You’re giving us a convenient set of narratives, and asking us to explain out major life decisions in terms of them.
I think a better question is whether any of these narratives, or some combination of them, are the primary conscious reasons for any of our major life decisions. Also, to what degree the narratives as stated accurately and unambiguously match the versions we believe ourselves. Also, which narratives we think are important or irrelevant.
Otherwise, you get a dynamic where the inconvenience of making these distinctions and providing nuance gives the impression that people actually believe this stuff as stated.
You get a few points of “supporting evidence” per respondent, but no “negative evidence” since you’re not asking for it. It starts to look like every narrative has at least a few smart people taking to really seriously, so we should take them all seriously. As opposed to every theory having the majority of smart people not taking them seriously.
Then of course you’re targeting this question to a forum where we all know there’s a higher proportion of people who DO take these things seriously than in the general population of Smart People, so you’re also cherry picking.
I don’t know what you’re planning on doing with the responses you get, but I hope you’ll take these issues into consideration.
You’re giving us a convenient set of narratives, and asking us to explain out major life decisions in terms of them.
I think a better question is whether any of these narratives, or some combination of them, are the primary conscious reasons for any of our major life decisions. Also, to what degree the narratives as stated accurately and unambiguously match the versions we believe ourselves. Also, which narratives we think are important or irrelevant.
Otherwise, you get a dynamic where the inconvenience of making these distinctions and providing nuance gives the impression that people actually believe this stuff as stated.
You get a few points of “supporting evidence” per respondent, but no “negative evidence” since you’re not asking for it. It starts to look like every narrative has at least a few smart people taking to really seriously, so we should take them all seriously. As opposed to every theory having the majority of smart people not taking them seriously.
Then of course you’re targeting this question to a forum where we all know there’s a higher proportion of people who DO take these things seriously than in the general population of Smart People, so you’re also cherry picking.
I don’t know what you’re planning on doing with the responses you get, but I hope you’ll take these issues into consideration.