John_Maxwell_IV comments on 2012 Survey Results - Less Wrong

80 Post author: Yvain 07 December 2012 09:04PM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 29 November 2012 12:50:36PM 17 points [-]

But I am skeptical of these numbers. I hang out with some people who are very closely associated with the greater Less Wrong community, and a lot of them didn't know about the survey until I mentioned it to them in person. I know some people who could plausibly be described as focusing their lives around the community who just never took the survey for one reason or another. One lesson of this survey may be that the community is no longer limited to people who check Less Wrong very often, if at all. One friend didn't see the survey because she hangs out on the #lesswrong channel more than the main site. Another mostly just goes to meetups. So I think this represents only a small sample of people who could justly be considered Less Wrongers.

Yeah, this also fits my observations--I suspect that reading LW and hanging out with LW types in real life are substitute goods.