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Michaelos comments on Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Argument - Less Wrong Discussion
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I'm having trouble determining the best strategy in these kinds of games, but I'm worried it's not quite actually sounding like a member of the group you're pretending to be.
For example, a liberal Christian complained that her (honest!) Christian answer did very poorly, because people associated liberalism with atheism. This suggests that the best strategy isn't necessarily to honestly list what you believe, but to list what you think a typical member of the group involved believes.
And If (for example) atheists know that the average Christian is writing about what they think the average Christian believes, than atheists in their fake entries will also write about what they think the average Christian believes.
Yes, if overdone, this is a sign of dishonesty; for example, anyone who was too stereotypical ("Yeah, I get up each day, read a selection from the Bible, check the Pope's Twitter account, then go to church, then go bomb an abortion clinic..." would be obviously fake.) So the best strategy seems to write something kind of stereotypical, but to depart from stereotype in a few places so as to signal you're talking about a real person rather than a straw man.
But this strategy is identical for real Christians and sham Christians, which sort of defeats the purpose of the Ideological Turing Test. We're not testing whether atheists can talk like a real Christian any more as much as whether atheists can talk like a real Christian pretending to be a stereotypical Christian, which seems like a lower bar.
I'd be interested in seeing differences between this test and one in which, say, Christians were just asked to discuss their opinions on some topics without it being part of a Turing Test, and then atheists were asked to fake Christian opinions on those same topics (also interested in how those same just-discuss entries would do against Christians-writing-for-a-Turing-test entries).
Interestingly, the entry that I was most convinced was Christian - and I was right - was one that included the phrase "and when I was in seminary...". I didn't expect any atheist to have the chutzpah to fake a priest, whereas I did expect some actual priests to read Leah's blog. This suggests that a winning strategy is to be stereotypical in unexpected ways fakers wouldn't think of, and possibly to be unstereotypical in unexpected ways fakers wouldn't think of (although obviously I can't think of any examples of this).
I had read this, when it was originally posted.
And then, I was referred to this, which was also written by you: http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/03/reactionary-philosophy-in-an-enormous-planet-sized-nutshell/
Which was sufficiently good at espousing Reactionary philosophy that I was STARTLED when I got to the end, because I had forgotten that you were only pretending to be Reactionary for the sake of an Ideological turing test. You were well on your way to convincing me to take a hard look at my own progressive ideals and find out why I hadn't seen all of these obvious flaws and then you said:
Despite the fact, that you had literally said, at the beginning:
I seem to have forgotten that while reading the middle... So erm, yes, I understand that you don't hold those ideas, and I'm not angry at you. But I do apparently fail at reading comprehension. And at having justifications for my ideals.
But reading this IN LIGHT of you saying a short time ago
That's just weird. I'm having a hard time visualizing room for there to even be a better strategy than what you just did.
It's rather embarrassing to admit that I failed at reading comprehension, but the contrast seems to great to not mention.
Yvain might be a brilliant doctor, now or some day, but what he writes is already genius. If only he realized that he could help more people and make more money if he seriously considered this as a career. The case of an altruistic lawyer volunteering in a soup kitchen comes to mind.
It isn't at all obvious to me that he could help more people and make more money by making his career in writing. (I mean, obviously it's possible that he would, but you can't mean that because it's pretty much always true for any pair of careers.)
Just what sort of writing career do you envisage for him that's more lucrative and more world-enhancing than medicine?
(For the avoidance of doubt: I agree that his writing is excellent.)
Actually, I take it back. It's not a dichotomy. He can be both and he will probably be a better writer if he is also a practicing psychiatrist. He might decide to write professionally at some point, though.