thomblake comments on 2012 Survey Results - Less Wrong

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

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Comment author: gwern 29 November 2012 05:53:17PM 10 points [-]

The 2011 survey ran 33 days and collected 1090 responses. This year's survey ran 23 days and collected 1195 responses.

Why did you close it early? That seems entirely unnecessary.

One friend didn't see the survey because she hangs out on the #lesswrong channel more than the main site.

I put a link and exhortation prominently in the #lesswrong topic from the day the survey opened to the day it closed.

M (trans f->m): 3, 0.3% / F (trans m->f): 16, 1.3%

3 vs 16 seems like quite a difference, even allowing for the small sample size. Is this consistent with the larger population?

Prefer polyamorous: 155, 13.1%...NUMBER OF CURRENT PARTNERS:... [>1 partners = 4.5%]

So ~3x more people prefer polyamory than are actually engaged in it...

Referred by HPMOR: 262, 22.1%

Impressive.

gwern.net: 5 people

Woot! And I'm not even trying or linking LW especially often.

(I am also pleased by the nicotine and modafinil results, although you dropped a number in 'Never: 76.5%')

TROLL TOLL POLICY: Disapprove: 194, 16.4% Approve: 178, 15%

So more people are against than for. Not exactly a mandate for its use.

Are people who understand quantum mechanics are more likely to believe in Many Worlds? We perform a t-test, checking whether one's probability of the MWI being true depends on whether or not one can solve the Schrodinger Equation. People who could solve the equation had on average a 54.3% probability of MWI, compared to 51.3% in those who could not. The p-value is 0.26; there is a 26% probability this occurs by chance. Therefore, we fail to establish that people's probability of MWI varies with understanding of quantum mechanics.

Sounds like you did a two-tailed test. shminux's hypothesis, which he has stated several times IIRC, is that people who can solve it will not be taken in by Eliezer's MWI flim-flam, as it were, and would be less likely to accept MWI. So you should've been running a one-tailed t-test to reject the hypothesis that the can-solvers are less MWI'd. The p-value would then be something like 0.13 by symmetry.

Comment author: thomblake 29 November 2012 09:10:32PM 4 points [-]

So ~3x more people prefer polyamory than are actually engaged in it...

I wonder, if you split out poly/mono preference and number of partners, whether the number who prefer poly but have <2 partners would be significantly different from the number who prefer mono but have <1 partner.

Now that I've wondered this out loud, I feel like I should have just asked a computer.

Comment author: DaFranker 29 November 2012 09:17:22PM 5 points [-]

I was about to reply the same thing. The quoted statement doesn't sound particularly more surprising than "Most people prefer to be in a relationship, but only a fraction of those are actually engaged in one".

Comment author: Kindly 29 November 2012 09:30:07PM 4 points [-]

Would it be more surprising to find people that prefer poly relationships, but only have one partner and aren't looking for more, than to find people that prefer mono relationships, but have no partners and aren't looking for any?

Among those with firm mono/poly preferences, there are 15% of the former (24% if we also include people that prefer poly, have no partners, and aren't looking for more) and 14% of the latter.

Comment author: Kindly 29 November 2012 09:33:30PM 3 points [-]

Also, roughly 2/7 of people that prefer poly are single, while roughly 3/7 of people that prefer mono are.

Comment author: thomblake 29 November 2012 09:37:00PM 2 points [-]

Thanks, computer!

Comment author: Kindly 29 November 2012 09:42:31PM *  1 point [-]

Oh, I forgot to answer your actual question. Slightly over 2/3 of people that prefer poly have 0 or 1 partners.

Edit: Although I guess this much was evident from the data if we assume that people that prefer mono won't have 2 or more partners. I guess the group that doesn't have a firm mono/poly preference (which I ignored entirely) could confuse things a bit.

Comment author: thomblake 29 November 2012 09:57:01PM 0 points [-]

Also, roughly 2/7 of people that prefer poly are single, while roughly 3/7 of people that prefer mono are.

Slightly over 2/3 of people that prefer poly have 0 or 1 partners.

So, people that prefer mono are more likely to have their preferred number of partners, but people who prefer poly have more partners.

Comment author: DaFranker 29 November 2012 09:43:59PM 1 point [-]

Would it be more surprising (...)?

Not by that much, but yes, I suppose a tad more.

Thanks for clearing this up.

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