me in my own mail box has them already on the wrong foot. But I looked into it. Can I chose what kind of goat? Can I talk to the kids and families I give to? Can we write letters to each other? Can I be sent photos showing me how they have improved their lives? The answer to all this was No. CLICK. NEXT! I could go into a big rant about why this scam does not work but that is not the focus of this article. But it is our thought process as we are argumentative my mind made a check list of flaws this system and it made me proud that I saw through it when most people don't.
2. We are no driven by emotions or people oriented. This is where we differ from the NF's that fall for these things because they are so cause oriented and want so much to help. This includes the introverts. Cause and people oriented. Feeling types in general are people oriented even if they are introverts. Something else that is annoying to us. I have mistaken introverts for extroverts because of this puzzling trait. Anyway showing us photos of starving kids, hurt animals etc does not elicit an emotional response in us. Well at least not the desired one of "Poor thing how can help?" They are looking for. If INTJ's have one emotion it's Anger and its variants. Usually grumpiness. The emotional response will likely be anger for being bothered and disturbed and trying to force an emotion out of us. "Here's an emotion for you." Insert mental image of chasing hippies with a flame thrower. There is one other emotion that we might have but we keep it inside and you would never notice it. Excitement. INTJ's are drawn to power and if you're showing us disaster relief we are way more interested in the disaster and the science behind how it came about than the human side of the story. People crying is not interesting too us and this is something the media loves to show. These are strangers. We do not care so long as it's not someone we know. And we don't have a huge social circle so we're probably 95% safe it's no one that matters to us. "Yes yes enough with all the crying people. Explain how this tsunami started? What was the force? How many cities were destroyed? What moron forgot to sound the alarm? More more more?"
3. We are focused inward. I sort of touched on this already on point 2. Again so long as it's not someone we cared about or worse US then we really don't care. We've got more important things to think about like solving math problems, figuring out how to build our next invention and so on. We are very detached. This is a strength as we do not give in emotionally to crying during a crisis and instead focus on solving the problem or surviving. One thing that bothers me when there is a disaster is that you mostly only see aftermath. It's exciting at first but quickly gets old. We want to see destruction as it happens not the result of flattened cities and cars. We want to see cars flying through the air and people that know how to stand in a safe place and not flinch with their cameras. Lastly going back to the whole "Does it work." Scenario. So does that mean we never give and are stingy? Hell no. IF the project has value and merit to us and will be something that will be seen to completion then we will be happy to give what we can. Let's say that they figured out the cure for cancer but the thing holding it back was funding and they asked for donations. Yes that is something we would donate to happily even if we had only pennies to give. Plus we'd get pride from having contributed to a small part of it. INTJ's do have big egos after all. It's good to have healthy pride. On a personal level, we prefer to work on the smaller personal level than on the big crowd level, we INTJ's are very giving to the few individuals that matter to us. The rest of the world be damned. But to our small circle of friends we treat like royalty when we can. We give gifts happily to those closest to us as they probably occupy plenty of our head time. Just that the rest of the world never gets to see this side of us. And we do not care. The world be damned.
So that is why INTJ's of all the types are the least giving. Oh and there is one exception to this that I personally dealt with on my trip. I was gassing up my car on the way home. This kid comes up to me and begs me for money that his mom was over there in a truck and they'd run out of gas and he was collecting money. Scam. Almost every gas station has one of these types working it doing such a thing. But without saying a word I eyed him and the situation. Big kid, way bigger than me. A bit scary looking. He's interrupted my thought process of filling up my car while I'm in a strange town I don't know anything about. So I gave him two bucks just to make him go away. I really don't care about him or his mom or if he spends it on beer and pisses it away. To me it was worth $2 to be left alone at that point. Sure enough he went and gave the same story to the next person. That's not charity it's a job and by the end of the day he's probably going to have a good amount of money for whatever. Funny enough when I was in Canada the same thing happened with a woman that came up to me and asked me in French for money. I gave her the death stare and said sternly "No." in a Spanish accent as I think it's pronounced the same and she understood to leave me the Hell alone. So there you have it.
On that note I want to talk about natural disasters now. I am fascinated by them and love watching disaster footage. It's so hard to find good raw disaster footage and again not just aftermath. I found an article the other day that the Volcano in Guatemala was erupting. It's called Volcan De Fuego. Well there wasn't much out there . The footage of lava coming out was only at night. Pretty at first but then the novelty wore off on me quickly. I can't watch a volcano making lava for more than 3 minutes. It got boring. But then I found THIS amateur video. I prefer raw amateur footage like this than official news footage for being un cut and showing things from a personal level. The commentary made this video for me. She was talking about how she got up this morning and Volcan De Fuego was very grumpy and angry. Look how mad he is. The one next to him is nice. And the big one here on the left is very friendly and never does anything. I know she's being positive but to me this tickled my dark humor. Yes look how grumpy the volcano is today before is crushes our village with a pyroclastic flow. Haha. I loved her panning too. Despite the shakey camera this shows very well how typical it is in Central America to have villages like this completely surrounded by deadly volcanoes. I've been to El Salvador several times and I'm always amazed how the capital is at the foot of several volcanoes. Beautiful imposing view in all directions, but it's just a way of life for these people I guess like hurricanes are for us. We have hurricane parties. Makes me think of Independence day
Will Smith: Is that an earth quake?
Girlfriend: Not even a four pointer. Go back to sleep.
And yesterday we had our own disaster here in Florida. Funny I was just talking about this in a previous post. A large sinkhole opened up not far from where I live in Land O Lakes FL and ate two houses and the street. I spent hours on youtube searching for the best videos but got rather annoyed after a while because everyone was just uploading the same thing over and over again. I'm thinking, in this age of cell phones SOMEONE, some neighbors had to have filmed more than the 4-5 videos floating around. Perhaps they'll pop up later but at least this time they were interesting. So here are some videos. This first one I found because I watch this guy. He posts great videos from his quadcopter of the Tampa Bay Area.
https://youtu.be/Ry8MuGQunz8
https://youtu.be/tI-3JozAxJQ
This next one is the one everyone and their grandmother has reuploaded. Would love to find the original in good quality. I do like it a lot because of the amazing sound of a house breaking. Also it's crazy to see how the ground water comes up and there is a current. I will talk about FL geology after these posts.
https://youtu.be/XN4qbEgrORM
I love this one because this is before the house in the other video collapsed. This is basically the start of the sinkhole. I would love to find more stuff like this as I know there are lots of people in this neighborhood that would have filmed each part of it.
https://youtu.be/Fqq9PPoHyGU
Lastly the neighbor's house starting to go in. I'm amazed at the power of this thing destroying a concrete house like nothing. Interesting to see a bed floating in the quicksand.
Florida Geology 101 now. Florida is a fairly new piece of land having risen out of the ocean during the Cenozoic. We're only around 40 million years old and that's why we sadly have no dinosaur fossils. Only age of mammals. Not as interesting unfortunately. So from bottom to top Florida is mostly Limestone, Clay and Sand because of our marine origins. Limestone is porous and weak against acid. Rain is naturally acidic so over time the rain percolates into the ground and erodes away the limestone forming caverns.
Our "solid" limestone layer is more like a sponge made of a network of caves and tunnels that run through the whole state and contains our aquifer. The aquifer is a system of underground rivers that flow to the ocean. Sometimes they break the surface as springs and provide fresh drinking water. There are many springs all over the state. After a great period of time rains can erode the lime stone and form a huge cave under the land that is filled with water from the aquifer. But during times of drought the water level drops and then with only air filling the cave the roof can not support the weight above. If there are buildings and cars over this they will fall in when the roof of the cave breaks.
Now look at this fictional cross section of our aquifer.
Notice that some of our big cities are literally floating on water. The entire state is a big sinkhole threat zone and that is why home owners insurance does not cover sink holes. For that you have to buy separate sinkhole specific insurance because all parts of the state are under threat. It just depends how much of a threat you are in.
Now have a look at this image. What happens if there is a lake over an empty cavern? Well we have such a case. Lake Jackson is the "magic" disappearing lake that has the plug pulled on it every few decades just like a bath tub. It's in north Florida in Tallahasee. Every 20-30 years the plug opens up and fish and alligators get swallowed up by the earth. I wish I could find the original video that showed that but it seems to be gone from youtube. For now here is one that is kind of interesting. I like seeing the lily pads on dry land.
https://youtu.be/FfMwEwfDr-E
The old video mentioned the original Indian name for the lake meant something like "Land of disappearing lake" so this has been going on for centuries.
Sinkholes usually happen in the dry season when the water dries up in the caves. But what about the one that just happened. This is our wet season. Well, as you saw the opposite happened. The sinkhole filled with water in those videos. Looks like a new spring came up between those houses. Eventually most sink holes become lakes. The infamous Winter Park sinkhole of 1981 did this. Probably the largest we've had today is now the lovely Lake Rose where people can go and feed ducks. Many lakes are former sinkholes.
Lastly sinkholes can also be caused by human activity like drilling a well or putting in pipes that cause the ground above to collapse.
So yes it's always interesting living here in this state.
.
1. Does it work? Most of these charity things you see are meant to pull at the heart strings of people and of all the types even the NT's INTJ's don't have them. So when they show you pot bellied picks of kids in Africa we probably don't think, "Poor things I want to help." A common reaction I get out of those photos is "Hum, that sucks. Glad it's not me." If we bother to look at what's involved in most of these "charities"/scams we are instantly turned off because these are not solutions to world hunger or saving whales or any other thing like that. They are temporary patches that do not solve the greater issue and we are not interested in something that really does not help and does not solve the big picture problem. I for some reason was getting a magazine about give a goat to a poor family. Just the fact they were begging from me in my own mail box has them already on the wrong foot. But I looked into it. Can I chose what kind of goat? Can I talk to the kids and families I give to? Can we write letters to each other? Can I be sent photos showing me how they have improved their lives? The answer to all this was No. CLICK. NEXT! I could go into a big rant about why this scam does not work but that is not the focus of this article. But it is our thought process as we are argumentative my mind made a check list of flaws this system and it made me proud that I saw through it when most people don't.
2. We are no driven by emotions or people oriented. This is where we differ from the NF's that fall for these things because they are so cause oriented and want so much to help. This includes the introverts. Cause and people oriented. Feeling types in general are people oriented even if they are introverts. Something else that is annoying to us. I have mistaken introverts for extroverts because of this puzzling trait. Anyway showing us photos of starving kids, hurt animals etc does not elicit an emotional response in us. Well at least not the desired one of "Poor thing how can help?" They are looking for. If INTJ's have one emotion it's Anger and its variants. Usually grumpiness. The emotional response will likely be anger for being bothered and disturbed and trying to force an emotion out of us. "Here's an emotion for you." Insert mental image of chasing hippies with a flame thrower. There is one other emotion that we might have but we keep it inside and you would never notice it. Excitement. INTJ's are drawn to power and if you're showing us disaster relief we are way more interested in the disaster and the science behind how it came about than the human side of the story. People crying is not interesting too us and this is something the media loves to show. These are strangers. We do not care so long as it's not someone we know. And we don't have a huge social circle so we're probably 95% safe it's no one that matters to us. "Yes yes enough with all the crying people. Explain how this tsunami started? What was the force? How many cities were destroyed? What moron forgot to sound the alarm? More more more?"
3. We are focused inward. I sort of touched on this already on point 2. Again so long as it's not someone we cared about or worse US then we really don't care. We've got more important things to think about like solving math problems, figuring out how to build our next invention and so on. We are very detached. This is a strength as we do not give in emotionally to crying during a crisis and instead focus on solving the problem or surviving. One thing that bothers me when there is a disaster is that you mostly only see aftermath. It's exciting at first but quickly gets old. We want to see destruction as it happens not the result of flattened cities and cars. We want to see cars flying through the air and people that know how to stand in a safe place and not flinch with their cameras. Lastly going back to the whole "Does it work." Scenario. So does that mean we never give and are stingy? Hell no. IF the project has value and merit to us and will be something that will be seen to completion then we will be happy to give what we can. Let's say that they figured out the cure for cancer but the thing holding it back was funding and they asked for donations. Yes that is something we would donate to happily even if we had only pennies to give. Plus we'd get pride from having contributed to a small part of it. INTJ's do have big egos after all. It's good to have healthy pride. On a personal level, we prefer to work on the smaller personal level than on the big crowd level, we INTJ's are very giving to the few individuals that matter to us. The rest of the world be damned. But to our small circle of friends we treat like royalty when we can. We give gifts happily to those closest to us as they probably occupy plenty of our head time. Just that the rest of the world never gets to see this side of us. And we do not care. The world be damned.
So that is why INTJ's of all the types are the least giving. Oh and there is one exception to this that I personally dealt with on my trip. I was gassing up my car on the way home. This kid comes up to me and begs me for money that his mom was over there in a truck and they'd run out of gas and he was collecting money. Scam. Almost every gas station has one of these types working it doing such a thing. But without saying a word I eyed him and the situation. Big kid, way bigger than me. A bit scary looking. He's interrupted my thought process of filling up my car while I'm in a strange town I don't know anything about. So I gave him two bucks just to make him go away. I really don't care about him or his mom or if he spends it on beer and pisses it away. To me it was worth $2 to be left alone at that point. Sure enough he went and gave the same story to the next person. That's not charity it's a job and by the end of the day he's probably going to have a good amount of money for whatever. Funny enough when I was in Canada the same thing happened with a woman that came up to me and asked me in French for money. I gave her the death stare and said sternly "No." in a Spanish accent as I think it's pronounced the same and she understood to leave me the Hell alone. So there you have it.
On that note I want to talk about natural disasters now. I am fascinated by them and love watching disaster footage. It's so hard to find good raw disaster footage and again not just aftermath. I found an article the other day that the Volcano in Guatemala was erupting. It's called Volcan De Fuego. Well there wasn't much out there . The footage of lava coming out was only at night. Pretty at first but then the novelty wore off on me quickly. I can't watch a volcano making lava for more than 3 minutes. It got boring. But then I found THIS amateur video. I prefer raw amateur footage like this than official news footage for being un cut and showing things from a personal level. The commentary made this video for me. She was talking about how she got up this morning and Volcan De Fuego was very grumpy and angry. Look how mad he is. The one next to him is nice. And the big one here on the left is very friendly and never does anything. I know she's being positive but to me this tickled my dark humor. Yes look how grumpy the volcano is today before is crushes our village with a pyroclastic flow. Haha. I loved her panning too. Despite the shakey camera this shows very well how typical it is in Central America to have villages like this completely surrounded by deadly volcanoes. I've been to El Salvador several times and I'm always amazed how the capital is at the foot of several volcanoes. Beautiful imposing view in all directions, but it's just a way of life for these people I guess like hurricanes are for us. We have hurricane parties. Makes me think of Independence day
Will Smith: Is that an earth quake?
Girlfriend: Not even a four pointer. Go back to sleep.
And yesterday we had our own disaster here in Florida. Funny I was just talking about this in a previous post. A large sinkhole opened up not far from where I live in Land O Lakes FL and ate two houses and the street. I spent hours on youtube searching for the best videos but got rather annoyed after a while because everyone was just uploading the same thing over and over again. I'm thinking, in this age of cell phones SOMEONE, some neighbors had to have filmed more than the 4-5 videos floating around. Perhaps they'll pop up later but at least this time they were interesting. So here are some videos. This first one I found because I watch this guy. He posts great videos from his quadcopter of the Tampa Bay Area.
https://youtu.be/Ry8MuGQunz8
https://youtu.be/tI-3JozAxJQ
This next one is the one everyone and their grandmother has reuploaded. Would love to find the original in good quality. I do like it a lot because of the amazing sound of a house breaking. Also it's crazy to see how the ground water comes up and there is a current. I will talk about FL geology after these posts.
https://youtu.be/XN4qbEgrORM
I love this one because this is before the house in the other video collapsed. This is basically the start of the sinkhole. I would love to find more stuff like this as I know there are lots of people in this neighborhood that would have filmed each part of it.
https://youtu.be/Fqq9PPoHyGU
Lastly the neighbor's house starting to go in. I'm amazed at the power of this thing destroying a concrete house like nothing. Interesting to see a bed floating in the quicksand.
Florida Geology 101 now. Florida is a fairly new piece of land having risen out of the ocean during the Cenozoic. We're only around 40 million years old and that's why we sadly have no dinosaur fossils. Only age of mammals. Not as interesting unfortunately. So from bottom to top Florida is mostly Limestone, Clay and Sand because of our marine origins. Limestone is porous and weak against acid. Rain is naturally acidic so over time the rain percolates into the ground and erodes away the limestone forming caverns.
Our "solid" limestone layer is more like a sponge made of a network of caves and tunnels that run through the whole state and contains our aquifer. The aquifer is a system of underground rivers that flow to the ocean. Sometimes they break the surface as springs and provide fresh drinking water. There are many springs all over the state. After a great period of time rains can erode the lime stone and form a huge cave under the land that is filled with water from the aquifer. But during times of drought the water level drops and then with only air filling the cave the roof can not support the weight above. If there are buildings and cars over this they will fall in when the roof of the cave breaks.
Now look at this fictional cross section of our aquifer.
Notice that some of our big cities are literally floating on water. The entire state is a big sinkhole threat zone and that is why home owners insurance does not cover sink holes. For that you have to buy separate sinkhole specific insurance because all parts of the state are under threat. It just depends how much of a threat you are in.
Now have a look at this image. What happens if there is a lake over an empty cavern? Well we have such a case. Lake Jackson is the "magic" disappearing lake that has the plug pulled on it every few decades just like a bath tub. It's in north Florida in Tallahasee. Every 20-30 years the plug opens up and fish and alligators get swallowed up by the earth. I wish I could find the original video that showed that but it seems to be gone from youtube. For now here is one that is kind of interesting. I like seeing the lily pads on dry land.
https://youtu.be/FfMwEwfDr-E
The old video mentioned the original Indian name for the lake meant something like "Land of disappearing lake" so this has been going on for centuries.
Sinkholes usually happen in the dry season when the water dries up in the caves. But what about the one that just happened. This is our wet season. Well, as you saw the opposite happened. The sinkhole filled with water in those videos. Looks like a new spring came up between those houses. Eventually most sink holes become lakes. The infamous Winter Park sinkhole of 1981 did this. Probably the largest we've had today is now the lovely Lake Rose where people can go and feed ducks. Many lakes are former sinkholes.
Lastly sinkholes can also be caused by human activity like drilling a well or putting in pipes that cause the ground above to collapse.
So yes it's always interesting living here in this state.
.