NancyLebovitz comments on 2014 Survey Results - Less Wrong

87 Post author: Yvain 05 January 2015 07:36PM

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Comment author: gothgirl420666 04 January 2015 07:37:44AM *  8 points [-]

I would be really interested in hearing from one of the fourteen schizophrenic rationalists. Given that one of the most prominent symptoms of schizophrenia is delusional thinking, a.k.a. irrationality... I wonder how this plays out in someone who has read the Sequences. Do these people have less severe symptoms as a result? When your brain decides to turn against you, is there a way to win?

I also find it fascinating that bisexuality is vastly overrepresented here (14.4% in LW vs. 1-2% in US), while homosexuality is not. My natural immediate interpretation of this is that bisexuality is a choice. I think Eliezer said once that he would rather be bisexual than straight, because it would allow for more opportunities to have fun. This seems like an attitude many LW members might share, given that polyamory a.k.a. pursuing a weird dating strategy because it's more fun is very popular in this community. (I personally also share Eliezer's attitude, but unfortunately I'm pretty sure I'm straight.) So to me it seems logical that the large number of bisexuals may come from a large number of people-who-want-to-be-bisexual actually becoming so. This seems more likely to me than some aspect or correlate of bisexuality (and not homosexuality) causing people to find LW.

Alternatively, and now that I think about it probably more realistically, perhaps the vast majority of people in America who are attracted to two genders decide to keep their same-sex attraction to themselves, concluding (arguably rationally) that the added sexual opportunities aren't worth the stigmatization. However, LW members are more likely to be unashamed of being weird, and also more likely to socialize e.g. with a bunch of nerds in the Bay Area, meaning that the risk of stigmatization is much lower.

Or perhaps the true answer is some sort of combination of the two I just postulated.

[Poor calibration] is not a human universal - people who put even a small amount of training into calibration can become very well calibrated very quickly.

Is there a source on this?

Comment author: Error 04 January 2015 06:21:25PM 1 point [-]

I also find it fascinating that bisexuality is vastly overrepresented here

I'd be interested to see the orientation numbers broken down by sex/gender. My personal experience is that geek/nerd women seem to be bisexual at surprisingly high rates. I'm wondering if having typically-male personal pursuits (e.g. LW) is correlated with typically-male sexual interests (i.e. liking women).

he would rather be bisexual than straight, because it would allow for more opportunities to have fun...(I personally also share Eliezer's attitude, but unfortunately I'm pretty sure I'm straight)

I'm in that boat. Feels like I'm missing out on half the potential fun. :-(

Comment author: NancyLebovitz 04 January 2015 09:37:30PM 4 points [-]

Men who aren't bisexual are missing considerably less than half the potential fun, since the proportion of men who are gay or bisexual is fairly low.

Comment author: gothgirl420666 04 January 2015 10:44:11PM *  1 point [-]

Yeah, but gay men are also more promiscuous.

Comment author: Alsadius 12 January 2015 09:35:06PM 0 points [-]

Is your comparison "than straight men" or "than straight women" here?