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Lumifer comments on Open thread, Sep. 14 - Sep. 20, 2015 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: MrMind 14 September 2015 07:10AM

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Comment author: gjm 14 September 2015 04:14:32PM 3 points [-]

Are those two 10% figures equal only by coincidence?

To me, "boost membership by 10% above trend" means either "increase this year's signups by 10% of what they would otherwise have been" or else "increase this year's signups enough to make membership a year from now 10% higher than it otherwise would have been".

The second of these is equivalent to "membership will be 10% higher a year from now" iff membership would otherwise have been exactly unaltered over the year, which would mean that signups are a negligibly small fraction of current membership.

The first is equivalent to "membership will be 10% higher a year from now" iff m+1.1s = 1.1m where m,s are current membership and baseline signups for the next year, which is true iff m = 11s.

Those are both rather specific conditions, and the first seems pretty unlikely. Did you actually mean either of them, or have I misunderstood?

Comment author: Lumifer 14 September 2015 04:34:38PM *  0 points [-]

I am reading the grandparent literally as "increase membership" which does imply that the current trend is flat and the membership numbers are not increasing.

Comment author: gjm 14 September 2015 04:49:24PM 4 points [-]

Could be. But is Alcor really doing so badly? (Or: does James_Miller think they are?)

The graphs on this Alcor page seem to indicate that membership is in fact increasing by at least a few percent year on year, even if people are no longer counted as members after cryosuspension.

Comment author: Lumifer 14 September 2015 04:59:58PM 1 point [-]

Hm. Yes, Alcor's membership is going up nicely. I don't know what James_Miller had in mind, then.