I seem to have a Thing of throwing off-hand jokes that later are validated surprisingly well by empirical data, and this time it’s “as queer as a women’s college”
Because I’m screwing around in the diaspora survey results for fun and wow this fits all the unlikely but totally true stereotypes
like, right now I’m googling the statistics on lesbianity and transgenderism in Mount Holyoke because holy shit our hardest core might actually give them a run for their money in queerness
So, the results are in, and…
yes.
I used this data and the four big clusters with useful results (0, 1, 3 and 6) turned out pretty remarkable.
Cluster 0 seems relatively unremarkable; its most distinctive characteristic was skipping the cultural questions and all in all less active answering
6 is roughly identical to 0 in other questions; it has some slight exposure to the culture but seems to be mostly made of “regular people” who somehow ended up on the survey, and by “regular” I mean “still pretty niche but not thoroughly corrupted”; almost half had read Ender’s Game and a third are regulars of SSC and that’s about it. I’m calling the two of them the “ordinarys”
Cluster 3 I’m naming “rationalist-adjacent” because they share a lot of characteristics but aren’t neck deep in the memeplex unlike…
Cluster 1 which is obviously “yudkowskians” because they are basically walking stereotypes
And by stereotypes I mean things like:
Half the women are trans (8% to 9% and most of the enbies (9% in total) are amab as well); r-adjacents have relatively low numbers of trans women but the same amount of enbies, and a quarter is afab instead of 12% of the yudkowskians. But both have more women than the ordinarys, and yudkowskians’ trans team is very strong and makes a valiant effort in closing the gender gap even if the r-adjacents seize a narrow victory in the numbers game.
More people are poly than mono, and heterosexuals are only barely a majority (59% while 29% are bi; the rationalist-adjacents are very close too with 62% and 23% while the ordinarys have 76-78% and 12-14%; homosexuality is relatively constant at 3-5%)
9% of both the yudkowskians and r-adjacents are asexual, compared to 5% of the ordinarys
Half of them work with computers and nobody is going to believe those alleged IQ scores never ever (146, compared to a consistent 136-138 for the rest); they are also the most likely to have only a high school degree while the other groups (especially r-adjacents) beat them in the other education categories
Agnosticism is hilariously unpopular (3% compared to 11-16% for the rest) and they are extremely jewish
Basically everyone reads SSC, and they are the biggest readers of everything else on the list as well (except Xenosystems, where the r-adjacents take the first place in regulars and sometimes-readers)
The closer one is to the hard core of the memeplex, the less conservative (by a significant amount) and the more libertarian (to some degree but not as massively) one is, but neither of them can hold a candle to the massive correlation between exposure to Yudkowsky’s writings and being a trans woman (can’t bother to do the calculations but the connection is absurdly strong)
So this data basically says that the archetypical rationalist is:
- 21-25 years old
- jewish
- trans woman (probably kind of non-binary-ish on some level, but transitioning with hormones)
- polyamorous
- gray-asexual
- bisexual
- an absurdly gifted child with the specific kind of badbrains which is varyingly diagnosed as autism, ADHD, anxiety, depression, or most likely some combination of them
- studies computer science
- politically left-libertarian
- geeks out on all kinds of weird nerd stuff
- has read all of: Three Worlds Collide, HPMoR, The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant
- a regular SSC reader
to calculate your “how stereotypical rationalist am I” score: 1 point for fully matching each, ½ points for getting close; mine is 10/12
eight
what kind of failure rationalist am I
about 4.5 to 5
i’d probably go into r-adjacent9 points; +1 if you count quarter-Jewish via my dad’s side of the family. +1 if “anyone who isn’t cis-male” qualifies as bisexual (I mean, technically it does, but it feels like it’s failing the spirit of “bisexual” :))
I cannot technicality my way into being 25 again. In fairness, when I was 25, LessWrong did not exist yet (and it is so weird routinely having a decade on everyone else in this community…)
I’d say that’s ½ points for jewishness, and ½ to 1 points for sexuality (I think heterosexuality is 0 points, other sexual minorities are ½ points; I gave myself ½ for “empirically quite consistently transfemininesexual” and yours sounds at least closer to “bisexual” than me)
1 month ago · tagged #just one word: plastics · 148 notes · source: socialjusticemunchkin · .permalink
alexanderrm reblogged this from dimitriarkady and added:I only got 5, I guess I’m more like rationalist-adjacent. I get most of my politics-related-reading from the LW diaspora...
sadd-colours liked this
witheringwire reblogged this from davidsevera and added:4 lol nerds everywhere
ideasyrots reblogged this from eternalfarnham
twocubes liked this
osberend reblogged this from ursaeinsilviscacant and added:Your second statement is both incorrect and not logically connected to the first.As for me: 31 (0)No known Jewish...
defectivealtruist reblogged this from itsbenedict and added:9.5/12
isaacfhtagn reblogged this from ursaeinsilviscacant and added:I also got a 4 but have no idea who yudkowsky is and mostly just find myself agreeing with rationalists
ursaeinsilviscacant reblogged this from nonternary and added:4 I should leave again :(
rangi42 liked this
skeletontemple reblogged this from mitoticcephalopod
house-carpenter liked this
paradox523 liked this
unknought reblogged this from house-carpenter and added:#i’m pleased with this result #if i have to be a member of a subculture i can at least be an atypical one I hope you...
blashimov liked this
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mugasofer reblogged this from metagorgon
shining-supernova reblogged this from responsible-reanimation and added:wow
hill-climber liked this
responsible-reanimation reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:5/12, adding up some halves.
wirehead-wannabe reblogged this from conductivemithril and added:7, being somewhat generous with half and quarter points
rangi42 reblogged this from davidsevera and added:9.
hyperradiant-fresnel-lens liked this
silly-slacker-person reblogged this from mousathe14
silly-slacker-person liked this
maybeapples liked this
anaisnein liked this
paradigm-adrift reblogged this from unknought and added:Same format as the above:21-25 years old jewish trans woman (probably kind of non-binary-ish on some level, but...
umblrgumblr reblogged this from gruntledandhinged
spiralingintocontrol reblogged this from oliwhail and added:7.5
speakertoyesterday said: 10
oliwhail reblogged this from gruntledandhinged and added:Also 5. I can feel my ingroup slipping away.
identicaltomyself reblogged this from davidsevera and added:Eight and a half. Back when I was 21-25, I would have scored only six. Am I getting more rationalist-adjacent, or am I...
rauwyn reblogged this from gruntledandhinged and added:8/12
fairytalesandimaginings liked this
imu-li liked this
gruntledandhinged reblogged this from phenylalaniiine and added:5 which probably surprised nobody.
phenylalaniiine reblogged this from nonternary and added:6-8.5/12 (24, me and my sis are the only of our cousins that are not jewish (wtf dad), trans (afab enby tho), not not...
mousathe14 reblogged this from itsbenedict and added:Fascinating
itsbenedict reblogged this from eternalfarnham
jack-rustier reblogged this from neoliberalism-nightly and added:Lower Bound: 9.5 Upper Bound: 11 How fucked am I?
lethriloth reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:Somewhere between 10.5 and 11.5 depending on how many points I get for Jewish and Bisexual. ( [.5,1] Jew and [0,.5]...
conductivemithril reblogged this from davidsevera and added:See, I think I do fit the bill for… the kind of person who was on LessWrong of Old. There’s some cluster I’m a central...
swornravenagenda reblogged this from conductivemithril and added:7, as long as I can will myself to use the label “absurdly gifted” despite how convinced I am that I’m terrible.
shitifindon liked this
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immanentizingeschatons reblogged this from socialjusticemunchkin and added:21, 1 point not Jewish, points (amusingly there are so many Jewish rationalists I read I occasionally sort of forget in...
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