The LessWrong consensus is massively overweighted in one particular field of expertise (computing) with some marginal commentators who happen to do other things.
As for evidence to believe otherwise, how about all of recorded human history? When has there ever been a group whose consensus was more likely to be right than wrong in all domains of human endeavor? What a ludicrous hubris, the sheer arrogance on display in this comment cowed me, I briefly considered whether I’m hanging out in the right place by posting here.
Let B be the set of beliefs that are consensus among the LW community. Let b be any arbitrary belief. Let Pr(b) be the probability that b is true. Let (b|B) denote the event that b is a member of B.
I argue that Pr(b|B) (Probability that b is true given that b is a member of B) is greater than 0.5; how is that hubris?
If Lesswrongers are ignorant on a particular field, then I don’t expect a consensus to form. Sure, we may have some wrong beliefs that are consensus, but the fraction of right beliefs that are consensus is greater than 1⁄2 (of total beliefs that are consensus).
Just so we’re clear here:
Profession (Results from 2016 LessWrong Survey)
Art: +0.800% 51 2.300%
Biology: +0.300% 49 2.200%
Business: −0.800% 72 3.200%
Computers (AI): +0.700% 79 3.500%
Computers (other academic, computer science): −0.100% 156 7.000%
Computers (practical): −1.200% 681 30.500%
Engineering: +0.600% 150 6.700%
Finance / Economics: +0.500% 116 5.200%
Law: −0.300% 50 2.200%
Mathematics: −1.500% 147 6.600%
Medicine: +0.100% 49 2.200%
Neuroscience: +0.100% 28 1.300%
Philosophy: 0.000% 54 2.400%
Physics: −0.200% 91 4.100%
Psychology: 0.000% 48 2.100%
Other: +2.199% 277 12.399%
Other “hard science”: −0.500% 26 1.200%
Other “social science”: −0.200% 48 2.100%
The LessWrong consensus is massively overweighted in one particular field of expertise (computing) with some marginal commentators who happen to do other things.
As for evidence to believe otherwise, how about all of recorded human history? When has there ever been a group whose consensus was more likely to be right than wrong in all domains of human endeavor? What a ludicrous hubris, the sheer arrogance on display in this comment cowed me, I briefly considered whether I’m hanging out in the right place by posting here.
Let B be the set of beliefs that are consensus among the LW community. Let b be any arbitrary belief. Let Pr(b) be the probability that b is true. Let (b|B) denote the event that b is a member of B.
I argue that Pr(b|B) (Probability that b is true given that b is a member of B) is greater than 0.5; how is that hubris?
If Lesswrongers are ignorant on a particular field, then I don’t expect a consensus to form. Sure, we may have some wrong beliefs that are consensus, but the fraction of right beliefs that are consensus is greater than 1⁄2 (of total beliefs that are consensus).