Er: Rhebcr: V fnvq sbhe uhaqerq svsgl zvyyvba, juvpu V inhtryl erzrzorerq urnevat, ohg jnf irel pbasvqrag. Gheaf bhg gur cbchyngvba bs Rhebcr vf arneyl frira uhaqerq sbegl zvyyvba - SNVY! Rkprcg nppbeqvat gb Jvxvcrqvn, gur cbchyngvba bs gur Rhebcrna Havba vf n yvggyr bire 500 zvyyvba, juvpu vf nyzbfg vafvqr zl 10% vagreiny, naq cebonol jung V jnf guvaxvat bs, nyybjvat sbe erzrzorevat n fbzrjung bhgqngrq ahzore.

Is there anywhere I can read an explanation of (or anyone who can explain) the distinction between "Atheist but spiritual" and "Atheist and not spiritual"?

I took the last two surveys, but I'm not taking this one, since I anticipate that all my answers will be the same.

I chose defect, and plan on donating the money to MIRI if I win.

I would also like to hereby precommit to (assuming a repeat of the monetary award next year), donating the money to x-risk reduction next year if I win, and also chosing "cooperate" if a large number of people make a similar precommitment and "defect" otherwise.

Just finished it. I missed the deadline, but it seems to have let me submit. Thanks for a good time!

I defected because I decided that I'm one of the last ones to complete the survey, so RIGHT NOW I have the choice between 4 tickets and 1 ticket in a lottery for approximately the same amount of money. My gut now tells me this was bad decision making, so...Contemplation Time!

Did that.

Re. relationships: The only people I've heard use "polyamorous" are referring to committed, marriage-like relationships involving more than two adults. There ought to be a category for those of us who don't want exclusivity with any number.

I've left most of the probability questions blank, because I don't think it is meaningfully possible to assign numbers to events I have little or no quantitative information about. For instance, I'll try P(Aliens) when we've looked at several thousand planets closely enough to be reasonably sure of answers about them.

In addition, I don't think some of the questions can have meaningful answers. For example, the "Many Worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, if true, would have no testable (falsifiable) effect on the observable universe, and therefore I consider the question to be objectively meaningless. The same goes for P(Simulation), and probably P(God).

P(religion) also suffers from vagueness: what conditions would satisfy it? Not only are some religions vaguely defined, but there are many belief systems that are arguably relgions or not religions. Buddhism? Communism? Atheism?

The singularity is vague, too. (And as I usually hear it described, I would see it as a catastrophe if it happened. The SF story "With Folded Hands" explains why.)

Extra credit items:

Great Stagnation -- I believe that the rich world's economy IS in a great stagnation that has lasted for most of a century, but NOT for the reasons Cowen and Thiel suggest. The stagnation is because of "progressive" politics, especially both the welfare state and overregulation/nanny-statism, which destroy most people's opportunities to innovate and profit by it. This is not a trivial matter, but a problem quite comparable to those listed in the "catastrophe" section, and one which may very well prevent a solution to a real catastrophe if we become headed for one. (Both parties' constant practice of campaigning-by-inventing-a-new-phony-emergency-every-month makes the problem worse, too: most rational people now dismiss any cry of alarm as the boy who cried wolf. Certainly the environmental movement, including its best known "scientists", have discredited themselves this way.) This is why the struggle for liberty is so critical.

Feedback, FWIW: - Why nothing for individuals who identify as "biracial"...or "check all that apply" for race? - Can you not infer "relationship status" from "number of current partners," or are you implying that the first question only pertains to sexual contact (not a "relationship" per se)? If so, why not specify that? - Profession: No "Chemistry"?? WTF... three choices for "computers," you nicely distinguish finance/economics as separate from "business," and the same for the "statistics" and "mathematics" people, but the central science has to fall under "other hard science"???? You F'ed up here, admit it.

Finally did it. I'd like exactly 7 karma please.

Not taken, and will not be taken as long as it demands that I log in with Google (or Facebook, or anything else other than maybe a local Less Wrong account).

One other comment on the survey: I totally surprised my self by describing my political views as "socialist," once I saw "socialist" defined as "for example Scandanavian countries: socially permissive, high taxes, major redistribution of wealth." I'm not actually very clear on the details of how Scandanavian countries differ from, say, Britain, France, or Germany, but insofar as I'm inclined to support things like guaranteed basic income the shoe seems to fit. I wonder if the wording will result in more socialists on this year's survey.

Didn't take the survey. There were enough question I was vaguely uncomfortable with answering that I chose not to. I may change my mind later; however, I already read the comments, including some which give information on the probability calibration question.

Survey taken! Can't wait to see the results.

Took the survey. This survey made me remember that I've never actually done a proper IQ test. I should consider rectifying that situation. Other than that, I was surprised that your extensive "Complex Affiliation" political section did not include "Liberal". Modern Liberalism is a distinct political tradition that I would argue ought to be on such an extensive list, especially given that it's on the much shorter earlier list of political affiliations. :V

Also, though I don't yet "self-identify" with Effective Altruism, I do sympathize with their goals and ideals, and am mulling over the idea of joining the movement.

Aside from that, good work coming up with some quite clever questions. No doubt the results should make interesting fodder for thought.

Though one question, what happens if the first word of the two word passphrase is the same as someone else's? Am I fair to assume that anyone who was unable to come up with an original enough first word is effectively disqualified from winning the prize, or is the prize going to be shared among those who chose the same first word?

Edit: I just realized that technically what could happen with the two word passphrase is that even if two or more people had the same first word, chances are they would have different second words and so even if multiple people thought they had won after the first word was revealed, only the one with the correct second word would actually win. Which would suck for the others with that first word who didn't win, as they'd be given such hope and then have those hopes dashed. XD

A comment on the prize for those who've already taken it:

Qrsrpg frrzf yvxr pyrneyl gur evtug zbir. Gurer'yy or uhaqerqf bs erfcbaqragf fb V'yy unir n znetvany vzcnpg ba gur fvmr bs gur cevmr. Ubjrire, V dhnqehcyr zl punapr bs jvaavat ol pubbfvat qrsrpg. Gung orvat fnvq, V ubcr lbh cvpxrq pbbcrengr.

I did it! I place my faith in you people! COOPERATE

Answered every question to which I had an answer. I haven't spent much time on Less Wrong recently, but it's really pretty remarkable how just answering Less Wrong surveys causes me to think more seriously than just about anything else I come across in any given week.

Took survey. Now realize that given the first phrase of my passphrase the second word is easily determined. To enable me to claim the prize anyway should I win it: it is powdery and turns red and black in reaction to potassium hydroxide.

I took the survey! It was certainly the most interesting online information-gathering survey I've ever taken, mostly because of the end- in retrospect, not sure what I expected.

I took the survey; apparently I get karma for that? :-)

Took the survey and reminded my fellow Russians to participate too.

Participated!

Nice job on the survey. I loved the cooperate/defect problem, with calibration questions.

I defected, since a quick expected value calculation makes it the overwhelmingly obvious choice (assuming no communcation between players, which I am explicitly violating right now). Judging from comments, it looks like my calibration lower bound is going to be way off.

Do we make suggestions here or wait for another post?

A few friends are Anglo-Catholic (ie. members of the Church of England or equivalent, not Roman Catholic, but catholic, I believe similar to Episcopalian in USA?), and not sure if they counted as "Catholic", "Protestant" or "Other". It might be good to tweak the names slightly to cover that case. (I can ask for preferred options if it helps.)

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-prn2/1453250_492554064192905_1417321927_n.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Catholicism

I defected, and then afterwards I realized that the proportion of people cooperating could likely have a causal effect on future in-group cooperativeness among LWers. Dammit, I should have thought of that earlier.

What is the probability that there is a god, defined as a supernatural intelligent entity who created the universe?

I've included our potential simulators in this.

What is the probability that any of humankind's revealed religions is more or less correct?

I've included religions such as venturist.

What is the probability that at least one person living at this moment will reach an age of one thousand years, conditional on no global catastrophe destroying civilization in that time?

I've put the answer includying and excludying the use of cryonics.

I estimate that 90% of people will have deffect.

I wouldn't mind if my survey wasn't anonymous.

I defected, because I'm indifferent to whether the prize-giver or prize-winner has 60 * X dollars, unless the prize-winner is me.

Ok, went and took the survey.

And I only lied about one question!

Took the full survey (ouch, my calibration is terrible, especially if I misunderstand the question...). I find it a bit frustrating that it asks only about the SAT and ACT (which I haven't taken), and not, for example, the GRE. Otherwise it was really fun without taking very long, thanks Yvain!

I took the survey. Been lurking for about two years sans account.

I guess this makes me part of the borganism now.

Survey taken. I hope I didn't break it - I am a committed atheist, but also an active member of a Unitarian Universalist congregation, and I indicated that in spite of the explicit request for atheists not to answer the denomination question. (Atheist UUs are very common, and people on the "agnostic or less religious" side of the spectrum probably make up around 40% of the UU congregations I'm familiar with.)

Took the survey. Feels good to be posting a comment again, think it's potentially a way to get people to overcome the tendency to just lurk.

I've completed the survey

Apparently I don't participate in the community. I only comment once a year, to report that I took the survey.

Done, including most bonus questions. Missed the IQ ones since I've never had that test, and defected before reading the comment saying the money was coming from someone's pocket rather than lesswrong (order of preference for where money is: my pocket>lesswrong>random lesswrong survey completer). Though I'd probably still defect knowing it's coming from Yvain.. ideally next time you could find a source of prize money who everyone wants to take money from?

I took the survey. Very much awaiting the results, although the last question feels like Tragedy of the Commons rather than pure prisoner's dilemma.

Took the survey. I just missed last year's, so I was glad to get to participate this year.

Done the survey. Nice touch at the end.

I took the survey, was fun!

Took the survey. I assume from the phrasing that 'country' means where I'm "from" rather than where I currently reside (there is more room for uncertainty about the former than about the latter). Might be interesting to put both questions.

I felt so rebel giving passwords right above Google's message:

Never submit passwords through Google Forms

I took the survey.

I chose to Defect on the monetary reward prize question. Why?

• I realized that the prize money is probably contributed by Yvain. And if $60-or-less were to be distributed between a random Less Wrong member and Yvain, I would rather as much of it as possible go to Yvain. This is because I know Yvain is smart and writes interesting posts, so the money could help him to contribute something to the world that another could not. Answering Defect lowers the amount of prize money, making Yvain keep more of it.
• Also, I would rather I have the $60-or-less than anyone other Less Wrong member, and answering Defect gets me a bigger chance of that happening.

Edit: pgbh had the same reasoning.

Taken the survey, for the second time. Doesn't feel like a year...

I'm a bit curious about the Prisoners' Dilemma question. I co-operated, as my rationale was "Well, I'm unlikely to win anyway, and I don't really want to spoil the prize for whoever does win, so C". Not sure if that counts as a true PD...

Taken.

I defected. If I win I'll donate it all to GiveWell's top-rated charity--so the rest of you defectors have stolen statistical cash from the world's poorest! (Unless you were planning to do the same thing.)

Survey taken!

I tried it a few days ago and it didn't submit as far as I can tell - in between I looked up the answer to the calibration question, but I answered as I did originally (NAILED IT anyway).

Survey gripe: I answered "left-handed" for the handedness question, but I only really write with my left hand, and do everything else with my right. My left hand might be a little more dextrous but my right is definitely stronger. As such I'd see myself as cross-dominant rather than ambidextrous; is this something that could be included on future surveys or is it not useful for the kind of data you're collecting?

Took the survey.

I chose to defect. Defecting maximizes the expected payoff for me personally, and the expected overall payoff isn't affected by my decision since Yvain just keeps whatever money isn't claimed.

An interesting variant would have been for Yvain to throw away whatever money was lost due to defections, or donate it to some organization most don't like. In that case I would probably have cooperated.

I took the survey. In a bit sad that there are less questions than last year, but in total I like it.

I answered everything I could. I wish I could have put what my IQ is, but I've never taken an official test. I'm not sure I want to know what my IQ really is. If it's lower than I want, I think I'll feel inferior, envious, and generally frustrated that I can't do much to improve it.

Possible Survey Spoiler. You may want to take the survey before reading this.

I'm not sure if monetary prize question was intended to serve as a reimagining of the prisoner's dilemma, but that seems to be the way people are interpreting it in these comments. I would like to point out that the cooperate/defect question is fundamentally different from the original Prisoner's Dilemma because the total amount of prison time in the original scenario actually is dependent on your cooperation or defection. In this game, the total amount of money is unchanged by our actions.

Defecting reassigns more money to yourself and Yvain (or whoever is paying for the prize.) Cooperating assigns more money to other survey takers. I don't really see why anyone should prefer giving money to random other survey takers rather than themselves or Yvain.

In future surveys, this could be corrected for (assuming this is intended to serve as a prisoner's dilemma) by promising to burn the portion of the prize money that is defected away.

I'm a European, and the thought that geographical Europe might be meant didn't even occur to me,since in most of my daily interactions (media consumed, small talk, etc.), "Europe" is used interchangeably with "European Union". Teaches me to read such survey questions more thoroughly.

I want to congratulate you on how well you integrated the many suggestions you got, I see many improvements compared to the 2012 (for example, the introductory text convinced me to take the survey right away, when I was one of those who put it off last year).

Taken.

I took the survey.

All the extra credit questions!

I don't answer survey questions that ask about race, but if you met me you'd think of me as white male.

I'm more strongly libertarian (but less party affiliated) than the survey allowed me to express.

I have reasonably strong views about morality, but had to look up the terms "Deontology", "Consequentialism", and "Value Ethics" in order to decide that of these "consequentialism" probably matches my views better than the others.

Probabilities: 50,30,20,5,0,0,0,10,2,1,20,95.

On "What is the probability that significant global warming is occurring or will soon occur, and is primarily caused by human actions?", I had to parse several words very carefully, and ended up deciding to read "significant" as "measureable" rather than "consequential". For consequential, I would have given a smaller value.

I answered all the way to the end of the super bonus questions, and cooperated on the prize question.

For the questions about the many worlds hypothesis, and whether we are living in a simulation, it seems to me that there is no way to know the truth, because the world would look just the same, but it may sometimes be useful to think as if they were true? Or am I just missing something fundamental?

I enjoyed reading about the MONETARY REWARD.

Answered all questions, I hope I helped!

I'm very curious to see how the monetary reward works out.

I have taken the survey. Whoot!

For the Prize Question, you should use a random number generator and cooperate with probability 0.8. Why? Suppose that the fraction of survey-takers that cooperate is p. Then the value of the prize will be proportional to p and there will be p + 4(1 - p) raffle entries. The expected value of Cooperating is p/(p + 4(1-p)) and the expected value of Defecting is 4(1-p)/(p + 4(1-p)). In equilibrium, these must be the same: if one choice were more profitable than the other, then people would switch until this was no longer the case. Thus p = 4(1 - p) and thus p = 4/5.

Addendum 29 November: Actually, this is wrong; see ensuing discussion.

I'm seconding the request for next year to include a Monogamish option. I'm in a basically monogamous relationship, but we both sometimes sleep with friends.

(also I took the survey)

Taken. Now self-consciously thinking up some witty comment, because I am in more of an introvert state right now.

Yes I did the survey. PW: one two.

Firstly I need to also say that giving probabilities to things that are either very low or very unknown is not very helpful. For example, aliens etc I don't know and as others have pointed out, God or simulation master, are they the same thing? Also giving the probability to us being Boltzmann brains or something very weird like that is undefined as it involves summing over the multi-verse which is un-countably infinite etc. For the simulation hypothesis I think we simply cant give a sensible number.

On a more general note, for friendly AI/unfriendly AI I think more attention should be on the social and human aspect. I don't see what maths proofs have to offer here. We already know you can potentially get bad AI because if you get an evil person say then give them a brain upload, self modifying powers etc, then they quite possibly will self modify to make themselves even more evil and stronger, turn off their conscience etc. What the boundaries of this are we don't know and need actual experiments to find out. Also how one person behaves and a society of self modifiers could quite possibly be a very different matter. Questions like do a large range of people with different values converge or diverge when given these powers is what we want to know.

I enjoyed taking this survey. Thanks!

I can't wait to see the results and play with the data, if that becomes possible.

I took the survey. Thanks for putting this together, Yvain!

I chose DEFECT: CFAR/MIRI can keep their money. Furthermore, if I win I precommit to refusing payment and donating $120 * (1 - X) to MIRI, where X is the proportion of people who answer COOPERATE. I humbly suggest that others do the same.

I took the survey, and wanted it to be longer.

took the survey, enjoyed the PD

Submitted!

I really liked the questions last year related to if you had $x, how happy would you be? I know I missed the 1 week comment period for this survey, but Yvain, could you put those questions in again next year??

cheers

I took the survey.

I took the survey (answered nearly everything).

I have taken the survey!

Took the full survey again. I am kind of sad that we didn't get some of last years questions which resulted in awesome answers such as the 'describe lesswrong in a sentence' one.

Took the survey. I was pretty confident about my answer for Europe because I thought I remembered the number, but it turns out I was wayyy off. So I looked it up and yep, sure enough, the number I was remembering was for the EU, not Europe as a whole. So, uh, whoops.

Took the survey.

Amusingly, google chrome autofill still remembered my answers from last year. This made filling the demographic part a bit faster, and allowed a little game: after giving a probability estimation I could check my answer from a year ago.

I had to skip "Professional IQ test" questions, having never taken one. What's a cost-effective way to get this done?

Surveyed; hope to receive karma per most ancient tradition.

I think your relationship preference question conflates very different clusters. You should differentiate between the kind of polyamory which is trendy in rationalist communities these days, the kind where a wealthy/high-status man is allowed to keep more than one wife (or a wife and couple of mistresses), the kind of serial monogamy which is the default relationship model of the West and Western-influenced countries today (have lots of sexual long-term boyfriend/girlfriend relationships, marry one of these, divorce, repeat), arranged marriages in cultures in which divorce is impossible or virtually impossible, and perhaps some other empirical clusters on relationship-space which I am forgetting about.

After several years of answering the probability questions I finally grew tired of them and left them blank. You would have been more likely to get a response from me if you had used radio buttons like with the political questions (0-25%, 25-50%, 50-75%, 75-100%, or something like that).

Also, next year I would like to see more hypothetical questions. Both standard ones like the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Trolley Problem, etc... and additionally any novel ones you can think of that will reveal interesting attitudes in their responses (for example, that time you asked a cryonics question disguised as an angel reincarnation question).

Finally (and this has been driving me nuts for a couple of years), I keep answering that I was referred to LessWrong by a certain website (that is not a blog). But your referral question has no option for "website", so I write-in the name in "other". Except that when you do the analysis, you apparently lump this answer under the "blog" category, so presumably you wanted me to answer "blog" when I took the survey. But not all websites are blogs (even if all blogs are websites)! Is there any way you can reword that question?

Took the survey. Got the Europe question right, although if you believe my confidence level (25%), pretty much by sheer luck.

This has been the most fun, satisfying survey I've ever been part of :) Thanks for posting this. Can't wait to see the results!

One question I'd find interesting is closely related to the probability of life in the universe. Namely, what are the chances that a randomly sampled spacefaring lifeform would have an intelligence similar enough to ours for us to be able to communicate meaningfully, both in its "ways" and in general level of smarts, if we were to meet.

Given that I enjoyed taking part in this, may I suggest that more frequent and in-depth surveys on specialized topics might be worth doing?

I thought Europe was about a third the size it actually is, whee! On the bright side, at least I didn't claim to be confident about that.

On the god/simulation questions, I answered them using the theory that they're the same thing, but in retrospect perhaps that isn't quite what you had in mind?

Finally had time to take the survey. I missed the on-line IQ test from the previous survey. Since I haven't taken any professional IQ-test I had to leave the question blank.

Regarding the preferred relationship status I'm not sure that combining uncertain with no preference was ideal. I have no strong preferences on that issue and I'm very certain of that.

Also, the religion question was difficult, in that I had to choose between "atheist but spiritual" and "atheist and not spiritual"- I'm an atheist but go to religious services regularly. But it isn't out of anything "spiritual" which is at best a hideously ill-defined term, but rather out of emotional and communal attachment.

The Singularity question is also broad, since there are so many different meanings. I interpreted it as about an intelligence explosion (partially since I consider the others to be much less likely).

Overall, this version was well-done. Thanks for putting in the effort, and thanks for everyone who helped contribute questions.

Some notes on my answers:

• I put 0 for supernatural, God, and religion, not because I think the answer is literally zero but because I didn't think Yvain wanted us answering using exponential notation.
• Some of the other probability estimating questions deeply confused me, and I'm pretty sure I didn't base my answer on any kind of consistent assumptions. Like I based my cryonics answer on the assumption that uploading counts without even really thinking about it, but then assigned a lower probability to anti-agathics by assuming it required keeping the original meat alive. Also I'm really confused by the simultation hypothesis debate.

I took the survey. I didn't really know how to answer the "relationship" part since I'm not really poly right now, but have a number of "friends with benefits". So I answered it zero.

Surveyed.

Minor nitpick: I think it is better to clarify definition of Europe in calibration question. Because if you go to Wikipedia to check which definition of Europe survey authors had in mind, you will immediately see Europe population on the same page.

Census'd! And upvoted! But an upvote isn't really quite strong enough to demonstrate my appreciation for this work. Thank you.

Survey completed. I cooperated without thinking about it much. I believed that TDT-like reasoning would probably lead a significant number of others to cooperate too, and I felt I should support the group.

Survey taken. I'm particularly interested in what the ratio between an individual's estimate of alien life in the milky way vs observable universe is (not just the individual averages)

Answered the survey, including the bonus questions. Took me 32 min altogether. Comments:

How many people are aware of their IQs? I'm from Germany and have never taken an IQ test. Is knowing about one's IQ common enough in the US that not making that question a bonus question made sense?

There were quite a few questions (e.g. estimate weekly internet consumption, estimate how often you read about ideas for self-improvement) which felt pointless - how could you possibly get accurate estimates from people, given how ambiguous these questions were, and how difficult these estimates are?

The money question: After I failed to come up with a unique passphrase, I chose cooperate and left the rest blank. This kind of stuff tempts my perfectionism, and that's a lose-lose situation for me.

Did the whole thing. Cheers to all involved. :)

I tend to dismiss Steven Landsburg's critique of the standard interpretation of experiments along the lines of the Ultimatum Game, since nobody really thinks it through like him. But I actually did think about it when taking this survey (which is not the same as saying it affected my response).

Always lurking, never commenting, but I'm happy to participate in the survey since the results are interesting to read.

Well I took this year's survey, answering as many questions which I felt comfortable answering (nice one on the last question).

I took the survey, after having found out about the site a mere 15 minutes prior. As you might imagine this is my first comment.

I made an account after taking this survey.

Fun as always. Looking back at my answers, I think I'm profoundly irrational, but getting more aware of it. Oh well.

Took the survey, and finally registered after lurking for 6 months.

I liked the defect/cooperate question. I defected because it was the rational way to try to 'win' the contest. However, if one had a different goal such as "make Less Wrong look cooperative" rather than "win this contest", then cooperating would be the rational choice. I suppose that if I win, I'll use the money to make my first donation to CFAR and/or MIRI.

Now that I have finished it, I wish I had taken more time on a couple of the questions. I answered the Newcomb's Box problem the opposite of my intent, because I mixed up what 2-box and 1-box mean in the problem (been years since I thought about that problem). I would 1-box, but I answered 2-box in the survey because I misremembered how the problem worked.

Did the survey.

Huh, I put svir uhaqerq zvyyvba sbe Rhebcr'f cbchyngvba. Turns out I was thinking of the Rhebcrna Havba, (svir uhaqerq naq frira zvyyvba) engure guna Rhebcr vgfrys, which is substantially higher.

Did the survey.

Results: I'm better at estimating continental populations than I had thought; I am frustrated by single-option questions in many cases (e.g. domain of study, nothing for significantly-reduced-meat-intake-but-not-strict-vegetarian, interdependent causes of global catastrophe) and questions that are too huge to be well-formulated, let alone reasonably answer (supernatural/simulation/God).

Also the question about aliens made me unaccountably sad: even if I retroactively adjust my estimates of intelligent alien life upwards (which I would never do), I have to face the incredibly low probability that they're in the Milky way.

I took it. I was surprised how far I was off with Europe.

I already commented on other people's comments and got Karma while not stating that I took it. Am I still supposed to just say "I took it" and get more Karma without commenting anything more of value? Well, I took it. All of it. And I chose to "cooperate" because it seemed more ethical. 30$-60$ isn't enough to arouse my greed anyway.

Oh, btw. Hi everybody, I'm new here even though I created this account years ago when I was lurking. I knew I'd come back.

Done, all questions answered. Yvain, well done on clear questions and good design.

Mission complete.

Boomshanked! (aka done)

Excited to see the results.

Took the survey, and continued to finally make an account. Some questions were ambiguous though (as some other people partially pointed out). I had most problems with:

• Having more children. Over which period of time? As an adolescent I'm not really keen on having children just yet, but I might be in 15 or 20 years.
• Time on LW: I've recently finished reading almost all posts on LW, which meant I spent several hours a day on LW. But now that I have finished reading all those I am only reading new posts, which takes no more than 5-10 minutes a day on average. So there is a large difference between a best estimate of the amount of time I spent on LW any previous day and the best estimate of the time I will spend tomorrow. Which of these is the average day?
• Hear about: I had problems interpreting the question. Taking the wording literally the category specified is extremely broad, including even casual comments by colleagues along the lines of: 'Try checking the batteries more frequently.' (which is a technique to improve your productivity, provided batteries are important in your line of work).
• Akrasia: meditation. I've meditated after sporting frequently in the past, which had nothing to do with akrasia. I decided not to mention the meditation (contrary to Keller, whose comment I only noticed after filling in the survey).

Surveyed, including bonus.

I really liked the monetary reward prisoners dillema. I am really curious how this turns out. Given the demographic here, I would predict ~ 85% cooperate.

The free text options were rendered in german (Sonstige). Was that a bug or does it serve some hidden purpose?

Taken. Thanks for putting in the effort to do the surveys. I noticed that the question on IQ calibration asked about "the probability that the IQ you gave earlier in the survey is greater than the IQ of over 50% of survey respondents", and I wondered if you meant to ask instead about (the probability that the IQ given earlier is greater than the reported IQ of over 50% of survey respondents). I recall that people tended to report absurdly high IQs in earlier surveys.

Done. Loved the prisoner's dilemma.

I took the survey.

Survey'd!

Surveyed! And for the first time, too. This survey was pretty interesting and definitely not what I expected

Yay, survey taken!

I loved the Prisoner's Dilemma at the end, I wonder how that will turn out?

Took the survey. Cooperated because most puzzles which explicitly use the words "cooperate" and "defect" have been created in such a way as to make cooperation the better choice.

(Considering my fairly low chances of winning, a deep analysis would have had only recreational value, and there were other fun things to do.)

Took the survey. Very interesting questions overall, especially the site-wide Prisoner's Dilemma.

I'd like to note that I was very confused by the (vague and similar) CFAR questions regarding the possibility of people changing, but I'm assuming that was intentional and look forward to an explanation.

Completed survey.

I have taken the survey, thanks a lot Yvain!

I wouldn't have minded if it was shorter.

One minor nitpick for next time: there were a couple questions where the title was the opposite of what the question was about: P(Global catastrophic risk) was actually about P(no global catastrophic risk), and Defect calibrate were about how many people cooperated.

I suspect a couple people might not read the questions and answer the opposite of what they meant.

I took the census. My answers for MWI and Ailens were conditional on ¬Simulation, since if we are in a simulation where MWI doesn't hold, the simulation is probably intended to provide information about a universe in which MWI does hold.

I took the survey.

Thank you for putting this together Some of the questions were unclear to me, for example: does living with family mean my parents or my spouse and children? (I guessed the former, but was unsure) For the politics question, there should be an option for not identifying with any label (or if that will lead to everyone not wanting to be labeled an option for disinterest in politics could be an alternative.) Should an atheist who practices a religion (e.g. buddhism) skip the question on religion? P(aliens), this question leaves out the time dimension which seems important to establishing a probability for aliens, e.g. if aliens live 5 bilion light years away, are we asked the probability that there were aliens there 5 billion years ago such that we could receive a message from them now, or whether there are aliens now, which we will not be able to discover for another few billion years. P(supernatural) its not clear what counts as a supernatural event, e.g. god is included even though most would not define god as an event nor as occurring since the beginning of the universe (since if god created the universe he is either nontemporal or prior to the universe) for the CFAR questions I wasn't sure what qualified as a " plausible-seeming technique or approach for being more rational / more productive / happier / having better social relationships / having more accurate beliefs / etc." does it have to be a brand new technique, or even a modification of one already known. Is it askeing about generic techniques or even domain specific ones? Also, most techniques I try are not ones I hear about, but rather ones I come up with on my own, I dont know if others here are similar. Also all of the change questions seemed poorly defined and unclear.

Took the survey.

A few observations:

• Family's religious background should probably include an 'Athiest/Agnostic' answer, rather than just lumping in with 'Other'. At the very least, it would be interesting to see what kinds of patterns the 'Other' box breaks down into.

• I computed P(Supernatural) as dependent on P(Simulation), based on my understanding of the two concepts. Would anyone be interested in a Discussion page on whether those probabilities can be logically separated?

That was shorter than I expected. I peevishly admit to having to look up a few things I should have known.

Survey (mostly) done. My answers about the future were based on this comment

http://lesswrong.com/lw/iyc/new_vs_businessasusual_future/a13w

and assigned equal probabilities to the five listed outcomes over the next few centuries

Did all of it. Monetary reward questions made me laugh.

I did it!

I took the survey.

The answer to how many minutes I spend here is a bit lower than you might expect, in that my robots scan the RSS feeds and send me interesting stuff so basically it's almost zero, unless you count my robots time somehow.

One survey (and bonus questions!) completed.

Surveyed, including bonus. Only just remembered to comment.

I see the logic, but did think that the Prisoner's Dilemma question was overly complicated - possibly leading to some participants not making the connection to their beliefs about How To Behave In Prisoner's Dilemmas (well, I see now from below that it led to at least one.)

I have no idea if this is a good or bad thing.

Another lurker that took the (full) survey and signed up...

I discovered LW last year through gwern.net

My biggest barrier to registration was the risk of more procrastination. So, thanks in advance for any encouragement!

I just took the survey. Thanks for spending time on making and evaluating it! A few questions/comments:

When you asked for time spent on less wrong, did you mean mean time or median time? I assumed mean, which resulted in a higher number since I occasionally come here to procrastinate and spend way too much time in a single sitting...

Am I interpreting the agathics question correctly in that a person dying, getting frozen cryonically, and then being unfrozen and living for a 1000 years would count?

Singularity question, which starts by asking when the Singularity (with capital letter S) will occur seems a bit leading to me. I'd expect that if you asked "Do you think a singularity will occur, and if so, when?" that people would give lower probabilities.

I took the survey!

I did the survey, mostly.

Well that was the most interesting survey I have taken in a long time - looking forward to seeing the results. I was a little concerned at the start, as it seemed like some sort of dating service so the comment 'hang in there - this bit is almost over' was well placed.

Taken and look forward to seeing the results. Thanks for putting this together.

I took the survey, my first, and answered all the questions and extra credit. I did not defect on the monetary reward.

I predict my survey will show me as highly confused. :-)

Surveyed! I noticed that someone said that they cooperated on the prisoner's dilemma problem, so I'll balance the odds and tell you all that I defected. Am curious to see if this will reflect in the karma people give this comment.

Also, I wouldn't do this, but you leave the option open of someone poisoning the well and taking the survey a bunch of times to improve their chance of winning the money. Are you screening for duplicate IP addresses?

I took it, and even did the bonus questions. Yay me!

Took the survey.

Would probably not have defected a year ago, and it would not have been an easy decision for me at that time.

I appear to be getting better at estimating.

I think the IQ questions should probably just be dropped from future tests. A number of people get tested as kids and get crazy numbers and never get tested again (since there's no real point, and people are generally afraid of seeing that number dive, people who get a crazy number are probably less likely to retest than others). That's a charitable explanation for the results in last year's survey, which I didn't take.

I have been surveyed.

I definitely appreciate being asked to assign probabilities to things, if for no other reason than to make apparent to me how comfortable I am with doing so (Not very, as it turns out. Something to work on.)

Survey completed! Also, everyone, please cooperate!

Yvain, will you reveal who won the money? Whether they cooperated or defected?

Taken to completion.

The Cryonics Status question really needs an "other" answer. There are more possible statuses one can be in than the ones given; in particular there are more possible "I'd want to, but..." answers.

Took the survey yesterday and forgot to comment here afterwards. I chose to cooperate since the small chance of winning a little money mattered less to me than the pleasure I would get though even such a minor show of benevolence. I also have never taken an IQ test, and am glad to see at least a fair number of other people in the comments who have not either.

I took the survey, and look forward to the results.

Took the survey.

Got the Europe question right, unless Yvain rounds -- I was off by 9.90%.

Survey taken. It seemed shorter than the previous one.

Having completed the survey, I took this as an opportunity to register an account.

I took the survey.

Surveyed.

Surveyed.

Took the survey.

Took the survey. Prisoner's dilemma was a nice addition - would be interesting next year to have 'would you co-operate in a prisoner's dilemma situation' earlier in the survey before the for-stakes version, and compare how often people co-operate in the for-stakes then as compared to this year (also compare across who has taken a LW census before, since this one might bias that a bit).

Took the survey. Yvain, thanks for doing this.

taken.

Done! Phew

Took the survey. Cooperated.

I have taken the survey. Thank you Yvain for running it.

I took the survey.

I took the survey.

This is, incidentally, my first comment on LessWrong. I've lurked for years, and pretty much thought I'll probably stay as a lurker for good. For some reason taking the survey made me want to break my silence.So that's a bonus, I guess.

Survey complete! I answered ALL the questions. ^_^

Survey taken, as always. It sure was well prepared. It's worth starting it for the first option (ruining everything), and continuation is always just one click away...

I took the survey.

Took it.

I definitely gave a finite probability for "God" if "God" defined as a super-intelligent being that created the universe. This is of course quite different from an intervening god who is interested in say, human affairs.

Took. Definitely liked the shorter nature of this one.

Cooperated (I'm OK if the money goes to someone else. The amount is such that I'd ask that it get directly sent elsewhere, anyway.)

Got Europe wrong, but came close. (Not within 10%.)

I should mention that I've taken the survey.

No, I don't read instructions and am going to ruin the survey results for everyone.

snicker

Also, wow, the population of Europe is wildly lower than I thought it was, it's outside my 90% range...

Random math: one way of deciding whether or not to cooperate in the reward question is plot reward versus percentage-UDT-users in the LW community (under the assumption that everyone in that set will do the same thing you do, and everyone else splits 50-50). If that percentage is larger than about 65% (which I'm 70% sure it is), cooperating is superior to defection, but defection actually has the higher maximum expected value - if the entire community chooses randomly, anyway.

...

blink blink

Aw, darn it, I should've flipped a coin...

Edit: No, wait, nevermind, that would halve my expected reward.

Survey taken.

Survey taken

Took survey. Reminded me that I've never had an IQ test; is it worthwhile?

Took the survey. I was unusually confident of an incorrect number for the population of Europe because I looked it up recently, but remembered it wrong.

Guess I learned something, in that I should adjust down my confidence in recalled figures after a few weeks.

Surveyed. Looking forward to the data and analysis, as per every year.

Entered.

I have taken the survey, as I have done for the last two years! Free karma now?

Also, I have chosen to cooperaterather than defect was because even though the money technically would stay within the community, I am willing to pay a very small amount of money from EV in order to ensure that LW has a reputation for cooperation. I don't expect to lose more than a few cents worth of expected value, since I expect 1000+ people to do the survey.

Took the survey. I definitely did have an IQ test when I was a kid, but I don't think anyone ever told me the results and if they did I sure don't remember it.

Also, as a scientist I counted my various research techniques as new methods that help make my beliefs more accurate, which means I put something like 2/day for trying them and 1/week for them working. In hindsight I'm guessing this interpretation is not what you meant, and that science in general might count as ONE method altogether.