Thanks; this comment made me happy. Part of the answer is that I generally have low self-esteem, which negatively affects my perception of the quality of certain things that I have written. Another part of the answer was that I wrote this with the very specific goal of estimating values of the “years of life added vs. age at castration” curve at different points in mind, which seems much more narrow than the goal of doing basic science work, which is most of what journals publish.
Additionally, many journals have publication fees, which I would have to pay out of pocket. Others charge readers access fees; I’d rather people be able to access my work freely. As things currently stand, I might still be able to mention this work during interviews as an example of a time when I noticed others didn’t seem to be working on a certain problem and took action myself, if the interviewer didn’t seem to be prejudiced against transhumanist or LGBT folks.
More object-level question: sorry for not spotting it due to academic voice, but did you do enough original research on your own here to make the analysis publishable? Or could you maybe submit it as a student project, if you’re still in school?
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m guessing that I probably did enough research that I could have at least published this as a letter to a journal, instead of as a full-fledged publication. I’m no longer a student.
I find it interesting that you both are underconfident and realize you are underconfident. Have you tried adjusting for underconfidence like you would any other cognitive bias? (At least you need not adjust for overconfidence!)
I don’t have much social confidence, but social confidence need not be related to credence calibration. I still end up giving somewhat overconfident answers on CFAR’s credence calibration game, despite being shy. My above comment could have been clearer: the bit about “my perception of the quality of certain things that I have written” has more to do with my self-worth, and less to do with my ability to judge the quality of my own writing.
many journals have publication fees, which I would have to pay out of pocket. Others charge readers access fees
A short summary of what is wrong with science, as done today. :(
Possible solution: Create an “amateur science foundation” which would review articles for free, and if they are good, would publish them in open-access journals. (To prevent flooding by crackpots, if a person submits an obviously stupid article, they get a warning, and after three warnings they are blacklisted.)
Alternatively, the site could let the users determine what it good. Users could “like” or “dislike” articles, and these likes and dislikes would affect the reputation of the publisher. The higher the publisher’s reputation, the more likes, and the fewer dislikes and article has, the higher rank the article would get when being searched for, and articles with sufficiently low rankings would be hidden. Think Stack Exchange for science.
It could be expanded in many ways, for example by weighing likes and dislikes by high-status users more heavily than low-status ones, or by using numeric ratings instead.
Thanks; this comment made me happy. Part of the answer is that I generally have low self-esteem, which negatively affects my perception of the quality of certain things that I have written. Another part of the answer was that I wrote this with the very specific goal of estimating values of the “years of life added vs. age at castration” curve at different points in mind, which seems much more narrow than the goal of doing basic science work, which is most of what journals publish.
Additionally, many journals have publication fees, which I would have to pay out of pocket. Others charge readers access fees; I’d rather people be able to access my work freely. As things currently stand, I might still be able to mention this work during interviews as an example of a time when I noticed others didn’t seem to be working on a certain problem and took action myself, if the interviewer didn’t seem to be prejudiced against transhumanist or LGBT folks.
At the very least, it seems like you could get this published as a guest post on a popular life extension blog.
More object-level question: sorry for not spotting it due to academic voice, but did you do enough original research on your own here to make the analysis publishable? Or could you maybe submit it as a student project, if you’re still in school?
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m guessing that I probably did enough research that I could have at least published this as a letter to a journal, instead of as a full-fledged publication. I’m no longer a student.
I find it interesting that you both are underconfident and realize you are underconfident. Have you tried adjusting for underconfidence like you would any other cognitive bias? (At least you need not adjust for overconfidence!)
Someone thinking they are underconfident does not prove they are not overconfident.
I don’t have much social confidence, but social confidence need not be related to credence calibration. I still end up giving somewhat overconfident answers on CFAR’s credence calibration game, despite being shy. My above comment could have been clearer: the bit about “my perception of the quality of certain things that I have written” has more to do with my self-worth, and less to do with my ability to judge the quality of my own writing.
Oh, I think I see. Confidence is a feeling, while credence is a belief.
Arxiv. Lots of journals are open access these days.
I’m not sure where a preprint on castration & longevity would fit on the arXiv...I’d try bioRxiv or the Social Science Research Network.
Yes, you are right, re: venues. Thanks!
A short summary of what is wrong with science, as done today. :(
Possible solution: Create an “amateur science foundation” which would review articles for free, and if they are good, would publish them in open-access journals. (To prevent flooding by crackpots, if a person submits an obviously stupid article, they get a warning, and after three warnings they are blacklisted.)
Alternatively, the site could let the users determine what it good. Users could “like” or “dislike” articles, and these likes and dislikes would affect the reputation of the publisher. The higher the publisher’s reputation, the more likes, and the fewer dislikes and article has, the higher rank the article would get when being searched for, and articles with sufficiently low rankings would be hidden. Think Stack Exchange for science.
It could be expanded in many ways, for example by weighing likes and dislikes by high-status users more heavily than low-status ones, or by using numeric ratings instead.