“Less Wrong does have a lot of clustering of views, which is a very interesting phenomenon. I think there are reasons for why the views cluster together other than the simplest explanation that these views are all correct! ”
90% of the time I agree with this assessment, but I suspect that there is a subtler selection-bias amongst the members determining the remaining 10%; there have been some suggestions in research literature that a biological basis for morality influences whether somebody becomes Liberal or Conservative (that awfully reported study from a year ago, for instance). LW and OB tend to attract those who are comfortable in an Academic environment, and (for instance) I’ve observed that University graduates tend to underestimate the utility of violence.
There are probably a number of other traits that are positively correlated to Academics, but not necessarily to intelligence; unfortunately the nature of our discourse here usually bores people in, for instance, SpecOps*, the Arts, Engineering, and other fields known for requiring intelligence; this bias would be worth keeping in mind, but I don’t see that LW could be ‘fixed’ to become more user friendly.
“Less Wrong does have a lot of clustering of views, which is a very interesting phenomenon. I think there are reasons for why the views cluster together other than the simplest explanation that these views are all correct! ”
90% of the time I agree with this assessment, but I suspect that there is a subtler selection-bias amongst the members determining the remaining 10%; there have been some suggestions in research literature that a biological basis for morality influences whether somebody becomes Liberal or Conservative (that awfully reported study from a year ago, for instance). LW and OB tend to attract those who are comfortable in an Academic environment, and (for instance) I’ve observed that University graduates tend to underestimate the utility of violence.
There are probably a number of other traits that are positively correlated to Academics, but not necessarily to intelligence; unfortunately the nature of our discourse here usually bores people in, for instance, SpecOps*, the Arts, Engineering, and other fields known for requiring intelligence; this bias would be worth keeping in mind, but I don’t see that LW could be ‘fixed’ to become more user friendly.
*Average IQ of SpecOps soldiers is 120-140.