Similarly, I gave self-conscious nonsense numbers when asked for subjective probabilities for most things, because I really did not have an internal model with few-enough free parameters (and placement of causal arrows can be a free parameter!) to think of numerical probabilities.
So I may be right about a few of the calibration questions, but also inconsistently confident, since I basically put down low (under 33%) chances of being correct for all the nontrivial ones.
Also, I left everything about “Singularities” blank, because I don’t consider the term well-defined enough, even granting “intelligence explosions”, to actually talk about it coherently. I’d be a coin flip if you asked me.
So basically, sorry for being That Jerk who ruins the survey by favoring superbabies and restorative gerontology, disbelieving utterly in cryonics and the Singularity, and having completely randomized calibration results.
Is it possible to self-consistently believe you’re poorly calibrated? If you believe you’re overconfident then you would start making less confident predictions right?
Took the survey, had the recurring survey confusion about some questions. For instance, I think some taxes should be higher and others should be lower. Saying I have no strong opinion is inaccurate but at least it seemed like the least inaccurate answer.
I assume the salary question was meant to be filled in as Bruto, not netto. However that could result in some big differences depending on the country’s tax code...
Btw, I liked the professional format of the test itself. Looked very neat.
Took survey. Didn’t answer all the questions because I suspend judgment on a lot of issues and there was no “I have no idea” option. Some questions did have an “I don’t have a strong opinion” option, but I felt a lot more of them should also have that option.
For a few moments I was paralyzed with uncertainty about how humorous to try to make my “I took the survey” response, since many seemed to have made a similar attempt, thus this post took longer to finish than the survey itself, which I have taken.
The only option i think was missing was in the final questions about quantities donated to charities, an option such as “I intend to donate more before the end of the financial year” or similar. (and while likely not feasible, following up on those people in the next survey to see if they actually donated would be interesting)
Took the survey, and as others pointed out had some trouble with the questions about income (net? gross?)
Also, is there any place where all the reading (fanfiction, books, blogs) hinted to in the survey are collected? I knew (and have read) some, but many I have never heard of, and would like to find out more.
I’m a little unclear on how to proceed. I didn’t establish a “save”, so I can’t really resume the survey. Does that mean I should start a new survey and pick up where I left off, or … ?
If you’d be willing to go through the trouble of doing it, yes that’s exactly what you should do. I didn’t think of that, thanks.
Though from a data-consistency perspective people doing this would skew our response rate higher than it really is, I’d rather have the question data than an accurate response rate though so. shrug
On the session timeout front, we’re trying something out to make the sessions longer, which should cut down on that particular problem significantly.
I would also like to mention that the predictions of probabilities of unobservable concepts was the hardest one for me. Of course, there are some in which i believe more than in some others, but still, any probability besides 0% or 100% seems really strange for me. For something like being in a simulation, if I would believe it but have some doubts, saying 99%, or if I would not believe but being open to it and saying 1%, these seem so arbitrary and odd for me. 1% is really huge in the scope of very probable or very improbable concepts which cannot be tested yet (and some may never ever be).
… before losing my sanity in trying to choose the percentages I would find plausible at least a few minutes later, I had to fill them based on my current gut feelings instead of Fermi estimation-like calculations.
I really liked things like “option for people who aren’t in the US and want an option to choose” plus I think I recall one like “I like clicking on options” :D
Fun traditions might be undignified by the standards of academia, but they’re perfectly normal in many other social contexts (small company, group house, etc.)
You know what else exemplifies “mild cult behavior”? Burning Man! They give each other physical gifts instead of imaginary internet gifts. Even more problematic.
If you are willing to define “cult” broadly enough, you can use the term to shut down any kind of cultural development. (Of course, cultural development that’s already happened will get grandfathered in, the same way we don’t call religions “cults” because they are too dignified and established.)
I was being sarcastic. My point was that the “cult” label can be hard to shake whether or not it’s deserved—I analogized to Burning Man since it shares characteristics with LW, but was lucky enough to avoid getting labeled a “cult”.
Why are some people upvoted more or less than others? I predicted I would be far less upvoted than others because of my controversiality but I am one of the highest upvoted here. From memory, this can’t be explained by the recency of others posting that they have completed the survey. In light of what I see here, I will re-evaluate my entire post history. If people are biased towards me rather than away, that changes my entire posting strategy.
This has come up before. Then, it looked like gwern and I both got a boost from name recognition, but for everyone else it was just dependent on when they took the survey.
If I come by every day and upvote everyone, before I come that day a fraction of the people will have upvotes from me and another fraction won’t, determined by time. Now add a bunch of people doing similar things but at different schedules (or only upvoting everyone who took it before they did, and not anyone who took it after, because they don’t come back to this page).
I see 20-30 (didn’t count) comments in the thread so far, probably people are too lazy to upvote every one more than they vet who they upvote here, I think.
[Survey Taken Thread]
Let’s make these comments a reply to this post. That way we continue the tradition, but keep the discussion a bit cleaner.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey. I did not treat the metaphysical probabilities as though I had a measure over them, because I don’t.
Similarly, I gave self-conscious nonsense numbers when asked for subjective probabilities for most things, because I really did not have an internal model with few-enough free parameters (and placement of causal arrows can be a free parameter!) to think of numerical probabilities.
So I may be right about a few of the calibration questions, but also inconsistently confident, since I basically put down low (under 33%) chances of being correct for all the nontrivial ones.
Also, I left everything about “Singularities” blank, because I don’t consider the term well-defined enough, even granting “intelligence explosions”, to actually talk about it coherently. I’d be a coin flip if you asked me.
So basically, sorry for being That Jerk who ruins the survey by favoring superbabies and restorative gerontology, disbelieving utterly in cryonics and the Singularity, and having completely randomized calibration results.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey. Yesterday.
I have taken the survey
I took the survey 2 days ago. It was fun. I think I was well calibrated for those calibration questions, but sadly there was no “results” section.
Is it possible to self-consistently believe you’re poorly calibrated? If you believe you’re overconfident then you would start making less confident predictions right?
Being poorly calibrated can also mean you’re inconsistent between being overconfident and underconfident.
You can be imperfectly synchronised across contexts & instances.
I have taken the survey. I like the new format.
I have taken the survey.
I’ve taken the survey.
Yet another survey be-takener here.
I have taken the survey.
I took the survey
I have taken the survey.
Survey: taken.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
The survey has been taken by me.
Survey achieved.
I have taken the survey.
It is done. (The survey. By me.)
I took the survey.
I have taken the survey. :)
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey. I left a lot of questions blank though, because I really have no opinion about many of them.
Survey taken.
Just finished. I’m sure my calibration was terrible though.
I have taken the survey.
Took the survey, had the recurring survey confusion about some questions. For instance, I think some taxes should be higher and others should be lower. Saying I have no strong opinion is inaccurate but at least it seemed like the least inaccurate answer.
I took it.
Me too.
RE: The survey: I have taken it.
I assume the salary question was meant to be filled in as Bruto, not netto. However that could result in some big differences depending on the country’s tax code...
Btw, I liked the professional format of the test itself. Looked very neat.
I took the survey!
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I did My Part!
I have taken the survey.
Took it!
It ended somewhat more quickly this time.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
Survey Taken
I have taken the survey
Took survey. Didn’t answer all the questions because I suspend judgment on a lot of issues and there was no “I have no idea” option. Some questions did have an “I don’t have a strong opinion” option, but I felt a lot more of them should also have that option.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I completed the survey. I also like the new format—easy to read, good instructions etc.
For a few moments I was paralyzed with uncertainty about how humorous to try to make my “I took the survey” response, since many seemed to have made a similar attempt, thus this post took longer to finish than the survey itself, which I have taken.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
The only option i think was missing was in the final questions about quantities donated to charities, an option such as “I intend to donate more before the end of the financial year” or similar. (and while likely not feasible, following up on those people in the next survey to see if they actually donated would be interesting)
Yar, have taken the scurvy survey, says I!
I have taken the survey.
I too have take the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I took the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
((past-tense take) i survey)
You’ve got a slight lisp there ;)
I have taken the survey.
I took the survey!
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey.
I think I spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes answering almost all of the questions. I’m probably just unusually slow. :P
Survey taken. By me, even.
Took the survey, and as others pointed out had some trouble with the questions about income (net? gross?) Also, is there any place where all the reading (fanfiction, books, blogs) hinted to in the survey are collected? I knew (and have read) some, but many I have never heard of, and would like to find out more.
Did it.
I have taken the survey
For the interests of identity obfuscation, I have rolled a random number between 1 and 100, and have waited for some time afterwards.
On a 1-49: I have taken the survey, and this post was made after a uniformly random period of up to 24 hours.
On a 50-98: I will take the survey after a uniformly random period of up to 72 hours.
On a 99-100: I have not actually taken the survey. Sorry about that, but this really has to be a possible outcome.
Have a 98% chance of an upvote.
I have taken the survey.
I’ve taken the survey.
Thanks Huluk for creating this subthread, very handy when reading others’ comments about the survey itself.
I have taken the survey.
I took the survey.
Was taking it, and it crashed with a “This webpage is not available” error.
We had some power outage related downtime for three hours or so, should be back up now.
I’m a little unclear on how to proceed. I didn’t establish a “save”, so I can’t really resume the survey. Does that mean I should start a new survey and pick up where I left off, or … ?
If you’d be willing to go through the trouble of doing it, yes that’s exactly what you should do. I didn’t think of that, thanks.
Though from a data-consistency perspective people doing this would skew our response rate higher than it really is, I’d rather have the question data than an accurate response rate though so. shrug
On the session timeout front, we’re trying something out to make the sessions longer, which should cut down on that particular problem significantly.
Survey taken.
Besides saying that I have taken the survey...
I would also like to mention that the predictions of probabilities of unobservable concepts was the hardest one for me. Of course, there are some in which i believe more than in some others, but still, any probability besides 0% or 100% seems really strange for me. For something like being in a simulation, if I would believe it but have some doubts, saying 99%, or if I would not believe but being open to it and saying 1%, these seem so arbitrary and odd for me. 1% is really huge in the scope of very probable or very improbable concepts which cannot be tested yet (and some may never ever be).
… before losing my sanity in trying to choose the percentages I would find plausible at least a few minutes later, I had to fill them based on my current gut feelings instead of Fermi estimation-like calculations.
I have taken the survey
Me, too! I’ve taken the survey and would like to receive some free internet points.
I have taken the survey.
I’ve taken the survey.
I’ve taken the survey.
I’ve taken the survey.
I completed the survey. Elo, thanks for organising this!
I have taken the survey.
I enjoyed the “yes, I worry about X, but only because I worry about everything” responses.
I really liked things like “option for people who aren’t in the US and want an option to choose” plus I think I recall one like “I like clicking on options” :D
Survey has been taken.
Me! Me! I totally took the survey!
I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again—this is mild cult behavior.
… That being said, bring on the low cost gratification! I’ve taken the survey!
Fun traditions might be undignified by the standards of academia, but they’re perfectly normal in many other social contexts (small company, group house, etc.)
You know what else exemplifies “mild cult behavior”? Burning Man! They give each other physical gifts instead of imaginary internet gifts. Even more problematic.
If you are willing to define “cult” broadly enough, you can use the term to shut down any kind of cultural development. (Of course, cultural development that’s already happened will get grandfathered in, the same way we don’t call religions “cults” because they are too dignified and established.)
No, I don’t think it does. Burning Man is an event and a community. I don’t see any cultish tendencies around it.
I was being sarcastic. My point was that the “cult” label can be hard to shake whether or not it’s deserved—I analogized to Burning Man since it shares characteristics with LW, but was lucky enough to avoid getting labeled a “cult”.
You really think it was just luck that BM didn’t get a “cult” label and LW did..?
I did not mean to say that it was “just” luck, but of course luck played a role (as it always does).
Took the survey before joining.
I have taken the survey
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey! Please reward my compliance.
I have taken the survey. It was fun, thanks!
Lo, I have taken the survey.
Taken.
I have taken the survey.
I have taken the survey. It was interesting, thanx to those who made it!
Oh right, I forgot this part. I have taken the survey (like two weeks ago)
I have taken the survey.
Newbie, done.
I took the survey for the 2nd year in a row. Can’t wait to see the results.
META
Why are some people upvoted more or less than others? I predicted I would be far less upvoted than others because of my controversiality but I am one of the highest upvoted here. From memory, this can’t be explained by the recency of others posting that they have completed the survey. In light of what I see here, I will re-evaluate my entire post history. If people are biased towards me rather than away, that changes my entire posting strategy.
This has come up before. Then, it looked like gwern and I both got a boost from name recognition, but for everyone else it was just dependent on when they took the survey.
If I come by every day and upvote everyone, before I come that day a fraction of the people will have upvotes from me and another fraction won’t, determined by time. Now add a bunch of people doing similar things but at different schedules (or only upvoting everyone who took it before they did, and not anyone who took it after, because they don’t come back to this page).
Yup. Pretty sure the dominant thing is just that people who report having taken the survey earlier get more upvotes.
I see 20-30 (didn’t count) comments in the thread so far, probably people are too lazy to upvote every one more than they vet who they upvote here, I think.
Are you going to agree with everyone now, because it’s more controversial to do so?
Wait! Crap! I already replied. Good thing I caught this before anyone upvoted it.