Unnamed comments on 2011 Survey Results - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: Unnamed 08 December 2011 03:43:47AM *  3 points [-]

I looked into this a little more, and it looks like those who are strongly tied to the LW community are less likely to give high answers to p(cryonics) (p>50%), but not any more or less likely to give low answers (p<10%). That reduction in high answers could be a sign of greater rationality - less affect heuristic driven irrational exuberance about the prospects for cryonics - or just more knowledge about the topic. But I'm surprised that there's no change in the frequency of low answers.

There is a similar pattern in the relationship between cryonics status and p(cryonics). Those who are signed up for cryonics don't give a higher p(cryonics) on average than those who are not signed up, but they are less likely to give a probability under 10%. The group with the highest average p(cryonics) is those who aren't signed up but are considering it, and that's the group that's most likely to give a probability over 50%.

Here are the results for p(cryonics) broken down by cryonics status, showing what percent of each group gave p(cryonics)<.1, what percent gave p(cryonics)>.5, and what the average p(cryonics) is for each group. (I'm expressing p(cryonics) here as probabilities from 0-1 because I think it's easier to follow that way, since I'm giving the percent of people in each group.)

Never thought about it / don't understand (n=26): 58% give p<.1, 8% give p>.5, mean p=.17
No, and not planning to (n=289): 60% give p<.1, 6% give p>.5, mean p=.14
No, but considering it (n=444): 38% give p < .1, 18% give p>.5, mean p=.27
Yes - signed up or just finishing up paperwork (n=36): 39% give p<.1, 8% give p>.5, mean p=.21
Overall: 47% give p<.1, 13% give p>.5, mean p=.22

Comment author: ewbrownv 12 December 2011 11:20:24PM 2 points [-]

The existential risk questions are a confounding factor here - if you think p(cryonics works) 80%, but p(xrisk ends civilization) 50%, that pulls down your p(successful revival) considerably.

Comment author: Unnamed 13 December 2011 12:45:18AM 2 points [-]

I wondered about that, but p(cryonics) and p(xrisk) are actually uncorrelated, and the pattern of results for p(cryonics) remains the same when controlling statistically for p(xrisk).