I don’t really see how being smart grants you extra hours / day. Your commute, your job, your wife, your children, and your body (which wants sleep, food, sex, emotional connection, etc) all don’t care how smart you are—they want the exact same amount of time from you in all cases regardless of you being being IQ 80 or IQ 180.
Smart people maybe get a couple hours / week back by avoiding church. What other savings do rationalists realistically get in a uniform way?
ALSO—although I labeled it Atheist/Agnostic, I’m counting anyone who is unsure about the existence of god as being those two, not just the 1% of people who self-ID as atheist.
I agree that being smart doesn’t magically give you extra time (although maybe watching less TV goes here).
What I said was that you assumed everyone was the average for their group and didn’t account for variation: you discount everyone who’s employed/has kids, rather than instead looking at what percentage of those groups spend >30 minutes/day on the computer.
ALSO - ( :P ) I still think that’s too strict. You don’t even accept the full number of people who declared “none” for religion, apparently (15% in 2008 - see your link pg 5). You claim that if you believe in god then “lessons in rationality are a complete waste of time for you,” when I’d think that it would be the opposite: it is when someone is irrational that they can use lessons in rationality. The question is then not “who already agrees?” but “who is willing to listen?”
Mine does. I don’t see this thing you’re claiming about one’s spouse/partner/whatever being a timesink. Surely most people (at least most rational people) would marry someone who shares their interests, rather than detracts from them? There are plenty of things that have removed big chunks of my time (work foremost among them) but I don’t have any less free time since my marriage...
I’ll try to think of ways to integrate this with what I’ve been reading in the US time use surveys. I know you’re not American, but being married in the US typically halves peoples’ leisure time spent reading and using computers and the displaced time ends up being spent as extra time at work. This pattern matches really well to what I’ve seen from my friends and colleges at old jobs who went from being single to married… even smart ones.
So I wasn’t making a wild, sexist conjecture without context. I was just pointing to the mountains of data supporting this point and assuming that people wouldn’t find it controversial.
“the displaced time ends up being spent as extra time at work”
But you’re already counting “being in full-time work” as one of your factors, so you’re counting that twice. If someone’s in full-time work, you say it’s impossible for them to read LessWrong, and then on top of that you cut out all those who are married because they’ll be working more!
You’re also assuming that someone who will be interested in reading the site will follow normal patterns of behaviour and time use, when the very fact that they’re interested in reading the site would suggest otherwise...
I’m pretty sure I’m counting each separately and disqualifying people for having either one or both. I don’t see how that’s counting twice. Usually the extra time lost during marriage goes to work because lots of people have both a spouse and a job. But even without a job, a spouse typically diminishes free time spent on solitary leisure activities by a factor of 2 which I keep mentioning. I’m glad your personal situation is better than this.
I agree that people currently on LW are somehow re-prioritizing their time in novel ways which allow them to read the site. I’m just pointing out that there are likely 10-20x as many people out there for every current LW reader who don’t have the skills to effectively do this and this barrier keeps them from possibly reading the sequences or using LW.
Maybe trying to teach people better time management skills and prioritization would be helpful? This would allow them to have the free time to possibly read LW or do whatever it was they found exciting or helpful in life.
I don’t really see how being smart grants you extra hours / day. Your commute, your job, your wife, your children, and your body (which wants sleep, food, sex, emotional connection, etc) all don’t care how smart you are—they want the exact same amount of time from you in all cases regardless of you being being IQ 80 or IQ 180.
Smart people maybe get a couple hours / week back by avoiding church. What other savings do rationalists realistically get in a uniform way?
ALSO—although I labeled it Atheist/Agnostic, I’m counting anyone who is unsure about the existence of god as being those two, not just the 1% of people who self-ID as atheist.
I agree that being smart doesn’t magically give you extra time (although maybe watching less TV goes here).
What I said was that you assumed everyone was the average for their group and didn’t account for variation: you discount everyone who’s employed/has kids, rather than instead looking at what percentage of those groups spend >30 minutes/day on the computer.
ALSO - ( :P ) I still think that’s too strict. You don’t even accept the full number of people who declared “none” for religion, apparently (15% in 2008 - see your link pg 5). You claim that if you believe in god then “lessons in rationality are a complete waste of time for you,” when I’d think that it would be the opposite: it is when someone is irrational that they can use lessons in rationality. The question is then not “who already agrees?” but “who is willing to listen?”
“your wife… don’t care how smart you are”
Mine does. I don’t see this thing you’re claiming about one’s spouse/partner/whatever being a timesink. Surely most people (at least most rational people) would marry someone who shares their interests, rather than detracts from them? There are plenty of things that have removed big chunks of my time (work foremost among them) but I don’t have any less free time since my marriage...
I’ll try to think of ways to integrate this with what I’ve been reading in the US time use surveys. I know you’re not American, but being married in the US typically halves peoples’ leisure time spent reading and using computers and the displaced time ends up being spent as extra time at work. This pattern matches really well to what I’ve seen from my friends and colleges at old jobs who went from being single to married… even smart ones.
So I wasn’t making a wild, sexist conjecture without context. I was just pointing to the mountains of data supporting this point and assuming that people wouldn’t find it controversial.
“the displaced time ends up being spent as extra time at work” But you’re already counting “being in full-time work” as one of your factors, so you’re counting that twice. If someone’s in full-time work, you say it’s impossible for them to read LessWrong, and then on top of that you cut out all those who are married because they’ll be working more! You’re also assuming that someone who will be interested in reading the site will follow normal patterns of behaviour and time use, when the very fact that they’re interested in reading the site would suggest otherwise...
I’m pretty sure I’m counting each separately and disqualifying people for having either one or both. I don’t see how that’s counting twice. Usually the extra time lost during marriage goes to work because lots of people have both a spouse and a job. But even without a job, a spouse typically diminishes free time spent on solitary leisure activities by a factor of 2 which I keep mentioning. I’m glad your personal situation is better than this.
I agree that people currently on LW are somehow re-prioritizing their time in novel ways which allow them to read the site. I’m just pointing out that there are likely 10-20x as many people out there for every current LW reader who don’t have the skills to effectively do this and this barrier keeps them from possibly reading the sequences or using LW.
Maybe trying to teach people better time management skills and prioritization would be helpful? This would allow them to have the free time to possibly read LW or do whatever it was they found exciting or helpful in life.