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Mr. Carter has constructed a theory of anthroplogy based about the premise that some large percentage of people are diseased. He has done this based on his observation of white-collar workers, primarily in technical fields.

Earlier in this century Katherine C. Briggs cast her net wider. She observed some of the same phenomena, but in a much bigger context. She came up with a different interpretation.

The sub-branch of psychology she founded has the following paradigm:

A certain sub-population can be characterized as particularly change- and risk- adverse, very traditionalist and conservative, very methodical and habitual – among other traits. Testing indicates these people comprise about one third of the US population. Testing in workplaces, the military, and college programs which specialize in business training indicates that this change-adverse population is disproportionately represented among executives and business people. Let's call these people group A.

A different sub-population (group B) can be characterized as particularly risk- and change- embracing; more dare-devil and capricious. They, too, account for about one third of the US population. This population has disproportionately high school drop-out rates, and a much lower tolerance of the routine of the office; they are less common in the white-collar world, and tend to work in "interupt-driven" jobs such as "business development".

Group C, the remaining third-to-a-quarter (depending on which study you use) is the lump which has several familiar factions in it. It is not characterized (as a whole) as being particularly change-adverse or change-embracing (though individual members maybe on either end of that scale.) Instead, they are characterized by a facility with (and reliance on) abstract thought, which the other two populations don't share. In is in this population that you find the Poets, the Activists, the Mystics – and the Scientists, Architects, and yes, Hackers.

One of the foundations of this paradigm is that all these trait-clusters (which define these populations) are equally "normal", healthful, viable and valid. They have pathologies, but they aren't themselves pathologies.

What it looks like, from the perspective of this paradigm, is that Mr. Carter generalized from the interactions of his Group C friends, students and collegues with a largely Group A -rich population, to wit, The Suits. And perceiving the very palpable difference between these kinds of people, he then made an presumption as old as humankind: If They are different from Us, either They or Us must be broken/wrong/bad/defective/sick/disordered.

It is these Suits, these (usually) Group A people, who are Packers. They are not Packers because they are defective or diseased. They are Packers because Packing is an amazingly useful and viable memetic strategy – ask Mr. Ford about his factories. I agree: Packing is an abysmal strategy for making software. But it is kick ass for making cars, running a farm, or, yes, packing boxes.

In fact, it's they very success of Packing that's at the root of this problem. All those Packers have had such success with it so far, they have trouble imagining it could fail them. They have a hammer, and have seen many nails; if they are skeptical about the concept of certain nail-like objects being "screws", that is only to be expected.

And give them some credit: If someone working for you insisted that the methodology which has worked for you your entire life was wrong, you'd probably be rather skeptical.

Packers live in a world in which Packing, by and large, works. Mappers, unfortunately, have to live in a society filled with Packers (the Group B, the swing vote, usually effectively supports Group A for reasons to complicated to go into here). So natural Mappers to learn to Pack. Since Packers can get through life without learning much to Map, they often slack off and don't bother.

Briggs wrote about the phenomenon of "Protective Coloration", whereby people of a minority type learn to behave in the way of a majority (or socially sanctioned) type. This is a major life stressor, and trying to keep up the charade generally makes one awfully miserable. This applies precisely to the problem of our native Mappers, people from Group C, who learned to put aside the strategy of Mapping for the more approved strategy of Packing.

It is this which causes the Ghost Not, and from there, the rest of Mr. Carter's theory can proceed.

But I must take issue with the presumption that someone has to be pathological. The problem is not that Packers are defective or diseased Mappers languishing for a cure. The problem is that Packers can impose Packing on software projects.

The solution in some combination of

1. "Mapping Appreciation" for Packers – the training of Packers to accept and respect the Mapping strategy, so they keep out of the hair of the Mappers while they do their work, and
2. Preventing those Packers without that clue-attitude combination from having anything to do with development, except possibly the Q&A.

People interested in learning more about this paradigm of psychology/anthropology should turn to:

• Manual : A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator by Isabel B. Myers – for those of a more technical bent.
• Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel B. Myers – a popular press book, but with lots of interesting data; and
• Please Understand Me by David Keirsey and Marylin Bates, a pop-psych book that's reasonably good.

and should ignore just about everything on the www about the MBTI.