Why in the world do you expect a forum dedicated to refining the art of human rationality to conform to such sampling? Unless you haven’t noticed this is a rather niche interest associated with even more neiche memes.
And may I ask what exactly are the benefits of such sampling? Has it been demonstrated, in any endeavour whatsoever, that the efforts expended on it give greater returns in terms of achieving stated goals than other options?
Sounds like a silly rationalization for a soft-headed “diversity” applause light.
Daenerys has said that the poll has so far gotten a response of 13% female, compared to 8% in the Less Wrong survey a few months ago. I also think it’s unlikely that the proportion of female members has grown by more than 50% in the last four months.
Yes. Daenerys is trying to find out how people who’re on Less Wrong came to be here, particularly female members, and since we have considerably fewer female members, it’s harder to get a significant sampling. She made a particular push for female members to participate, and it seems to have worked. So what is it that you’re objecting to?
Ah I see, I thought we where talking about the general desirability of making LW representative of something or other (college educated people, the global population, France, hypothetical perfect society, ect.) not this particular drive to get data from LessWrong users who are female.
Well, Daenerys has expressed an interest in getting more female participation in Less Wrong. Whether or not we should expect proportional representation on this site, I don’t think it’s particularly contentious that we could be attracting more, and I do think our demographic homogeneity is a meaningful status concern.
Every action has opportunity costs, but given that we have members who’re interested in bringing in more female members, I think that by doing so they will probably be doing more for the community than they would otherwise be doing.
Every action has opportunity costs, but given that we have members who’re interested in bringing in more female members, I think that by doing so they will probably be doing more for the community than they would otherwise be doing.
This is an excellent point and I have no problem at all with such added activity.
However as soon as they start changing norms or trying to convince other existing LessWrong users to change their behaviour, a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done. If they decline to provide it, or if I am unconvinced I simply will not conform to the new norms (and other users are of course free to vote on my conduct).
Why in the world do you expect a forum dedicated to refining the art of human rationality to conform to such sampling? Unless you haven’t noticed this is a rather niche interest associated with even more neiche memes.
And may I ask what exactly are the benefits of such sampling? Has it been demonstrated, in any endeavour whatsoever, that the efforts expended on it give greater returns in terms of achieving stated goals than other options?
Sounds like a silly rationalization for a soft-headed “diversity” applause light.
Daenerys has said that the poll has so far gotten a response of 13% female, compared to 8% in the Less Wrong survey a few months ago. I also think it’s unlikely that the proportion of female members has grown by more than 50% in the last four months.
You mean the poll that specifically asked female posters to participate? From a set of people that already read LessWrong.
Yes. Daenerys is trying to find out how people who’re on Less Wrong came to be here, particularly female members, and since we have considerably fewer female members, it’s harder to get a significant sampling. She made a particular push for female members to participate, and it seems to have worked. So what is it that you’re objecting to?
Ah I see, I thought we where talking about the general desirability of making LW representative of something or other (college educated people, the global population, France, hypothetical perfect society, ect.) not this particular drive to get data from LessWrong users who are female.
Sorry for the misunderstanding!
Well, Daenerys has expressed an interest in getting more female participation in Less Wrong. Whether or not we should expect proportional representation on this site, I don’t think it’s particularly contentious that we could be attracting more, and I do think our demographic homogeneity is a meaningful status concern.
Every action has opportunity costs, but given that we have members who’re interested in bringing in more female members, I think that by doing so they will probably be doing more for the community than they would otherwise be doing.
This is an excellent point and I have no problem at all with such added activity.
However as soon as they start changing norms or trying to convince other existing LessWrong users to change their behaviour, a cost-benefit analysis needs to be done. If they decline to provide it, or if I am unconvinced I simply will not conform to the new norms (and other users are of course free to vote on my conduct).