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Risto_Saarelma comments on 2012 Less Wrong Census Survey: Call For Critiques/Questions - Less Wrong Discussion

20 Post author: Yvain 19 October 2012 01:12AM

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Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 19 October 2012 07:35:59AM *  8 points [-]
  • Last time some commenters went nuts when a noticeable portion of repliers picked the "Socialist" political choice. The description "for example Scandinavian countries" is kinda priming here, since some responders actually are from Scandinavian (or other Nordic) countries. So the question reads for me as "do you like the not that good but sorta working politics at where you live or the stuff the horrible American (and former Soviet Union and present North Korean for Communism) politicians are doing that you only hear about when it goes more or less horribly wrong in some way?"

The distinction between "liberal" and "socialist" is a bit confusing in any case. Without the "like this stuff in this country", I'd describe the Finnish political mainstream as "liberal" with sizable socialist contingent on the left and religious, populist and Swedish-speaking (don't ask) minority parties on the right. If seen as the Evil Political Enemies, the populist group kinda matches up with the conservative one in the query, but low taxes are the mainstream Coalition party's thing, while the religious party is mostly just traditional values and the populist party is traditional values and isolationism. I mostly identify the Coalition party with American liberals, actual social values wise.

  • I'd like to actually see David Gerard's suggestion of asking about elementary quantum physics calculation skills in addition to asking for the opinion on many-worlds. Unfortunately I don't have elementary quantum physics calculation skills so I can't contribute a question.

  • Also, maybe ask about anonymity:

o I post using my real life name.
o I post using a pseudonym, but my real life name is easily discoverable.
o My real life name isn't easily discoverable, but it wouldn't terribly inconvenience me if it were.
o Someone being able to connect my Less Wrong account to my real life identity would be very bad.

  • Inspired by a recent question: "How would you describe Less Wrong to someone who has never heard of it in 140 characters or less?"
Comment author: Kindly 20 October 2012 12:54:39AM 3 points [-]

Someone being able to connect my Less Wrong account to my real life identity would be very bad.

A milder version of this option seems to be in order. I don't think it's the end of the world if someone discovers my real identity, but I would much rather avoid it.

Comment author: AdeleneDawner 21 October 2012 02:04:10AM 2 points [-]

You'd want to define 'real life name' for the anonymity bit. I don't post under my legal name and don't think it's possible to find it given my chosen one, but I go by my chosen one rather than my legal one in most cases, and it's actually possible to find my address given my chosen name and a bit of googling, which feels more like 1 or 2 than 3 to me.

Comment author: ChristianKl 19 October 2012 07:11:17PM 1 point [-]

Also, maybe ask about anonymity:

I post under the real first name plus the first two letter of my last name.

I wouldn't say I'm using a pseudonym. On the other hand you can't make the connection between the identities easily via googling.

Comment author: [deleted] 19 October 2012 09:15:15PM *  0 points [-]

I post using a pseudonym, but my real life name is easily discoverable.

Depends on what you mean by "easily". I guess it'd take about half an hour for a motivated LWer to find out my full name.

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 20 October 2012 03:54:31AM *  5 points [-]

Depends on what you mean by "easily".

Your profile page having a link to your home page that has your real name on the About page type of "easily". If internet detectiving is required, I'd think of that as the third option.