Yvain 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: Yvain 07 December 2011 01:11:27PM 3 points [-]

Everyone who's suggesting changes: you are much more likely to get your way if you suggest a specific alternative. For example, instead of "handle politics better", something like "your politics question should have these five options: a, b, c, d, and e." Or instead of "use a more valid IQ measure", something more like "Here's a site with a quick and easy test that I think is valid"

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 07 December 2011 09:21:22PM 1 point [-]

In that case: use the exact ethics questions from the PhilPapers Survey (http://philpapers.org/surveys/), probably minus lean/accept distinction and the endless drop-down menu for "other."

Comment author: ChrisHallquist 15 December 2011 04:18:50AM 0 points [-]

For IQ: maybe you could nudge people to greater honesty by splitting up the question: (1) have you ever taken an IQ test with [whatever features were specified on this year's survey], yes or no? (2) if yes, what was your score?

Comment author: twanvl 15 December 2011 12:21:29PM 1 point [-]

Also, "ever" might be a bit too long. IQs and IQ tests can change over time, so maybe you should ask "have you taken an IQ test [with constraints] in the last 10 years?"

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