kpreid comments on 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey - Less Wrong

88 Post author: Yvain 26 October 2014 06:05PM

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Comment author: kpreid 02 November 2014 03:58:53AM 30 points [-]

Took the survey. Did not read the comments first. Here are my observations after filling it out and reading the comments:

Problems encountered:

  • I followed the instructions carefully for the digit ratio question. I then went to enter my answer and found that the instructions failed to tell me to image my left hand as well as my right, so I gave the partial answer I had rather than go through all the steps again for the left hand. As of this writing, one other person commented on this problem.

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.

Comment author: [deleted] 08 November 2014 06:22:04PM 3 points [-]

"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?

I used the statistic for my “Everything” block set on LeechBlock, which amounts to interpreting “the Internet” as “the WWW”, but I now realize that maybe time spent reading/writing e-mails and/or on the Facebook Messenger app on my phone should also count.