And on a completely unrelated note, what is it that we actually want to know about ourselves as LW? Surely it can’t be the gender ratio. It’s not like we don’t already know not to post “traditionally feminine” stuff or something. It seems to me that surveys aren’t done to achieve some further goal, although the results, of course, are of some curiosity. Sorry if this is counterproductive, I am genuinely interested in the above question.
There are some things that make useful responses to common criticisms of the community. “You think you’re so smart, but you really aren’t!” (People reporting “proper” IQ scores and SAT results here consistently come out a couple of standard deviations above average.) “LW is a hive of racist sexist neoreactionary scum and villainy!” (LW consistently comes out more liberal and more feminist than the population as a whole. It has a lot of gay people and a lot of trans people. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a lot of women or black people and some specific ideas neoreactionaries like are more popular here than in the world at large.) “You’re a bunch of borderline autistics!” (Er, um, yeah, that one seems not to be too far from the truth.)
For that subset of the demographic there may be use in posts on relevant topics. Just as we have higher (double) depression rates than the normal population, and a post on depression may be relevant to them.
Thank you for compiling another survey!
And on a completely unrelated note, what is it that we actually want to know about ourselves as LW? Surely it can’t be the gender ratio. It’s not like we don’t already know not to post “traditionally feminine” stuff or something. It seems to me that surveys aren’t done to achieve some further goal, although the results, of course, are of some curiosity. Sorry if this is counterproductive, I am genuinely interested in the above question.
I think it’s mostly just curiosity.
There are some things that make useful responses to common criticisms of the community. “You think you’re so smart, but you really aren’t!” (People reporting “proper” IQ scores and SAT results here consistently come out a couple of standard deviations above average.) “LW is a hive of racist sexist neoreactionary scum and villainy!” (LW consistently comes out more liberal and more feminist than the population as a whole. It has a lot of gay people and a lot of trans people. On the other hand, it doesn’t have a lot of women or black people and some specific ideas neoreactionaries like are more popular here than in the world at large.) “You’re a bunch of borderline autistics!” (Er, um, yeah, that one seems not to be too far from the truth.)
Without explaining—the demographic is useful to know.
I think it’s good to ask the question—if the question yielded x results what would we do with that information?
For gender specifically non-binary gender is about 10x more common on lesswrong than in the American population. That’s worth knowing.
But why is it worth knowing?
For that subset of the demographic there may be use in posts on relevant topics. Just as we have higher (double) depression rates than the normal population, and a post on depression may be relevant to them.