Do we have a basic financial literacy category? It's perhaps well known to most LW-ers but I know we get the occasional aspiring rationalist high school / early college student and this stuff really isn't taught in school.

This confuses me a little since the vast majority of the funds they invest in are Vanguard ETFs. Maybe you mean >something more specific that I'm missing?

Haha, ok. So you can just go buy a Vanguard target-date retirement fund and let the fund's internal structure take care of the asset allocation for you, or you can go talk to somebody at Vanguard who will either give you some straightforward advice about how to build your own portfolio for a one-time fee or build your portfolio for you for an ongoing fee, or go to Betterment where they will build you a portfolio out of Vanguard funds, or you can build it yourself using some of the insights you gleaned from this article. All of these are reasonable solutions.

I have taken the survey, including all questions.

Link: Appeals to evidence may decrease donations among donors primarily seeking warm fuzzies: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2421943 hat tip http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2014/04/does-greater-charitable-effectiveness-spur-more-donations.html

Is there anywhere I can read an explanation of (or anyone who can explain) the distinction between "Atheist but spiritual" and "Atheist and not spiritual"?

All the extra credit questions!

You might repeat Intelligence Amplification here, as I was confused until I read the previous post links.

Hmm. I'm not 95% confident of then number I gave, but I haven't been able to turn up anything disconfirming.

I did a bunch of research on the heritability of IQ last year for a term paper and I repeatedly saw the claim that university students tend to be 1sd above the local population mean, although that may not apply in a place with more liberal admissions practices like the modern US. More research below, and I'll edit in some extra stuff tomorrow when my brain isn't fried.

Some actual data here (IQs estimated from SAT scores, ETS data as of 2013)

Surprisingly, at least looking at science / engineering / math majors, it looks like people are smarter than I would have guessed; Physics majors had the highest average at 133 with Psychology majors pulling up the rear with 114, and most of them are clustered around 120 - 130. For someone who deals with undergrads, that is frankly shockingly high.

Outside of the sciences, even the "dumbest" major, social work, managed a 103 and a lot of the popular majors are in the 105-115 range. Another big surprise here too; Philosophy majors are really damn bright with a 129 average, right up under Math majors. Never would have guessed that one.

Still, it's obvious that the 115-120 figure I gave was overly optimistic. Once I look at some more data I will amend my initial post so that it better reflects reality.

No, that is a mere assertion (which may or may not be true). If they claimed that he is wrong because he is engaging in motivated reasoning, then that would be ad hominem.

[LINK] A day in the life of an NPC. http://www.npccomic.com/2011/10/19/beautiful-day/?utm_source=PW%2B&utm_medium=468x60&utm_content=Beauty&utm_campaign=PW%2B468x60%2BBeauty%2B