army1987 comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

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

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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.