As one data point, I’m allergic to almost every aspect of the modern American nerd culture, but I don’t find it problematic here because I simply tune out any manifestations of it. However, I have an unusual level of ability and inclination to filter out the elements I dislike and concentrate on the interesting stuff whenever I find some venue offering original perspective and insight. I’m sure lots of people find such things more actively repulsive.
Another data point: I enjoy watching sports, am largely ignorant of science fiction (dislike Star Trek and Star Wars, if the latter can be counted as sci-fi), actively dislike fantasy, anime and Harry Potter (while being largely ignorant of them either). I am not sure what D&D means. Still, I have no problem with LW, and I even don’t think that I have some special ability to ignore unpleasant signals. Those nerdy symptoms are present, but they are very rare and not salient.
Unfortunately, all these data points have been already filtered. Learning that some non-cultural-nerds aren’t scared away by the nerdisms here is good, and thank you, but I wish I saw way to coax a more meaningful statistic out of them. “100% of non-nerds who still post on Less Wrong haven’t been discouraged away from posting on Less Wrong”, fine, but for each one of you are there 0.01 or 100 others who didn’t stick around?
I’m reminded of a comment here about “borrowing offense”: you can’t try to single-handedly anticipate and eliminate everything that might hypothetically bother someone else, because without actual bothered people to talk to you have no way to tell where to start or stop. But what are the odds that someone reading this page is so anti-nerdiness that they’re considering leaving the site but not so anti-nerdiness that they’ve left already?
It still makes difference whether the “100% of non-nerds who still post on Less Wrong” is an empty set or makes half of the Less Wrong membership. The data aren’t completely filtered, learning that there are non-nerds here is evidence that the non-nerd intimidation isn’t too strong.
As one data point, I’m allergic to almost every aspect of the modern American nerd culture, but I don’t find it problematic here because I simply tune out any manifestations of it. However, I have an unusual level of ability and inclination to filter out the elements I dislike and concentrate on the interesting stuff whenever I find some venue offering original perspective and insight. I’m sure lots of people find such things more actively repulsive.
Another data point: I enjoy watching sports, am largely ignorant of science fiction (dislike Star Trek and Star Wars, if the latter can be counted as sci-fi), actively dislike fantasy, anime and Harry Potter (while being largely ignorant of them either). I am not sure what D&D means. Still, I have no problem with LW, and I even don’t think that I have some special ability to ignore unpleasant signals. Those nerdy symptoms are present, but they are very rare and not salient.
Unfortunately, all these data points have been already filtered. Learning that some non-cultural-nerds aren’t scared away by the nerdisms here is good, and thank you, but I wish I saw way to coax a more meaningful statistic out of them. “100% of non-nerds who still post on Less Wrong haven’t been discouraged away from posting on Less Wrong”, fine, but for each one of you are there 0.01 or 100 others who didn’t stick around?
I’m reminded of a comment here about “borrowing offense”: you can’t try to single-handedly anticipate and eliminate everything that might hypothetically bother someone else, because without actual bothered people to talk to you have no way to tell where to start or stop. But what are the odds that someone reading this page is so anti-nerdiness that they’re considering leaving the site but not so anti-nerdiness that they’ve left already?
It still makes difference whether the “100% of non-nerds who still post on Less Wrong” is an empty set or makes half of the Less Wrong membership. The data aren’t completely filtered, learning that there are non-nerds here is evidence that the non-nerd intimidation isn’t too strong.