AlexMennen comments on 2013 Survey Results - Less Wrong

74 Post author: Yvain 19 January 2014 02:51AM

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Comment author: AlexMennen 19 January 2014 06:51:55PM *  9 points [-]

On average, effective altruists (n = 412) donated $2503 to charity, and other people (n = 853) donated $523 - obviously a significant result.

There could be some measurement bias here. I was on the fence about whether I should identify myself as an effective altruist, but I had just been reminded of the fact that I hadn't donated any money to charity in the last year, and decided that I probably shouldn't be identifying as an effective altruist myself despite having philosophical agreements with the movement.

1265 people told us how much they give to charity; of those, 450 gave nothing. ... In order to calculate percent donated I divided charity donations by income in the 947 people helpful enough to give me both numbers. Of those 947, 602 donated nothing to charity, and so had a percent donated of 0.

This is blasphemy against Saint Boole.

Comment author: wuncidunci 22 January 2014 10:20:52PM 0 points [-]

Did you mean Saint Boole?

And whence the blasphemy?

Comment author: AlexMennen 22 January 2014 11:34:38PM 2 points [-]

Yes, thanks. Fixed. I endorse Vaniver's explanation of the blasphemy.

Comment author: Vaniver 22 January 2014 10:24:51PM *  4 points [-]

And whence the blasphemy?

1265 people are in group A. 947 are in group B, which is completely contained in A. Of all the people in group A, 450 satisfy property C, whereas this is true for 602 people in group B, all of whom are also in group A. 602 is larger than 450, so something has gone wrong.

Comment author: wuncidunci 23 January 2014 07:59:43AM 1 point [-]

Ahh, thank you.