Learning how to accurately read a person at a distance is a vital skill one needs to cultivate in today's complex world.
Anyone who wishes to be successful must be able to make a clear, rapid and correct assessment of a person before he even speaks a word, but most people don't bother and they got lost in words.
Of course, you will fine-tune that assessment with time, but I believe that 80% accuracy or higher within 2 minutes of knowing a person is possible if you're astute enough.
. . .Of course, people change and that is where the 20% comes in.
Originally Posted by Fast Gunn
So, what pray tell can you infer from a typical 2 minute encounter with an unspeaking stranger, Sherlock? Where said stranger dined for breakfast? Or the balance of finances in volatile market shares V government bonds? Or the all-important Yale vs Harvard question? Surely whether they believe in the trans-migration of the soul or, at least, if they are a non-believer?
Absurd, absurd, absurd.
For many (most?) of us the world is an enormous and fearful place and there can be great comfort in measuring it into decipherable "bites." And knowing things (or at least telling ourself we know things) about the world and its inhabitants is the ultimate salve against the festering wound of absolute ignorance.
It seems to me you argue but a poor variation of
Dubito, ergo cogito, ergo sum. But aren't the flaws in this statement obvious enough?