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So on a related point that may or may not be worth its own post. Looking at the new Less Wrong facebook group one rapidly becomes aware that basically everyone here is demographically identical. The vast majority are white men in their twenties- and among those who volunteered the information, most had degrees in math, science or philosophy. There did appear to be a large international presence (and by international I mean European).
So my question is 1) why? What about the Less Wrong project selects YWM and 2) is it a problem? I tend to think that someone biography influences their perspective to such an extent that its useful to talk to and read people with different biographical backgrounds. So maybe its just a matter of reading different blogs... on the other hand if you're trying to build a broad rationalist movement then we're doing something wrong, no?
The question of youth seems easy, and I would expect LW readers to skew young. LW is heavily focused on a form of self-improvement that requires serious investment of effort and willingness to challenge preconceived notions. Youth is on average more open to new experience, is often engaged in deep questioning of their worldview already, has lots of time available, and is more likely to have the discipline required for intellectual reading/learning, since they're probably doing it at school/university already anyway. Most people do not like learning, and apart from learning related to their jobs, have no interest in continuing to learn after their formal education ends.
Not tackling the question of LW WM-ness for now, but this has been discussed before over at OB. I'd be curious if there's a significant difference between the proportion of WMs among LW readers and the proportion of WMs among the obvious feeder disciplines though...
I wonder whether this means that we're missing out on a lot of potential expertise though. (I'm thinking particularly of academics here, so discipline, interest etc. are assured.)
On the other hand, there's a chance that the youth skew is partially a function of the facebook side of the facebook/LW intersection...
I would like to see more people who practice rationality and assumption questioning in other disciplices: women's studies, public policy, art and literature. I took a lot of literary philosophy classes back in the day and read quite a few post-modern critiques that mirror what I see on Less Wrong.
Almost every post-modern analysis depends on questioning how someone framed their subject and proceeds to recommend different assumptions; surely people with these backgrounds have examples to offer outside of game theory and psychology.
It would also be good to see some legal types. Lawyers competing in front of Judges who then make decisions that affect people's lives must certainly have put a little thought toward the roles of rationality and persuasion in truth seeking. Even if you don't care for lawyers, you have to wonder how judges proceed.
Maybe we should invade other forums and lead the discussions back here?
EDIT ( In regard to that OB post on female perspectives, its interesting that Robin Hanson of all people wasn't more humble about his potential lack of knowledge in a new field when his post got a poor response! Goes to show how important other perspectives are to this project)