It’s an interesting idea, but we might need more emphasis on becoming more rational to improve your life (rather than on FAI) to attract them.
Agreed. Or perhaps rationality as a way of improving science?
This relates to something else I was thinking about—at this point, LW is a pretty small social group. If there were 100,000 active members, which I think is theoretically possible, then LW would develop substructures of some sort.
Thats a terrifyingly large number to think about. Do you think 100,000 is active while maintaining the current median IQ? Or without the signal to noise ratio dropping significantly?
The structure of the site would have to change significantly. We’d have to live with more specialization, no one would be able to follow all of that content.
Let’s run some casual analysis on intelligence level and LW.
My impression is that my intelligence level is between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000. It isn’t hard for me to find compatible people in science fiction fandom. I think I’d resist arguments that it’s below 1 in 500 unless there was very good evidence.
I fit in well here, but am not of the top rank, partly due to lack of math and partly due to lack of ambition. It’s possible that even if I had more desire to write top level posts, I still wouldn’t be as good at it as Alicorn.
I don’t bother trying to follow the strategic maneuvering in MOR (I suspect I’m not alone in this), and appreciated the bit recently where Harry lost track. Sorry—don’t remember the details.
I haven’t found a lot of blogs where I’d say that the intellectual level is as high as LW, but I can recommend Making Light. The posters are very high on the verbal skills side and have respect for rational argument.
So, let’s start with 500 million minimally potential LW users. One in a thousand of them would be 500,000.
1 in 5 of them showing up seems like a high proportion, but not insanely so.
Maybe LW could top out at 50,000 instead of 100,000 without changing its character.
Demographics point towards increasing numbers of potential LW posters, if only because the proportion of people who use the web recreationally are going up. I’m not sure whether the Flynn effect is relevant.
There are certainly 100,000 people as smart as the current community who might one day read Less Wrong. What seems unlikely is that we can expand without lowering barriers to entry. Lowering these barriers, it seems to me, would make it very difficult to restrict our recruitment to those who are in that 100,000.
I don’t think the Flynn effect is relevant for this analysis.
Speed of development (in places like India today and Eastern Europe in the early 00′s), spread of English as a second language and the changing cultural standards are I think are much more important reason for the rise in number of English speaking people who use the web recreationally. Improvements in environment don’t effect adult IQ much, as the nation develops and English spreads it stands to reason a previously hidden reservoir of potential users is a greater increase in numbers in absolute terms than the Flynn effect could hope to gather via children growing up with slightly higher IQs especially since many developing nations may be developing precisely because they are using up their demographic dividend.
The Flynn effect also clearly can’t continue forever, there are signs that its ending or has perhaps already ended in the developed world (I think Denmark has shown a stall in the Flynn effect for more than half a decade, there may be other examples but I don’t recall studies right now).
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Agreed. Or perhaps rationality as a way of improving science?
Thats a terrifyingly large number to think about. Do you think 100,000 is active while maintaining the current median IQ? Or without the signal to noise ratio dropping significantly?
The structure of the site would have to change significantly. We’d have to live with more specialization, no one would be able to follow all of that content.
Let’s run some casual analysis on intelligence level and LW.
My impression is that my intelligence level is between 1 in 1000 and 1 in 10,000. It isn’t hard for me to find compatible people in science fiction fandom. I think I’d resist arguments that it’s below 1 in 500 unless there was very good evidence.
I fit in well here, but am not of the top rank, partly due to lack of math and partly due to lack of ambition. It’s possible that even if I had more desire to write top level posts, I still wouldn’t be as good at it as Alicorn.
I don’t bother trying to follow the strategic maneuvering in MOR (I suspect I’m not alone in this), and appreciated the bit recently where Harry lost track. Sorry—don’t remember the details.
I haven’t found a lot of blogs where I’d say that the intellectual level is as high as LW, but I can recommend Making Light. The posters are very high on the verbal skills side and have respect for rational argument.
So, let’s start with 500 million minimally potential LW users. One in a thousand of them would be 500,000.
1 in 5 of them showing up seems like a high proportion, but not insanely so.
Maybe LW could top out at 50,000 instead of 100,000 without changing its character.
Demographics point towards increasing numbers of potential LW posters, if only because the proportion of people who use the web recreationally are going up. I’m not sure whether the Flynn effect is relevant.
There are certainly 100,000 people as smart as the current community who might one day read Less Wrong. What seems unlikely is that we can expand without lowering barriers to entry. Lowering these barriers, it seems to me, would make it very difficult to restrict our recruitment to those who are in that 100,000.
It’s complicated—I’d say that for current members to keep promoting it in their social circles will tend to maintain quality. And MOR Is helpful, too.
Just expanding for its own sake wouldn’t be a good idea.
Figuring out a more efficient way of teaching rationality than the sequences (I hope Eliezer’s book will be that) would be a very good thing.
I don’t think the Flynn effect is relevant for this analysis.
Speed of development (in places like India today and Eastern Europe in the early 00′s), spread of English as a second language and the changing cultural standards are I think are much more important reason for the rise in number of English speaking people who use the web recreationally. Improvements in environment don’t effect adult IQ much, as the nation develops and English spreads it stands to reason a previously hidden reservoir of potential users is a greater increase in numbers in absolute terms than the Flynn effect could hope to gather via children growing up with slightly higher IQs especially since many developing nations may be developing precisely because they are using up their demographic dividend.
The Flynn effect also clearly can’t continue forever, there are signs that its ending or has perhaps already ended in the developed world (I think Denmark has shown a stall in the Flynn effect for more than half a decade, there may be other examples but I don’t recall studies right now).