Actually, I've had multiple responses (to other threads) where people confidently state that the other people think this or that, and they're completely, verifiable wrong. I've got people saying stuff in this thread like many here are fine with being called "elitist" which is a fundamental disagreement with my stance - I'm not fine with it and I think it makes LessWrong look bad. I think there's some confusion over what my main point is. I made a lot of points, so that may be why. For these reasons, I created an elitism poll which I hope will help me understand what people think on the most important points.

In lieu of a quantifiable metric that classifies people into the two sections (not likely) it's going to be very hard for people in the "lower" section to admit that the people in the "higher" section are actually better writers or smarter or more rational or whatever, even if they are.

I suggested a test in Preventing discussion from being watered down by an "endless September" user influx

A test won't deter ignorant cheaters, but they can force them to educate themselves. Questions can be worded in such a way that they serve as a crash course in reasoning in the event that someone posts a cheat sheet or registrants look up all the answers on the internet.

Some would be motivated to barrel through it even though they're not good at rational thought, but at least then they'd probably begin to get an idea of what an advanced rationalist is like. I think a lot of people would choose to hang back because such a questionnaire would make it seem too challenging to those who haven't developed their abilities yet. If you'd like to criticize that idea, I'd appreciate it, but it will be much easier for me to find that criticism later if it's on the endless September thread.