Perplexed comments on Less Wrong: Open Thread, September 2010 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: matt 01 September 2010 01:40AM

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Comment author: datadataeverywhere 09 September 2010 03:14:37PM 2 points [-]

How diverse is Less Wrong? I am under the impression that we disproportionately consist of 20-35 year old white males, more disproportionately on some axes than on others.

We obviously over-represent atheists, but there are very good reasons for that. Likewise, we are probably over-educated compared to the populations we are drawn from. I venture that we have a fairly weak age bias, and that can be accounted for by generational dispositions toward internet use.

However, if we are predominately white males, why are we? Should that concern us? There's nothing about being white, or female, or hispanic, or deaf, or gay that prevents one from being a rationalist. I'm willing to bet that after correcting for socioeconomic correlations with ethnicity, we still don't make par. Perhaps naïvely, I feel like we must explain ourselves if this is the case.

Comment author: Perplexed 09 September 2010 04:35:54PM 4 points [-]

I generally agree with your assessment. But I think there may be more East and South Asians than you think, more 36-80s and more 15-19s too. I have no reason to think we are underrepresented in gays or in deaf people.

My general impression is that women are not made welcome here - the level of overt sexism is incredibly high for a community that tends to frown on chest-beating. But perhaps the women should speak for themselves on that subject. Or not. Discussions on this subject tend to be uncomfortable, Sometimes it seems that the only good they do is to flush some of the more egregious sexists out of the closet.

Comment author: timtyler 09 September 2010 08:09:57PM *  2 points [-]

But perhaps the women should speak for themselves on that subject.

We have already had quite a lot of that.

Comment author: Perplexed 09 September 2010 08:44:56PM 2 points [-]

OMG! A whole top-level-posting. And not much more than a year ago. I didn't know. Well, that shows that you guys (and gals) have said all that could possibly need to be said regarding that subject. ;)

But thx for the link.

Comment author: timtyler 09 September 2010 08:48:13PM *  1 point [-]

It does have about 100 pages of comments. Consider also the "links to followup posts" in line 4 of that article. It all seemed to go on forever - but maybe that was just me.

Comment author: Perplexed 09 September 2010 08:54:39PM 2 points [-]

Ok. Well, it is on my reading list now. Again, thx.