machrider comments on [POLL] LessWrong census, mindkilling edition [closed, now with results] - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Oligopsony 11 December 2011 09:23AM

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Comment author: machrider 12 December 2011 02:04:54AM *  11 points [-]

What percentage of educated Westerners would you guess are to the right (as operationalized below) of you on economic questions?

Sorry, I find this survey terrible. I don't know how to answer most of the questions. Questions like the above require me to have more knowledge than I personally have (about the internal state of billions of educated Westerners). You are supposed to do this work for us by asking 5 to 10 representative questions with which we can strongly agree/strongly disagree, etc, and then use that information to categorize responders.

The way this survey is written I don't even feel comfortable submitting my response, because the percentages are wild guesses. Further, I don't even know what it means to be "left" or "right" on race and gender issues. Also, the categories in the first part contain multiple, sometimes conflicting labels. It's really hard to know how to respond to those, as well.

I say all this as someone with concrete political beliefs! If you asked me specific questions, I would happily answer them. But I'm not comfortable speculating about the political beliefs of people occupying an entire hemisphere.

Comment author: Throway2 12 December 2011 06:13:46AM 3 points [-]

I don't even know how to parse 'Westerners'. I bet my intuitions would feel very different if I happened to be back in Shanghai right now.