Screwtape

Karma: 814

I’m Screwtape, also known as Skyler. I’m an aspiring rationalist originally introduced to the community through HPMoR, and I stayed around because the writers here kept improving how I thought. I’m fond of the Rationality As A Martial Art metaphor, new mental tools to make my life better, and meeting people who are strange in ways I find familiar and comfortable. If you’re ever in the Boston area, feel free to say hi.

Starting early in 2023, I’m the ACX Meetups Czar and have been funded by the Long-Term Future Fund to work on rationality meetups. You might also know me from the New York City Rationalist Megameetup, editing the Animorphs: The Reckoning podfic, or being that guy at meetups with a bright bandanna who gets really excited when people bring up indie tabletop roleplaying games.

I recognize that last description might fit more than one person.

Screwtape 31 Jan 2023 6:24 UTC
3 points
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in reply to: Ruby’s comment on: 2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census
“Unofficial” is now in the post title, post description, and the title of of the Google form. Let me know if there’s other changes you or the rest of the LessWrong team would like.
The extent of support that was particularly useful was having a the visibility front page brings, which it seems this now has. Thank you to whoever did that.

Humans Can Be Manually Strategic

Screwtape30 Jan 2023 22:35 UTC

12 points

0 comments3 min readLW link

Screwtape 30 Jan 2023 20:15 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: Yair Halberstadt’s comment on: 2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census
I’m open to suggestions on titles and phrasing! I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census, which I do not believe was ever actually run by the official LessWrong team.

For the moment, I’ve put up a sentence in the opening of the census stating that I’m a user, not an administrator.

Screwtape 30 Jan 2023 20:09 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Dagon’s comment on: 2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census
The request for comment post is here.
If any member of the LessWrong administration team asks me to remove this or retitle this, I’ll cheerfully comply. Ben Pace, one of the site admins, was aware of my intent to do this before I put up the Request for Comment and his response was to send me a Google Doc full of brainstormed questions. I took that as light encouragement to go ahead.
As to what absolutely should be done: I’ll bet you ten bucks at 5:1 neither the 2009 or the 2011 censuses were run by a site administrator or received official advance agreement by the mods. I am not claiming to be a member of the site administration. I am claiming the lineage of the LessWrong Demographics Census.

Screwtape 30 Jan 2023 20:01 UTC
16 points
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in reply to: ChristianKl’s comment on: 2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census
I know that at least one administrator (Ben Pace) was aware of my intent to run the census if there were no objections from the LessWrong team prior to me putting up the Request For Comments. Ben sent me a Google Doc of brainstormed census questions in response. I made a request for comments post. I agree most people probably didn’t see it, but don’t know how to fix that without asking for more visibility, which I did. I didn’t get told not to do it or that there was a decision not to give this more visibility, that part didn’t get addressed. If anyone from the LessWrong team asks me to retract the census then I’ll retract this census.
I am unaware of any rule, official or unofficial, that the census should be done by someone with more than 1000 karma. I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here, but if that rule officially exists then I’ll retract this census.
In November of 2022, SurfingOrca offered to run the census. This also stayed as a Personal Blog, so likely not many people saw it, but by my count eight different people (including Ben and yourself) commented on it and everyone seemed positive. As far as I know, this effort has not been published. If your objection is based on karma score I have about ten times as much as SurfingOrca, but I don’t actually think karma score is the right metric here. Still, if SurfingOrca has a census ready to go, I’m willing to defer to the person who started working on this in November 2022 instead of starting in January of 2023. If SurfingOrca announces one that’s up and ready in the next ~48 hours, I’ll retract this census and offer to merge any data this one has as best as I can.
The 2020 General Census was the last census done, run by B Jacobs, who also has less than a thousand karma. B Jacobs was aware of my plans to run the census this year and made no objection, advising me to make the privacy options clear and that it would be helpful if I could get the administration’s assistance. Still, they had the torch last, and if B Jacobs objects and would prefer to run it then I’ll retract this census.
I disagree that my request is an awful move. The status quo is no census. I don’t think anyone has argued that the census should not be run. I don’t think that anyone in particular is currently responsible for the census; there exists no person whose job title is “Less Wrong Census Administrator.” It’s not quite “Somebody Has To And No One Else Will” mode, because nobody actually has to and several people have offered. Nobody else did though, and since I did this at the end of January after talking to an admin and giving a week of RFC it’s not like I’m blocking anyone else who was visibly about to do it.

2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census

Screwtape30 Jan 2023 18:36 UTC

74 points

19 comments2 min readLW link

Screwtape 28 Jan 2023 5:06 UTC
2 points
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in reply to: Duncan_Sabien’s comment on: Basics of Rationalist Discourse
You are correct and that is an important distinction I blurred in my own head, thank you.

Screwtape 27 Jan 2023 22:13 UTC
4 points
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in reply to: Duncan_Sabien’s comment on: Basics of Rationalist Discourse
I had read the expansions. We might be in practical agreement on 5. I would say if you’re debating in the comments of a Less Wrong thread, following 5 is positive expected value. You’ll avoid escalations that you’d otherwise fall into, and being defected against won’t cost you too much. It stands out to me because other ~~rules~~ guidelines (say, 2 and 8) I would be comfortable ~~abiding~~ holding myself to even if I knew my interlocutor wasn’t going to follow them. It’s when you’re having higher stakes discussions that leaving yourself open in good faith can go badly. (Edited when it was pointed out to me that they’re always referred to as guidelines, never rules. This is in fact a useful distinction I let blur.)
I agree that when starting out 0 is likely to require energy, like, more energy than it feels like it should to do something like this. “Expect good discourse to require energy until you become very used to it, then it should feel natural” is a weaker message but is how I am interpreting it. (I am trying and failing to find the sequences post about rules phrased as absolutes that aren’t actually absolutes, such that it stays your hand until need actually weighs you down.)
I will be sure to direct your attention to the objection post once I write it. It is partially written already and did not start life as an objection, but it does apply and will be finished. . . someday.
Since I haven’t said so yet, thank you for writing this and giving me a link to reference!

Screwtape 27 Jan 2023 20:59 UTC
7 points
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on: Basics of Rationalist Discourse
I want to say that I really like the Sazen → expansion format, and I like the explanation → ways you might feel → ways a request might look format even more.
1 to 4 and 6 to 9 I just straightforwardly agree with.
My issue with 5 should properly be its own blog post but the too-condensed version is something like, those cases where the other person is not also trying to converge on truth are common enough and important enough that I don’t blame someone for not starting from that assumption. Put another way, all of the other rules seem like they work even if the other person isn’t doing them, or at least fail gracefully. Following an unarticulated version of rule 5 has ever failed me badly before. I don’t know exactly what would falsify this claim and acknowledge that it might just be one or two highly salient-to-me examples, but if at the end of the conversation someone is going to smile at you and hand you a pen and ask you to sign something then I don’t think assuming your interlocutor is also aiming for convergence on truth is a good idea.
It is possible that kind of conversation is not covered under what you’re thinking of by a rational discourse.
With 10, I think I’m quibbling over phrasing. Holding to the absolute highest standard feels like it translates to never doing it, which is correct on the margin.
The most interesting disagreement I have is with 0. Years after adopting them, many of the changes I’ve made to how I communicate have become close to free. It is harder now to do the wrong thing, to make an ad hominem or to say I’m a hundred percent sure, in much the same way that I have to make an effort to stop myself from looking at my card in Hanabi (because when I draw a card and add it to my hand, the vast majority of card games have me look at that card!) or the way I have to make an effort to fall off a bicycle when my body knows how to balance and keep moving. I think the 0th guideline is a useful nudge in the right direction, but suspect that if I stick to these guidelines for the next five years, I will feel like it takes less energy to follow them than to break them.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:42 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
Counterargument: previous surveys specified to remove the percent sign. Assume some people will add it when they were told not to, and some people will leave it off if told to add it. Keeping the same format means that we could do things like take the average of all surveys, past and present, and the instruction-following population’s answers will work just fine.

I predict people are very roughly equally likely to make the mistake in either direction and currently plan to stay consistent with previous surveys.

(To be clear, if one format was better than the other, I’d just make a note to convert the data whenever we wanted to compare between years. Since both formats seem fine to me, avoiding the trivial inconvenience of conversion seems worth it.)

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:34 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
Your suggested Right Thing seems a decent idea. We could also put both definitions on that question, each with their own bullet points.

The other option is to use the 2020 questions, which did not give examples but covered a little wider of a spread. Looking at the different ways this question has been asked over the years, I’m tentatively leaning towards this option.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:23 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
Updated with finer grained answers, which should be easy to convert into the old “Yes, No.”

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:20 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
I have fixed those two questions. I will fix any more that get pointed out or that I happen to spot.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:17 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
There used to be lots of IQ questions, which seems to have culminated in this delightful subsection back in 2013. (Search for “Can we finally resolve this IQ controversy that comes up every year?”) I have included the basic five questions, because I defaulted strongly towards keeping any question that was asked on at least three previous surveys. Also, I find the reported average to be baffling, at least somewhat convincing, and really funny.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:10 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
One observation per comment is actually preferable to me! It means I can reply to each observation to ~~argue with it~~ state that it’s been done or that I’ve considered it and decided to keep it, forming a nice little to-do list for me.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:08 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
Hint text has been added.

I also swapped the unit to years, which is easily compared to past answers.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 22:02 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
Wikipedia calls the branches of Islam “Branches or Denominations” and the article on Judaism suggests Commonly used terms are movements, as well as denominations varieties, traditions, groupings, streams, branches, trends, and such.” Nitpickery appreciated, I’m currently happy with the divisions.

The family-religion question does have this issue. If I was going to change it, I’d change it to “What is your family’s religious background, as of when you were growing up?” That makes it fit the question above it, but risks making it harder to compare across years. I’m currently lightly leaning towards leaving it as-is, figuring the value of comparison is worth it.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 21:55 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
I have taken the detailed description format (copied more or less verbatim from previous censuses) as a warning from those who have gone before me. Besides, while Google Forms doesn’t really know how to handle the percents in either format, I know how to sort numbers into buckets in Google Sheets easily so I could find out “half the respondents answered between 80% and 90%” or the like.

I just checked, and Google Sheets thinks the average of “50, 40” is 45 and that the average of “50, 40%” is 25.2. I plan to stick with the current instructions for giving probabilities.

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 21:46 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
I trust the new heading, “Section 9: Other Traditional Less Wrong Census Questions, Which Used To Be Called More Complicated Probability Questions,” is perfectly satisfactory to all concerned.

Thank you for the second set of eyes by the way!

Screwtape 25 Jan 2023 21:33 UTC
1 point
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in reply to: gjm’s comment on: 2022 Less Wrong Census/Survey: Request for Comments
I feel like it’s fine for the question not to apply to non-religious people. Combined with the Religious Views question, it’s a quick sequence of “are you religious? if yes, what kind? if no, keep going, Moral Views will still apply to you.” If the question included what religion someone last identified with, then you could wind up with “Are you religious?” getting four Athiests and one Theist, then “What religion, including the last religion if you’re now atheist?” getting five Catholics.

Hindu is not a denomination, you are correct, and that’s a case of me copying a previous answer and not thinking about it carefully enough. My inclination is to look up the largest denominations of Hinduism, Buddhism, etc, and split those out as well. That way it’s easy to compare to past surveys (since you can add the different kinds of Buddhism together) and also now is consistent about all being denominations. People with experience or knowledge of the non-Christian variations, I’m open to suggestions, otherwise I will likely go with what Wikipedia suggests.

Screwtape

Hu­mans Can Be Man­u­ally Strategic

2022 Unoffi­cial LessWrong Gen­eral Cen­sus

Humans Can Be Manually Strategic

2022 Unofficial LessWrong General Census