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gothgirl420666 comments on Fermi Estimates - Less Wrong
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Comments (104)
I'm happy to see that the Greatest Band of All Time is the only rock band I can recall ever mentioned in a top-level LessWrong post. I thought rationalists just sort of listened only to Great Works like Bach or Mozart, but I guess I was wrong. Clearly lukeprog used his skills as a rationalist to rationally deduce the band with the greatest talent, creativity, and artistic impact of the last thirty years and then decided to put a reference to them in this post :)
If you check out Media posts, you'll see that LWers like a range of music. It wouldn't surprise me too much if they tend to like contemporary classical better than classical classical.
I like a specific subset of classical classical, but I suspect not at all typical.
Why?
Because of the images of different musical genres in our culture. There is an association of classical music and being academic or upper class. In popular media, liking classical music is a cheap signal for these character types. This naturally triggers confirmation biases, as we view the rationalist listening to Bach as typical, and the rationalist listening to The Rolling Stones as atypical. People also use musical preference to signal what type of person they are. If someone wants to be seen as a rationalist, they often mention their love of Bach and don't mention genres with a different image, except to disparage them.
I think you're conflating "rationalist" and "intellectual." I agree that there is a stereotype that intellectuals only listen to Great Works like Bach or Mozart, but I'm curious where the OP picked up that this stereotype also ought to apply to LW-style rationalists. I mean, Eliezer takes pains in the Sequences to make anime references specifically to avoid this kind of thing.
Well, he also likes tends to like anime, and anime has a tendency to deal with some future-ish issues.
From On Things That Are Awesome:
I'm just pointing out the way such a bias comes into being. I know I don't listen to classical, and although I'd expect a slightly higher proportion here than in the general population, I wouldn't guess it wold be a majority or significant plurality.
If I had to guess, I'd guess on varied musical tastes, probably trending towards more niche genres than broad spectrum pop than the general population.
Well, Eliezer mentions Bach a bunch in the sequences as an example of a great work of art. I used stereotypes to extrapolate. :p
(the statement was tongue-in-cheek, if that didn't come across. I am genuinely a little surprised to see MBV mentioned here though.)