aelephant comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

65 Post author: Yvain 03 November 2012 11:00PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (733)

You are viewing a single comment's thread.

Comment author: aelephant 04 November 2012 01:30:25AM *  27 points [-]

Does "your country" refer to the country you were born in, are a citizen of, or are currently residing in?

Also: Took it. Karma me gentlemen :D

Comment author: [deleted] 04 November 2012 03:34:23PM 2 points [-]

It says,

If multiple possible answers, please choose the one you most identify with.

That should coincide with the country you're a citizen of except in exceptional circumstances.

Comment author: Giles 04 November 2012 04:37:03PM 4 points [-]

I don't really consider nationality to be part of my self identity - I'm not sure how unusual I am in this regard. I'd suggest changing next year's survey to include "what country are you in right now" (unambiguous so hopefully less noisy) plus another question about national identity which would permit non-state or non-officially recognized nations as answers and also permit none/not sure. Essentially giving nationality the same treatment already given to sex/gender.

Comment author: MixedNuts 04 November 2012 05:07:28PM 2 points [-]

Disagree. "What country do you most identify with" covers people who care about nationality, immigrants who care about the land they live in even if they aren't citizens, children of immigrants who identify most with their parents' origin country even if they don't live there and aren't citizens, expats who reject cultural assimilation, would-be immigrants that can't permanently live in their country of choice but have assimilated, angsty movie characters who are torn between two or more countries and make compromises, people who don't give a hoot but can't ignore where their culture comes from, or where they have ties, or where they were raised, or where they pay taxes. "What country are you in" covers native or assimilated members of a culture who are not vacationing abroad, expats visiting their home country, and you.

Comment author: [deleted] 04 November 2012 11:22:44PM 2 points [-]

I'm starting to think that different people interpret “identify” in different ways, also from discussion in the Call For Critiques/Questions thread.

If I'm asked whether I'm male or female, I answer I'm male, with no hesitation whatsoever. This is what I'd call “identifying as male”. OTOH this doesn't mean that I'm proud of being male, that I endorse maleness (whatever that would mean), that I think males are more awesome than females¹ or even that I try to conform to any cultural stereotype of maleness solely because it's a cultural stereotype of maleness.² ISTM that certain people understand “identify” this latter way.

"what country are you in right now"

“What country do you currently live in” would be better IMO; with your version, someone who happens to be on holiday abroad when taking the test would have to give a somewhat irrelevant answer, whereas “currently” could be interpreted more broadly as I did for the employment question. Or if you really want to operationalize it, “in what country would it be the most convenient for you to attend a LW meetup in the next few months”.


  1. In fact, I find the majority of males to be pretty boring.

  2. Indeed, my latest Facebook status was “I wish Facebook had a way to automatically hide all posts about football (soccer)” (but in Italian), and it has been liked by 11 females and 3 males so far.

Comment author: aelephant 05 November 2012 12:59:10AM 1 point [-]

I see what you're saying, but I don't really identify with any country.

My country of birth was an accident & the country I live in now is governed by Communists.

If you do identify with a country, you might want to take a close look at that. Are you cheering for that team just because of an accident of birth, or because it is really worth cheering for?

Comment author: [deleted] 05 November 2012 01:33:50AM 3 points [-]

I don't cheer for it. I identify with it because I've spent most of my life in it, natively speak its language, am more intimately familiar with its culture than with that of any other country, and so are most of my friends. But it's not like I'm proud of being from here or anything like that. See my reply to Giles.

Comment author: aelephant 05 November 2012 05:03:15AM 0 points [-]

I understand that & I agree. I saw your reply, I just wanted to clarify, not necessarily for you, but for any other people who happened to be reading the thread.

Comment author: [deleted] 06 November 2012 12:27:12AM *  1 point [-]

Yes. Using “identify” in a survey would be no improvement, if so many people would interpret it the wrong way. Maybe it should use “consider yourself to be” or something like that.

Comment author: adamisom 06 November 2012 08:45:17AM *  2 points [-]

I'm hoping that this survey reveals that it is incorrect to refer to us LessWrongers as "gentlemen"

... And yes, you may take that either way. After all, there were questions on both our gender and our # of sexual partners.

Comment author: richardlitt 04 November 2012 12:25:07PM 1 point [-]

I presumed it was the country which you culturally identified most with.

Comment author: biased_tracer 04 November 2012 11:04:58AM 0 points [-]

I presumed it refers to the currently residing country.