2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey
It's that time of year again.
If you are reading this post and self-identify as a LWer, then you are the target population for the Less Wrong Census/Survey. Please take it. Doesn't matter if you don't post much. Doesn't matter if you're a lurker. Take the survey.
This year's census contains a "main survey" that should take about ten or fifteen minutes, as well as a bunch of "extra credit questions". You may do the extra credit questions if you want. You may skip all the extra credit questions if you want. They're pretty long and not all of them are very interesting. But it is very important that you not put off doing the survey or not do the survey at all because you're intimidated by the extra credit questions.
It also contains a chance at winning a MONETARY REWARD at the bottom. You do not need to fill in all the extra credit questions to get the MONETARY REWARD, just make an honest stab at as much of the survey as you can.
Please make things easier for my computer and by extension me by reading all the instructions and by answering any text questions in the simplest and most obvious possible way. For example, if it asks you "What language do you speak?" please answer "English" instead of "I speak English" or "It's English" or "English since I live in Canada" or "English (US)" or anything else. This will help me sort responses quickly and easily. Likewise, if a question asks for a number, please answer with a number such as "4", rather than "four".
The planned closing date for the survey is Friday, November 14. Instead of putting the survey off and then forgetting to do it, why not fill it out right now?
Okay! Enough preliminaries! Time to take the...
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[EDIT: SURVEY CLOSED, DO NOT TAKE!]
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Thanks to everyone who suggested questions and ideas for the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey. I regret I was unable to take all of your suggestions into account, because of some limitations in Google Docs, concern about survey length, and contradictions/duplications among suggestions. The current survey is a mess and requires serious shortening and possibly a hard and fast rule that it will never get longer than it is right now.
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.
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Comments (724)
"Social democrat" and "liberal" have been given almost identical descriptions. Don't know if that's deliberate.
Duplicate comment, probably should be deleted.
I assume that TheAncientGeek has actually submitted the survey; in that case, their comment is "proof" that they deserve karma.
I took the survey.
I took the survey, it was a good thing....
I have taken the survey, including all questions.
such utility
much karma
I did the survey (while I was still a lurker).
I did the survey.
Did that too.
Took the survey. However, my answer for the probability of MWI is "Since MWI makes the same predictions as the standard interpretation, asking for the probability of MWI is meaningless. It is like asking "this glass is 50% full of water. What is the probability that it is half empty? What is the probability that it is half full?" I put 0 for the MWI question, but I'm not sure what you want for that.
For some of the other probability questions, my answer is "I don't have enough information to come up with a good estimate, and I also don't have enough information to come up with a probability that takes into account my inability to come up with a good estimate". Again, I put 0.
Also, after the test, I'm starting to get worried how you anonymize the questions. Releasing the data without a name attached is not anonymization, if the answers people give are enough to identify them.
I did the survey.
I felt that I had to leave blank some of the questions that ask for a probability number, because no answer that complies with the instructions would be right. For instance, I consider the "Many Worlds" hypothesis to be effectively meaningless, since while it does describe a set of plausible alleged facts, there is, as far as I know, no possible experiment that could falsify it. ("Supernatural" is also effectively meaningless, but for a different reason: vagueness. "Magic", to me, describes only situations where Clarke's Third Law applies. And so forth.)
I would like to participate in a deeper discussion of the idea of the Singularity, but don't know if that's welcome on LW. I want to attack the idea on several levels: (1) the definition of it, which may be too vague to be falsifiable; (2) the definition of intelligence -- I don't think we're talking about a mere chess-playing computer, but it's not clear to me whether Minsky's criteria are sufficient; (3) if those first two points are somehow nailed down, then I'm not at all sure that a machine intelligence is desirable, and certainly I'd hesitate to connect one to hardware with enough abilities that the revolution in "I, Robot" becomes possible; and (4) if such a change does happen, I would prefer, and I think most people would insist, that it happen relatively slowly to give everyone then alive time to cope with the change, thus making it not really a singularity in the mathematical sense.
(I do like the transhumanist notion that humans should feel free to modify our own hardware individually, but I don't see that as necessarily connected with a Singularity, and I don't use the jargon of transhumanism for the same reason I avoid the jargon of anarchism when talking politics -- it scares people needlessly.)
I left both MIRI questions blank because I don't know who or what MIRI is.
Re. The Great Stagnation: This theory asserts that we are in an economic stall, if you will, because of a lack of innovation, and is set against the assertion of a "Great Divergence" in which rising income inequality and globalization are to blame for the stall. I didn't answer because I consider both views to be baloney -- we are in an economic stall because of unnecessary and crony-driven overregulation, much of it done in the name of the misguided green and "social justice" movements.
I didn't do the finger length questions; not sure what "the bottom crease" is, or maybe I don't have them. (Do you mean the crease at the base of the fingers, or one farther down on the hand?)
Re. feminism, I answered based on what I believe the current use of the term is, which is not at all like the definition on Wikipedia. Wikipedia calls it more or less pro-equality and I support that, but the current usage is more like "social justice" and that whole concept is complete hooey.
I took the survey.
I failed to ask for this when the request for comments came up, but it would have been nice to get questions about people's awareness/participation in the LWSH. Oh well, maybe next year.
I did the digit ratio question, but I am not sure if my datapoint is useful -- I have arthritis in my fingers and I'm not sure if that warps the result.
On November 2, I wrote: "Partial success. I meant to fill in the survey completely, but my internet froze at calibration question 5. In an attempt to revive it, I pressed Enter, which resulted in submission of the incomplete survey. Now what ?" I received recommendation to take the survey again and report the unfinished one as something to be discarded. So now I finally took the full survey. To avoid duplicity, please discard an old incomplete survey finished at calibration question 5, from someone who lives in Slovakia, attended 2013 "full" minicamp and reported that time carma of cca 174.
Took the survey. Anyone else concerned that "largest bone in the body" isn't very well-defined? Largest by volume, longest measurement, ... ?
I took the survey.
Did anyone else fall on the borderline for some of these questions? I was in a weird space for the one about whether you ever had a relationship with someone else from LW (they introduced me to LW).
Was anybody else disappointed that the Sex Role Inventory wasn't nearly as raunchy as the name suggested?
I was slightly late, unfortunately, but filled out the whole thing anyway.
Took the survey - now going to give some people karma
Hey, this year I was able to answer some of the calibration questions! Three yays for norse mythology.
Also apparently I'm a weird person.
I was oh-so-tempted to enter “Over 9000!” in there.
I have taken the survey, and can't wait to see the results on the calibration questions. Post-hoc self-assessment suggests I have a long way to go...
Man, I'm late this year. Taken. To save my index finger, just upvoted everyone who took it in November :)
Next time, the "supernatural" question really needs to just link to the Sequence post defining the word.
The political ideology question seems to equate libertarian with libertarian capitalist, and communist with totalitarian There's no option for libertarian communism/socialism.
Also, the moral philosophy question seems to assume one believes moral questions have truth values. "None" isn't given as a choice.
That looks like an oxymoron to me.
It looks that way to you because you either don't know what libertarianism is or don't know what communism and socialism are (or both).
Of course, that's too snarky. But people (particularly in the USA, less so in Europe) often don't understand the breadth of these positions. In the 19th century (defining people by the words they used to describe themselves), most libertarians were socialists, and many socialists were libertarians. While the main branches of both movements have grown apart, there are still people who identify as both.
Anyway, you should look it up.
Too snarky is OK. The problem is that it's wrong :-P
In the XIX century libertarians didn't exist. Do you mean the anarcho-socialist cluster -- Kropotkin, Bakunin, anarcho-syndicalists and such? Yes, they tried to meld individual freedom with collectivism and were popular for a while. But I would argue that their basic approach was incoherent and they pretty clearly have failed. While both contemporary communistm/socialism and libertarianism might point to them as historical predecessors, I doubt either would be willing to embrace them fully.
What definition of the Singularity did you use for the question about when you think the Singularity is likely?
I think I used the one about the future becoming incomprehensible.
I'm pretty sure you could get an incomprehensible future by increasing everyone's IQ by 40 points (I know, it's a vague concept) and this might be easier than AI.
I did everything but finger length. I am shame.
I accidentally pressed enter and the form was sent away - half-filled.
This is stupid. I sent another form with only the second half of the survey filled out. Dividing line is the population question, which I incorrectly answered with Rot13(Ehffvn).
Taken survey.
Survey completed. Some of the questions are ambiguous.
"How many children do you have?" I find this question problematic each year. Biological offspring? Custodial children?
"What is your approximate annual income in US dollars?" Personal income? Household income?
"Gender Default" I wanted something like a Likert scale here. I would not say I would feel "wrong," "creeped out," or "freaked out" by switching genders, but I would even less say that I "identify with their birth gender only because they see no reason to go through the hassle and social stigma of transitioning," which also seems qualitatively different than "a man who would be happy as either a man or a woman, but since they're a man, they stay a man." The question sets us a dichotomy that may not be so much false as a mild category error, sort of like "which one of you is the fork?"
I did the thing!
I took the survey, now give me my ~40 upvotes.
(is the free karma just an incentive to take the survey? or do 45 people really think that commenting that you took the survey is a valuable contribution to the discussion?)
First-time taker! Shorter than I expected. Hope I did the digity thing right...
Done!
I left the HBD (human bio-diversity) question blank, due to having misplaced my barge-pole.
I have submitted the survey, AND for the first time realized I'm not sure the example lifespan in the anti-agathics question should be understood as continuous. And I learned about natural law!
Did the whole thing!
Taken. Thanks go out to Brienne for posting about it on FB!
I did the survey! I decided to say I didn't believe in god, even though I think there's a high probability of the universe being a simulation, because I don't count a simulation as supernatural. Supernatural is something that requires the universe to be non-reductionist, in my opinion.
Done.
Taken.
Also found that my finger lengths are symmetrical across both hands to the limit of my ability to measure with a ruler. (Calipers might reveal differences, but I don't have access to those.) I did suspect this level of symmetry, but I didn't know until I measured them, so thanks!
Third time starting the survey, first time finishing it!
I took the survey and answered every question. As usual, I found my ability to correctly answer the calibration questions comically bad . . . but hopefully well calibrated.
Took the survey, and it made me realize I'd never bothered to register an account here before now. The situation has been corrected.
Did the survey. I'm not terribly interested in karma, but if you feel the need to upvote, then upvote away.
One answer I gave that may confuse - I put "atheist" down under "other" for my religion, because I do believe that a) atheism is properly defined as an active belief in the lack of god(s), b) I hold this belief, c) there can be no actual direct evidence for this belief, and d) being a belief about the nature of god(s)(or lack thereof) is sufficient to make something a religion.
(Oddly, I also put 5% down as my probability of there being a god, but this is mostly because the definition is a superset of the simulation hypothesis, and I don't regard a big computer as being a god in any sense we use the term to mean)
Partial success. I meant to fill in the survey completely, but my internet froze at calibration question 5. In an attempt to revive it, I pressed Enter, which resulted in submission of the incomplete survey. Now what ?
My only two comments are one I made on that post inviting lurkers to post and this one, but I did take last years survey for what it's worth. Though I don't recall my answers to last year's survey, I suspect they line up pretty well with this year's. I wonder if there's any potential in the data to track how respondents answers change over time.
I completed most things except for the digit ratio. Thanks for putting this together, the results are always very interesting to see. Now to see how many of the trivia I got right.
I took the survey. I was reminded by Brienne's post today at Facebook. Thanks for running the survey.
Survey Complete!
Did the entire survey in the nick of time.
I'm very thankful for the humiliating experience of racking my brain to come up with plausible sounding reasons for why the answers to the calibration questions should be one thing or another, trying to lower my certainties so that I felt that surely I couldn't be falling for that old overconfidence bias again, finishing the survey, and looking up the answers on wikipedia afterwards. Now that we have ten widely different questions I really can't rationalize setting Russia as the fourth most populated country with 55% subjective certainty.
At least I got the darn norse god right.
yay - done.
Done, but I'm afraid the fingertip measurements were not very precise
From what people have said, it seems that after the survey was posted a new question was added about our favorite LW post. Were there any others?
(Posted as a top-level comment at the request of TobyBartels)
Nine of the questions ask which of various options you "identify with": country, race, gender, political category, moral philosophy, political category (subdivided), effective altruism, gender again, and meta-ethics. I am unclear about this concept, and for the purpose of making a choice, mentally replaced it by respectively "reside in long-term", "are", "are", "believe", etc. Would such rephrasings have changed anyone's answers to any of the questions?
"Identify with" reminds me of the Discworld's Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, who is a six-foot-six human who "identifies as" a dwarf, and who is accepted as such by the dwarves, even though everyone, including him, knows he's human. I don't know Terry Pratchett's thinking behind the character, but Carrot strikes me as a reductio ad absurdum of the concept.
Completed. I'm concerned that the "mixed" options for religious background are concealing meaningful demographic information. For instance, my parents are of Christian and Jewish parentage, so I chose the "mixed" option because I do not consider my cultural heritage to be predominantly Jewish or Christian. A person with Hindu and Muslim parents would have the same answer, but a very different cultural background. Perhaps in future it might be better to use a "check all that apply" format?
I, too, took the survey. (And promptly forgot to claim my karma; oh well.)
Done. Foof that was long...
Done.
How real is the research on digit ratio? (On bogus statistics-based research see, for example: http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble).
In any case, can you please explain how you plan to use digit ratio data?
Took the survey. As usual, immense props to Yvain for the dedication and work he puts into this.
Done.
Also, concerning the psychological states. I was diagnosed with a certain something, but the results were largely inconclusive. Chose "was diagnosed".
I also filled in the survey! Hurrah for laboureous data gathering.
A lot of people seem to have had some trouble with measuring digit ratio. I tried the scanner method, but the fingertips were too far away from the scanner bed to be in focus. I also had a transparent plastic bag between my hand and the scanner, to avoid leaving a handprint on the plate, which probably didn't help. So I used a ruler instead. Which I would have used to measure the scan anyway, so why go via the scan?
Took the survey.
The entire community is extremely insular and is weighed down with it's own established ideas. Most of the writers speak with total conviction, absolutely convinced of their own conclusions, despite the entire point of the endeavor being the pursuit of ever increasing amounts of correctness, thus making them 'less wrong'.
It consists mostly of extremely narrow demographics, cutting it's objectivity off at the knees by creating a culture that is perfect for serving as echo chambers despite their criticism of one another. It has also engaged in censorship of ideas, something that CANNOT be allowed in a group that is trying to further rational thought.
Aside from that there is also the personality cult surrounding Eliezer Yudkowsky. Objectivity is impossible if people weight the merit of your arguments by your popularity, which is inevitable in such a situation.
Took the survey! Glad to help out.
I took the survey.
And... done. I would like to point out that X-Risk question may be confusing when skimming. P(X-Risk) looks as if it were asking for probability of catastrophe coming to pass, but the explanations spells out that the probability of humanity successfully avoiding catastrophe should be entered.
Survey taken. I agree with others' points re: the potential inaccuracy of the BSRI, although I also presume that if most other people are considering the fact that their interactions with partners / lovers is dramatically different than those with strangers / colleagues, much of the error in the test will be filtered out. For future tests, it may be helpful to put a qualification on the LW part of the test, asking people to self-identify whether they were taking an average of all interactions, or mostly using those with SOs, etc.
Done. Though I feel guilty about skipping a few of the more involved questions.
For the future, in the case of multiple choice questions it might be nice to have an "unselect" option. (Some of the questions say "if you don't know leave blank" or similar and then if you accidentally click an option you are forced to choose something)
I took the whole thing! That's two years in a row.
My house is currently: me, wife, daughter, sister, another sister, mother, father. I put "with partner and/or children", but that doesn't seem like a good fit.
This makes me feel like I should have an IQ number to put here? Is that a thing people usually have?
I used a picture of my hand. We're just going for ratios, so that should be fine, and it's a lot easier.
Completed survey less annoying question that required using an annoying scanner that makes annoying noises (I am feeling annoyed). Almost skipped it, but realized that the attitudes of ex-website-regulars might be of interest.
I have taken the survey, including the digit ratio question.
Since there was a box to be included in the SSC survey, I just a little bit disappointed there wasn't a question for favourite SSC post to go with the favourite LessWrong post question.
I identify with being "mixed race" far more than any individual race (which feels distinct to me from "other", but it was still the only choice for me).
I learned/confirmed non-zero answers about myself for questions I hadn't previously/strongly considered. This could be considered a "bonus" for taking the survey.
(Finished.)
Not technically a race, but then again neither is "Hispanic", which keeps getting treated as if it was a race. Race is a social construct anyway, so might as well.
I'm a bit surprised "mixed race" didn't occur to me as an option to suggest. It is true that I don't emotionally identify with either of my races, but I don't emotionally identify with "mixed race" either, probably because I wasn't raised in a community of mixed-race individuals and don't know that many mixed-race people. I feel like there isn't really a unique shared culture to unite us. Upon reflection, I've decided that if "mixed race" became available as an option on a future LW survey, I would continue to pick "other", because I really do identify with the human race more than anything else. The word "identify" is key though. If it simply asked what race I am, I would defer to the general consensus for how people should be classified, because I'd assume that's how the survey-writers want us to answer.
Are you sure doctors (of the medical kind) agree?
I expect that doctors (of the medical kind) would agree as much or more than the average person. Most of the 'Doctor' role is oriented toward enforcing (or following) social norms. They also have relatively little professional incentive to have beliefs about race that match reality (and more than enough compartmentalisation capability to ignore the occasional diagnostic relevance of race). Further, since the medical profession relies on far more arbitrary social constructs than race (for example: Most of the DSM) I'm not sure whether their considering something a social construct should be considered a criticism.
I'd be much more interested what doctors (of the scientific kind, preferably of a relevant field) say.
I think that would depend on the context and on how the question is phrased. Professionally, doctors know quite well that race matters -- e.g. some blood tests have different acceptable ranges depending on your race, the prenatal testing of pregnant women depends on their ancestry, etc.
I think academia is much more politically correct than the medical profession.
You could be right. Now I'm more curious.
There's a pretty big gap between what doctors tell the public and what they tell each other.
There's a nation wide, low profile, supposedly secure internet forum in Finland for doctors only. Identities are checked by a reliable system involving official registries. For some reason it's used mostly by senior doctors, many in higher positions, who happen to know each other, didn't grow with the internet and seem to have discussions with no regard to public image whatsover. Political mind kill seems to stand strong there, and some opinions regarding culture, nationality, race, religion and so on are interesting to say the least from the perspective of political correctness. Even the N-word and the R-word seem to be used quite liberally. Needless to say the same people are masters of PR at their day job.
Note that if it is a site for doctors from Finland then the 'N-word' use is still shocking but far less shocking than if it were in the United States. "Bad words" are actually an example of pure social constructs and second-hand arbitrary negative associations can be expected to be weaker than first hand arbitrary negative associations. (And if it were a forum in China it would mean even less.)
You're probably right. In Finland the word can't be used in casual conversations with people you don't know well unless you want to be pigeonholed forever and using it publicly could definitely end a career. Many of our social norms seem to be borrowed from other cultures because of our desperate need to fit in to ensure survival.
Does Finland have a political correctness problem? The Swedish minority is perfectly fine, and the Russians come and (having bought everything in sight) go. Are there a lot of third-world immigrants?
Well, Finland is next to Sweden which is notorious for taking political correctness to totalitarian levels.
There's definitely a political correctness problem concerning topics like income differences (they're pretty much the lowest anywhere in the first world), third-world immigrants and islam but YMMV. I'm not an expert on history or politics and tend to interact with the world from my comfortable bubble of a strict information diet especially as of late, but as far as I've gathered people are quite patriotic because of our short history as an independent nation. Both Sweden and Russia have historically been an obstacle in that regard and the more nationalist oriented people hold grudges on one level or another because of this reason.
The Finnish-Swedish minority tend to be privileged both in heritage and education and both learning the Swedish language and using it in service professions have been compulsory in Finland for quite some time. For example the Finnish-Swedish have their own quota in med school with easier entrance requirements because of less competition. Naturally this makes less well off people envious. There's significantly more racism against the Russians than the Swedish since Russia is still viewed as a military threat, and polls show this fear is increasing because of late developments in Ukraine and other flexing of Russia's military muscles.
The worst political correctness problems concern third world immigrants and refugees in my opinion, and anyone who brings up problems raised by some of them is very easily labeled a racist and politically crucified. There are problems like letting people in without being able to check their real age i.e. adults pretending to be children, not being able to drive them away when they commit multiple serious crimes, people living on government subsidies with no intention to work ever in their lives etc.
Done!
I really like the calibration questions and would like to see more of them.
Where were the questions on things like Newcomb's paradox?
I'd like the option to enter (rough) confidence intervals, and I'd think they'd be useful for analysis.
Why not expand the survey? People could always leave stuff out that they don't want to answer.
Uh, did the survey a few days ago. Bit late to the punch, I suppose.
Done, and I did many (but not all) of the extra credit questions.
Took the survey. Thanks for the karma, everyone.
Took the survey - looking forward to the results!
Did the survey, except digit ratio due to lack of precision measuring devices.
As for feedback, I had some trouble interpreting a few of the questions. There were some times when you defined terms like human biodiversity, and I agreed with some of the claims in the definition but not others, but since I had no real way to weight the claims by importance it was difficult for me to turn my conclusions into a single confidence measurement. I also had no idea weather the best-selling computer game question was supposed to account for inflation or general growth of the videogame market, nor whether we were measuring in terms of copies sold or revenue earned or something else entirely, nor whether console games or games that "sell" for 0$ counted. I ended up copping out by listing a game that is technically included in a bit of software I knew sold very well for its time (and not for free), but the software was not sold as a computer game.
Also, a weird thing happened with the calibration questions When I was very unsure which of a large number of possible answers was correct, and especially if I wasn't even sure how many possible answers there were, I found myself wanting to write an answer that was obviously impossible (like writing "Mars" for Obama's birth state) and putting a 0 for the calibration. I didn't actually do this, but it sure was tempting.
FWIW, I said I "strongly disagree" with Feminism and Social Justice, even though I find their Wikipedia descriptions generally agreeable. I think in the future, it would be good to split those questions into pairs: a) "Do you agree with the stated mission goals of X ?", and b). "Do you agree with the actions of people who identify as X ?"
Could I suggest posting a link to the survey in Discussion as well? I hardly ever check Main any more, and I don't think I'm the only one.
Done :)
EDIT: and +1 to everyone. It took me more doing that than the survey :|
taken ^_^
Took the survey! Even the digit ration thing! I hope enough people did that for it to be useful.
Finished the survey! I'm curious to see what the results will be. Finding my digit ratio was interesting. I expected crazier questions.
Mission Accomplished.
I definitely want to see the results! For reference, 2013: http://lesswrong.com/lw/jj0/2013_survey_results/
I wonder if we could get a chart with the data matched up over time? Chart community changes over time?
Did the survey. Mischief managed.
I completed the survey.
Without an accompanying glossary, my formulation consistently lurked in the critical analysis of the question. At one point I laughed under my breath pondering which resource would rusticate alternative interpretations. A modern Attorney, or Socrates himself!
The ritual has been completed. I await my karmic reword, as per tradition.
There was a lot of good variance in the calibration questions (for me), so nice job thinking of them! Gur ivqrb tnzr dhrfgvba va cnegvphyne fhecevfrq zr jura V ybbxrq hc gur nafjre, nf rira nf n uhtr Zvarpensg sna V unqa'g ernyvmrq vg orng bhg frpbaq cynpr ol 3 zvyyvba.
Also, in a fit of needless cleverness, I made my public key decryptable (by my private key) into a plaintext message that works as an extra layer of identification in the case that I win the money.
Survey done!
Did it! Even the digit ratio question! (which is why I am taking it relatively late)
Unsurprisingly, my digit ratio is pretty feminine (0.969 averaged over both hands).
Survey completed! Making a note here: Huge success!
Took the survey. I almost missed it since I don't really read Main these days.
Are options 3/4 on the BSRI backwards? To me "occasionally" is rarer than "sometimes".
Did it, as every year. Thanks for your work.
Hello, I'm decloaking from lurker status to say that I took the survey.
Calibration question for the Religious Denomination and P(Religion) questions:
Do the terms "believe" and "correct", respectively, in these questions refer strictly to the supernatural elements of a religion (accuracy of creation story, reification of pantheon, etc.)? Or more broadly over its entire catechism?
In other words, if a virtue ethicist were to feel that Floobian morality is pretty darn sound, but not truly believe that Floob herself literally sang the cosmos into existence... would you call that person a Floobist? Or does a point of disagreement constitute disbelief / incorrectness?
Given the recent example of the Pope coming out in favor of science's version of the origins of everything, I think this is a relevant distinction to draw.
Huh?
Took the survey! That last one was a hard because I didn't have a ruler :( Also, out of curiosity - has anyone ever had the same Public and Private key before?
Too late now, but an interesting question would be: Have you volunteered for MIRI, CfAR, or the broader mission of rationality or AI-risk? (The question would have to be specified more precisely than that.)
Done.
Didn't have a scanner, so I traced my hand on a piece of paper with a pencil and measured that. Not sure I got enough accuracy to take seriously. Oh, well.
I'm confident you didn't.
Given the ambiguity of the directions, you're probably as close as anyone else.
Took the survey! Some very interesting questions; I look forward to the analysis.
I took the survey.
The only part I wasn't sure about how to answer was the P(God) and P(supernatural) part. I put a very low probability on P(supernatural) because it sounded like it was talking about supernatural things happening "since the beginning of the universe" which I took as meaning "after the big bang." But for P(God) I put 50% because, hey, who knows, maybe there was a clockmaker God who set up the big bang?
If one were to interpret these survey responses in a certain way, though, they could seem illogical because one might think that P(supernatural) (which includes God in addition to many other possibilities) would strictly have to have a higher probability than the more-specific P(God). But like I said, I took P(supernatural) as referring to stuff after the big bang, whereas I took P(God) as including any time even before the big bang.
Took it.
This is my second year taking the survey. I wish I remembered what my answers were last year so I could see how I've changed.
Count me surveyed.
Took the survey! A few things:
I'm afraid my answer to the singularity start date is going to get thrown out, because I peg it to have started in the past with the start of the limited liability corporation. I know this is non-standard and weird, but it is genuine.
I'm a little disappointed that more of the suggestions from last year's results weren't included. This survey was nowhere near too long and I think that more optional questions (that don't involve outside tests) would add value.
Still frustrated with 'highest degree completed' not being 'highest degree completed or in progress.'
Don't reuse your password from last year! The public ones were all published! And try harder to make your's unique - last year there were a couple duplicates. If you put 'SQUEAMISH OSSIFRAGE', you're doing it wrong.
Did the survey (a couple days ago).
I wasn't here for the last survey- are the results predominantly discussed here and on Yvain's blog?
Survey completed, besides the digit ratio.
Survey taken!
Concerning the mental health questions, how do you weight self diagnosed and diagnosed by psychiatrist? Do you think, given the Less Wrong demographic self diagnosis is less or more reliable (intuitively I would tend to more). How should cases like myself answer - diagnosed with asperger by psychiatrist1, two years later diagnosed with ADHD but not asperger by psychiatrist2, several month later diagnosed as neither asperger nor ADHD by psychiatrist3?
I took the survey. Though I can’t remember my SAT score, which I know I put on the last survey – I wish I had saved my answers last year.
I'm new to LW and have been lurking and catching up for a while, but I answered the survey anyway. Working on gathering more ground so I'll be able to increase my interactions soon enough.
Completed the survey.
Two issues: I put a very low donation to charity, even though I consider working for the FHI to be a donation in kind.
Second, I messed up the probabilities, sorry, because I could not give any answer to P(simulation) and P(MWI) other than "NAN" (not a number). I can explain that stance in detail if you want.
Took the survey. I loved the calibration questions; it takes ~20 times more effort to come up with the confidence level than the answer, and I always feel I learn about myself. I've messed with some calibration question games before and was downright astonished at how well calibrated I was (the irony is not lost on me); but the questions were all in A-vs-B format rather than free form. The A-vs-B format is much easier to appear to be well calibrated.
¡He terminado!
I suspect most self-identified communists would baulk at the description of their ideology as "complete state control of many facets of life".
Done. Too bad the basilisk question wasn't on it; I hope that will one day be possible.
There is no disagreement that only a small percentage of LWers believe in it (just as there's no disagreement that only a small % of scientologists are even aware of the more arcane aspects of their "religion"). But yeah if you had a survey the actual % may be worth listing on RW.
The coverage of the basilisk I've seen in the media does not include that, IIRC.
Given the widespread mockery of those aspects & their failure to keep it under wraps, I'm not sure how ignorant the rank and file these days really are.
Did the survey. Seemed shorter than last year but I haven't gone back to double check how long last year's was.
In regards to the question on what sort of job you have, I selected 'other' because I work in a factory. I considered selecting 'business' since the factory is owned by a for-profit business, but given that many of the other options were professional positions where one might also be an employee of a business, and because my job is a labor union job rather than a professional position, I took the 'business' option to be more along the lines of e.g. owning a business. I might suggest adding other options like 'manufacturing labor' or the like in the future, if you get enough similar responses to warrant adding those sort of options.
Did the survey. It felt much shorter this year.
Took the survey. Did not read the comments first. Here are my observations after filling it out and reading the comments:
Problems encountered:
Criticism of questions:
I realize after the fact that when answering “how many books have you read”, I counted only things which are books in the sense of "the kind of thing that has an ISBN", excluding book-length self-published-on-the-internet documents, and also thought only of new books as opposed to rereads. I request that future versions of this question clarify what counts as a book and whether rereading counts.
"Hours Online": what counts as "on the Internet" in today's world is unclear. If I'm writing a book in Google Docs, does that count? If I'm focused on a problem, but I have an IRC channel open in the corner of my screen, does that count? If I'm walking down the street and my phone notifies me of a post which I immediately read, does that count?
Generally: there is a spectrum of plausible interpretations from "performing any activity which requires a functioning Internet connection" (broad definition) to "aimless web surfing" (narrow definition).
"Moral Views" could benefit from links to definitions.
Took the survey!
Also, a frequent lurker who has finally made an account!
I took the survey.
I did it, I did it, I did it, yay!
Took the survey a few days ago, and forgot to even comment! Thanks Yvain and looking forward to seeing what comes out of it
Survey complete!
I always look forward to seeing the results of these.
Done. Thank you for running these.
I completed the survey.
Yvain, in the "Referrals" section I feel the wording is a little ambiguous in what you should do if you were referred by Overcoming Bias but you've not "Been here since it was started in the Overcoming Bias days". I think you should answer "Referred by a link on another blog or website" on the first one and write "Overcoming Bias" in the second question despite the "other than Overcoming Bias" in it. But I'm not completely confident that this is what you would expect, or if other people would read it the same way.
I took the survey.
Done! Ahhh, another year another survey. I feel like I did one just a few months ago. I wish I knew my previous answers about gods, aliens, cryonics, and simulators.
Glad to do the survey, and appreciate that LW takes the views of readers seriously, that's great!
I took the survey. Finding a ruler with the correct precision was difficult so I skipped the digit question. Anyone in the Bay Area with the requisite equipment?
Survey complete.
Taken.
done. I always like doing these. how will the SSC version be different?
Done.
Competed the survey. Thanks for doing this, the results are always interesting.
Done, without finger question.
Taken.
Finger thing is weird. My fingers don't have constant length to the tenth of a millimeter, and holding my hand in the copier for a long time was uncomfortable enough that the fingers probably bent at least two millimeters. So if you really need tenths of a millimeter accuracy, disregard the one that has a result for the right hand and says 'nope' for the left hand.
Done it. The whole thing! (edit: except the last question)
Next year, can we have "something sort of like left-libertarianism-ist" on the big politics question. I think that there are many people here (myself included) that do not know how to categorize ourselves politically, but know that we have a lot in common with Yvain.
Did the survey. Thank you once again, Yvain.
I did the survey! I don't have sufficiently convenient access to a photocopier or scanner to be induced to do the digit ratio thing though.
Did it. Did all the extra credit except for the digit ratio.
Also, apparently I really have weird ideas about gender, as I'm masculine 55 and feminine 38, more masculine and less feminine than the average male (and I was born male), but I also answered that I don't particularly prefer being born male, modulo the relevant social roles. It's all just sorta a thing that happened; if it had happened the other way, I might have grown up being influenced into different roles and different ways of behaving, but I'd still pretty much be me (complete with being really weirdly headstrong and over-aggressive).
Top-level comment to say yep, took the survey! Well, except for the digit length by tool-aided measurement. However, I did do a rough measurement (which I chose to not record on the survey) by manually aligning the creases on both hands (first to verify corresponding finger lengths, then to compare D2:D4) I determined my digit ratio to be in excess of 1.00 and possibly as high as 1.02, which would make me very unusual (especially for a cis male). Then again, my height already makes me that.
Also, this is the first thread in which I've commented on LW! My actual first comment (with more stuff about the survey) is here: http://lesswrong.com/lw/l5k/2014_less_wrong_censussurvey/bihv EDIT: Feedback that I posted in that other comment, which it was pointed out really belongs here: Part Four's "Moral Views" section could have used links (LW, WP, wherever) for those of us who aren't sure about the selection of moral philosophies. It is a question I had been exploring, but mostly just in a "judge each as they are presented to me" approach and I had not encountered all of them before. Also, the WP articles for some of them do not contrast them with the others, so suggested alternate sources would be welcome.
EDIT2: Did somebody go on a downvote-rampage? Every comment in this section of the thread seems to have been downvoted at least once. Is there some rule of "you're not supposed to get more than 12 free karma out of this thread" or something that I missed? (Bearing in mind that I'm a newbie, I did not expect this behavior and would generally appreciate knowing why something I post is downvoted.)
Finished the survey.
Taken, in full
Bravo! At this point, having actually gone through the steps of scanning the outline of one's own hand and recording the digit ratios is a heroic feat. You have gone beyond expectations, achieving what many of us could not.
Did the survey!
Minor quibble:
Seems like bad wording - what if you're in exactly one polyamorous relationship? Your partner could be seeing other people, and even if you're not seeing anyone else you wouldn't call it monogamous.
I took the survey. I won't give it back, either.
Did the survey.
I started reading the articles only recently and just registered the account now.
Survey!
Done! Although I'm not quite sure how that was supposed to be 10-15 minutes...
My first comment here after about a month of lurking is to say that I've completed the survey. Looking forward to seeing the results.
I have done the survey. Now I am off to upvote everybody else.
Done!
Yvain, thanks for organising these! :-)
I took the survey. The BSRI reminds me of the MBTI, though, in that the questions are vague and I would probably give different answers depending on various factors, like what time it is or whom I've interacted with recently.
Did the survey. Accidently pressed submit before calculating digit ratio :( Answered everything else though.
Maybe next time add schizoid personality disorder to the "I think I might have this psych disorder" list.
Distinguishing Liberal/Social Democratic seems silly, as the difference between Neoreactionary and Conservative is much greater yet they aren't on the poll, and in previous years they were about as common as self-aware Communists.
Also note that the majority of people who pick "Conservative" on LessWrong are probably going to be Neoreactionary in their preferences and one of the more important markers of that group is strongly dissaproving of right wing people who think they can change things by voting and a loathing for the useless and actually harmfull nature of US Republicans.
...really? I'm sure you've done the research and I haven't but may I see the data? I'd wager we may have more neoreactionaries than the prevailing rate but more than half of people self-identifying as conservative surprises me.
Done. If I were to make a wager I'd say that the correlation between a low digit ratio and stereotypically masculine traits is fairly weak, based on my own >90th percentile high digit ratio yet high masculinity/low femininity scores on the inventory (as well as anecdotal reports from others corroborating my stereotypically masculine traits)
Taken.
done but for digit ratio
I took the survey. Happy aggregating!
Taken!
Something that just occurred to me (separate from my took-it comment): Scott, do you take your own survey?
I too have done the survey!
And am extremely excited to see the results.
Done.
Looking forward to the analysis and release of data!
Done!
Given the decision on a cap in length I think it might be worthwhile to do a second LW Lifestyle and Values survey in addition to the census. At best with half a year of distance to the census.
Most comments show exactly one downvote without a clear pattern why. I'd guess that a single person downvoted all these short comments. Can it be that this user doesn't know the custom of upvoting survey-takers?
ADDED 2014-10-25T16:20 UTC: The single downvotes disappeared.
ADDED 2014-10-26T21:10 UTC: The single downvotes reappeared again (at least for a lot of high scoring comments).
Almost everyone has a downvote again. What's more interesting is the short list of people who don't...
I filled out the survey. Thanks for doing this!
The digit ratio instructions are underspecified.
"....from the middle of the bottom crease". It's hard to tell what the "middle" means meaningfully enough to produce any sort of measurement, even to the nearest centimeter; certainly it is impossible to measure "to the nearest hundredth of a centimeter."
The instructions don't mention the left hand, and don't mention the step of scanning/copying your hand. We can easily interpolate, but the instructions are structured as if they are meant to be followed formally, so may as well make them precise.
Is Anti-Agathics a strict superset of Cryonics? That is to say, would someone becoming cryonically frozen and then restored, and then living for 1000 years from that date, count as a success for the anti-agathics question?
I thought of this last year after I completed the survey, and rated anti-agathics less probable than cryonics. This year I decided cryonics counted, and rated anti-agathics 5% higher than cryonics. But it would be nice for the question to be clearer.
Me, survey, did, etc.
EDIT: I do not self-identify as a LWer (and am a bit surprised other people here would do that), but I would expect to be in the survey target demographic none the less.
I've gone back, sorted the comments by 'new', and upvoted everyone who commented they did the survey since I took it, and upvoted everyone who did it before me. This way I've upvoted everyone, and they got more karma. It took me three minutes. If you spend a substantial amount of spare time on Less Wrong, it might be worth it for others for you to do the same. The more people who do this, the more karma everyone gets. Also, it can act as an incentive for people to take the survey for karma even if they're late to the game.
Oh, right. Alternatively, just noticing comments on this post in the 'recent comments' sidebar might suffice.
Did so too.
Twice.
Hmm, I did worse on those calibration questions than I would've expected.
I am curious what kind of analysis you plan to run on the calibration questions. Obvious things to do:
For each user, compute the correlation between their probabilities and the 0-1 vector of right and wrong answers. Then display the correlations in some way (a histogram?).
For each question, compute the mean (or median) of the probability for the correct answers and for the wrong answers, and see how separated they are.
But neither of those feels like a really satisfactory measure of calibration.
The question called P(Global Catastrophic Risk) should really be called something more like P(not Global Catastrophic Risk). (Or else the question itself should be inverted, but that would be a Bad Idea since some people have now filled in the survey.)
I'll be interested to compare the results to the 2014 Effective Altruists Survey from earlier this year. Peter Hurford will be presenting its results soon, and I believe he's cross-tabulating them with those on the 2013 LW Census (including figures like the gender ratio and how much people donate).
Also: I've now taken the survey. There were some interesting questions there.