Here are some attributes I’ve noticed among people who self-identify as rationalists. They are:
Overwhelmingly white and male. In the in-person or videoconference meetups I’ve attended, I don’t think I’ve met more than a couple non-white people, and perhaps 10% were non-male.
Skew extremely young. I would estimate the median age is somewhere in the early to mid 20s. I don’t think I’ve ever met a rat over the age of 50. I’m not saying that they don’t exist, but they seem extremely underrepresented relative to the general population.
Overweight the impact / power of rationalism, despite having life outcomes that are basically average for people with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and demographics
Tend to be more willing than average to admit that they’re wrong if pressed on a factual issue, but have extreme confidence in subjective beliefs (e.g., values, philosophy, etc). This might just be a side effect of the age issue, since I think this describes most people in this age group. Or perhaps the overconfidence in subjective beliefs is just normal, but seems high relative to the willingness to switch beliefs on more factual matters.
Have a very high “writing and talking / doing” ratio. I think this is a selection bias kind of issue: people who are actually out doing stuff in the world probably don’t have a lot of time to engage in a community that strongly values multi-page essays with a half-dozen subheadings. Although perhaps this is also just another side effect of the age skew.
Undervalue domain knowledge relative to first-principles thinking. As just one example, many rats will gladly outline what they believe are likely Ukraine / Russia outcomes despite not having any particular expertise in politics, international relations, or military strategy. Again, perhaps this is normal relative to the general population and it just seems unusual given rat values.
Overwhelmingly white and male. In the in-person or videoconference meetups I’ve attended, I don’t think I’ve met more than a couple non-white people, and perhaps 10% were non-male.
Demographic variables aren’t so suited for a factor analysis, in a sense because they are causally upstream of the factors of interest. It might be interesting to take some of the outcomes from those demographic variables, though; for instance probably much of what makes rationalists so male is that rationalism selects for abilities/interests related to programming, which is itself very male-skewed.
Overweight the impact / power of rationalism, despite having life outcomes that are basically average for people with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and demographics
They do seem to overweight the power of rationalism, but the second point sounds wrong to me. Also, generally “X controlled for Y” variables aren’t really suitable for factor analysis.
probably much of what makes rationalists so male is that rationalism selects for abilities/interests related to programming, which is itself very male-skewed
This is just pushing the question one step back though, I don’t know of any good theories for why software engineering is heavily biased towards males either.
The point is just that factor analysis assumes that the items/variables end up correlating due to the factors. If you put variables that are upstream of the factors, such as sex, into the factor analysis, then those upstream variables would have no reason to correlate with each other in ways that match the factor structure (and in fact due to collider bias, would in this case have reasons to end up correlated in ways that precisely oppose the factor structure), so therefore it would be nicer to avoid demographic variables as much as possible.
Here are some attributes I’ve noticed among people who self-identify as rationalists. They are:
Overwhelmingly white and male. In the in-person or videoconference meetups I’ve attended, I don’t think I’ve met more than a couple non-white people, and perhaps 10% were non-male.
Skew extremely young. I would estimate the median age is somewhere in the early to mid 20s. I don’t think I’ve ever met a rat over the age of 50. I’m not saying that they don’t exist, but they seem extremely underrepresented relative to the general population.
Overweight the impact / power of rationalism, despite having life outcomes that are basically average for people with similar socioeconomic backgrounds and demographics
Tend to be more willing than average to admit that they’re wrong if pressed on a factual issue, but have extreme confidence in subjective beliefs (e.g., values, philosophy, etc). This might just be a side effect of the age issue, since I think this describes most people in this age group. Or perhaps the overconfidence in subjective beliefs is just normal, but seems high relative to the willingness to switch beliefs on more factual matters.
Have a very high “writing and talking / doing” ratio. I think this is a selection bias kind of issue: people who are actually out doing stuff in the world probably don’t have a lot of time to engage in a community that strongly values multi-page essays with a half-dozen subheadings. Although perhaps this is also just another side effect of the age skew.
Undervalue domain knowledge relative to first-principles thinking. As just one example, many rats will gladly outline what they believe are likely Ukraine / Russia outcomes despite not having any particular expertise in politics, international relations, or military strategy. Again, perhaps this is normal relative to the general population and it just seems unusual given rat values.
Demographic variables aren’t so suited for a factor analysis, in a sense because they are causally upstream of the factors of interest. It might be interesting to take some of the outcomes from those demographic variables, though; for instance probably much of what makes rationalists so male is that rationalism selects for abilities/interests related to programming, which is itself very male-skewed.
They do seem to overweight the power of rationalism, but the second point sounds wrong to me. Also, generally “X controlled for Y” variables aren’t really suitable for factor analysis.
This is just pushing the question one step back though, I don’t know of any good theories for why software engineering is heavily biased towards males either.
The point is just that factor analysis assumes that the items/variables end up correlating due to the factors. If you put variables that are upstream of the factors, such as sex, into the factor analysis, then those upstream variables would have no reason to correlate with each other in ways that match the factor structure (and in fact due to collider bias, would in this case have reasons to end up correlated in ways that precisely oppose the factor structure), so therefore it would be nicer to avoid demographic variables as much as possible.