Pfft comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong

94 Post author: Yvain 05 December 2011 10:49AM

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Comment author: Yvain 04 December 2011 07:14:42PM *  40 points [-]

Running list of changes for next year's survey:

  1. Ask who's a poster versus a lurker!
  2. A non-write-in "Other" for most questions
  3. Replace "gender" with "sex" to avoid complaints/philosophizing.
  4. Very very clear instructions to use percent probabilities and not decimal probabilities
  5. Singularity year question should have explicit instructions for people who don't believe in singularity
  6. Separate out "relationship status" and "looking for new relationships" questions to account for polys
  7. Clarify that research is allowed on the probability questions
  8. Clarify possible destruction of humanity in cryonics/antiagathics questions.
  9. What does it mean for aliens to "exist in the universe"? Light cone?
  10. Make sure people write down "0" if they have 0 karma.
  11. Add "want to sign up, but not available" as cryonics option.
  12. Birth order.
  13. Have children?
  14. Country of origin?
  15. Consider asking about SAT scores for Americans to have something to correlate IQs with.
  16. Consider changing morality to PhilPapers version.
Comment author: Pfft 06 December 2011 01:01:38AM 4 points [-]

Replacing gender with sex seems like the wrong way to go to me. For example, note how Randall Munroe asked about sex, then regretted it.

Comment author: jkaufman 02 April 2012 09:49:54PM 0 points [-]

I don't think I'd describe that post as regretting asking "do you have a Y chromosome". He's apologizing for asking for data for one purpose (checking with colorblindness) and then using it for another (color names if you're a guy/girl).