All (90%) of rationalist women who would not otherwise have become rationalist women became so because of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
I’m not sure that’s true. When I looked in the 2012 survey, I didn’t see any striking gender disparity based on MoR: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/8bms—something like 31% of the women found LW via MoR vs 21% of the men, but there are just not that many women in the survey...
That does not factor the main point ” that would not otherwise have become rationalist”
There are loads of women out there on a certain road into rationalism. Those don’t matter. By definition, they will become rationalists anyway.
There are large numbers who could, and we don’t know how large, or how else they could, except HPMOR
Leaving aside gwern’s rudeness, he is right—if MoR doesn’t entice more women towards rationality than the average intervention, and your goal is to change the current gender imbalance among LW-rationalists, then MoR is not a good investment for your attention or time.
It is not a claim, it is an assumption that the reader ought to take for granted, not verify. If I thought there were reliable large N data of a double blind on the subject, I’d simply have linked the stats. As I know there are not, I said something based on personal experience (as one should) and asked for advice on how to improve the world, if the world turns out to correlate with my experience of it.
Your response reminds me of Russell’s joke about those who believe that “all murderers have been caught, since all muderers we know have been caught”…
The point is to find attractors, not to reject the stats.
P(Luminosity fan | reads this comment) is probably not a good estimate… (count me in with a “no” data point though :)) Also, what is the ratio of “Luminosity fan because of Twilight” and “read it even though… Twilight, and liked it” populations?
(with “read Twilight because of Luminosity” also a valid case.)
Not that I’ve seen. It’d be cool though. I think maybe you can see traces in people like Peter Watts, but if you take HPMOR as the defining example, I can’t think of anything.
I’m always found Stross (and to a lesser extent, Scalzi) to be fairly rationalist—in the sense that I don’t see anyone holding the idiot ball all that frequently. People do stupid things, but they tend not to miss the obvious ways of implementing their preferences.
All (90%) of rationalist women who would not otherwise have become rationalist women became so because of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.
Thus, we need 50 shades of Grey Matter.
As well as good marketing designs of things that attract women into rationality.
Which are the bestselling books if you only consider women? What about the best movies for women?
I’m not sure that’s true. When I looked in the 2012 survey, I didn’t see any striking gender disparity based on MoR: http://lesswrong.com/lw/fp5/2012_survey_results/8bms—something like 31% of the women found LW via MoR vs 21% of the men, but there are just not that many women in the survey...
That does not factor the main point ” that would not otherwise have become rationalist” There are loads of women out there on a certain road into rationalism. Those don’t matter. By definition, they will become rationalists anyway.
There are large numbers who could, and we don’t know how large, or how else they could, except HPMOR
Leaving aside gwern’s rudeness, he is right—if MoR doesn’t entice more women towards rationality than the average intervention, and your goal is to change the current gender imbalance among LW-rationalists, then MoR is not a good investment for your attention or time.
I’m sorry, I was just trying to interpret the claim in a non-stupidly unverifiable and unprovable sense.
It is not a claim, it is an assumption that the reader ought to take for granted, not verify. If I thought there were reliable large N data of a double blind on the subject, I’d simply have linked the stats. As I know there are not, I said something based on personal experience (as one should) and asked for advice on how to improve the world, if the world turns out to correlate with my experience of it.
Your response reminds me of Russell’s joke about those who believe that “all murderers have been caught, since all muderers we know have been caught”…
The point is to find attractors, not to reject the stats.
ಠ_ಠ All (90%) of rationalist women who would not otherwise have become rationalist women became so because of Baby Eaters in “Three Worlds Collide”.
Thus, we need 50 Shades of Cooked Babies.
As well as good marketing designs of things that attract women into rationality.
Does this strike you as dubious? Well, it is not a claim, it is an assumption that the reader ought to take for granted, not verify!
Fanfiction readers tend to be female. HPMoR has attracted mostly men. I’m skeptical that your strategy will influence gender ratio.
Possible data point: are Luminosity fans predominantly female?
Wait, the question isn’t in HPMoR attracted more women than men, it’s if it the women to man ratio is higher than other things that attracts people.
P(Luminosity fan | reads this comment) is probably not a good estimate… (count me in with a “no” data point though :)) Also, what is the ratio of “Luminosity fan because of Twilight” and “read it even though… Twilight, and liked it” populations?
(with “read Twilight because of Luminosity” also a valid case.)
Reminds me of this
We can’t afford not to do both
GoldieBlox got funded at almost double its goal, has been produced, and is received with enthusiasm by at least a fair number of little girls.
Yes, the owner is making more than 300 000 per month on sales, or so claims Tim Ferriss. Awesome isn’t it?
I am hoping for someone to write Anita Blake, Rational Vampire Hunter.
Or the rationalist True Blood (it already has “True” in the title!)
Is anyone working on rationalist stand-alone fiction?
Actually, what I meant was “Is anyone in this community working on rationalist stand-alone fiction?”.
Not that I’ve seen. It’d be cool though. I think maybe you can see traces in people like Peter Watts, but if you take HPMOR as the defining example, I can’t think of anything.
Lee Child (the Jack Reacher series) presents a good bit of clear thinking.
I’m always found Stross (and to a lesser extent, Scalzi) to be fairly rationalist—in the sense that I don’t see anyone holding the idiot ball all that frequently. People do stupid things, but they tend not to miss the obvious ways of implementing their preferences.
Isn’t that a tautology?
Edit: missed this subthread already discussing that; sorry.
Fanfiction readers tend to be female. If this strategy were going to work, it would have worked already.