Scott says the readership is around 90% male, and they seem rather intelligent; if nothing else, I'm guessing there are a lot of smart young men there.
This is *still* going on - a huge, long discussion about an uninteresting and uncontroversial take on the news: the media doesn't lie, it just bends and distorts things with safe deniability. But oh my goodness, the arguments that have blossomed!
Part of the reason I love Wood From Eden is that I found you before you were popular. Scott's old blog was absolutely sparkling back in the day, when nobody really knew who he was.
In much the same way that women who obsess over makeup and purses seem narrow and airheaded, men who obsess over Bayes' theorem and Utilitarianism come across as narrow and geeky. There's always been a lot of faddish terminology, niche hobbies, and odd customs in the lesswrong / Slatestarcodex crowd, not least of all the way they refer to themselves as "rationalists" and attempt to impress one another through mastery of a body of knowledge completely foreign to most people: Neurotransmitters, Eliezer Yudkowski, John Von Neumann, the Grey Tribe, etc. There are females there, but the scene doesn't generally attract them.
After interacting with them for a few years I've come away with the sense that they're like a hypersensitive clique who experience serious emotional distress when their shared beliefs are called into question - and I even agree with their views about most things. Tove earned a lot of points from me when she wrote this:
If one is on the lookout for people who think freely, without strange groupish biases, they are hard to find in all organized groups: Wherever people are, they tend to have adapted their thinking to make it easier to be where they are. I have concluded that the point of going to the ACX meetup is to meet the fringe people: Those who come there once or twice, but do not belong to the core group. That means I should always be there. Otherwise I won't catch them.
Good luck, Tove! Maybe someday I'll go. Whatever criticisms I may have of the Astralcodex crowd, 80% is probably applicable to me, too - like Catholics and Protestants arguing in South Korea.
Oh no! I should have published this text a bit earlier. I have only been to the meetups in Copenhagen. There close to one hundred percent of attendees are programmers. Except me, that is... Most are male, the average autism score is probably rather high (I don't lower it with my presence), few people are older than 45. But other than that, I think there is a rather broad range of people. For example, people have different political opinions.
Once I found myself in the situation that the meetup attendees were divided physically into two groups. The group I participated in slid over into programming talk, so I tried to squeeze into the other group, positioned around a table, which was physically difficult.
"Is there any problem?", a group member asked.
"Yes, they only talk about programming over there", I replied sullenly. "Wait, are you also taking about programming?"
"Yes, but we can talk about something else instead", the group members agreed.
Conclusion: Yes, people talk a lot about programming on the Copenhagen ACX meetup. But they also have the ambition to include people who are not programmers.
I looked up ACX meetups in my city and it turns out that one just happened 2 days ago and it’ll be over a month until the next one... sigh.
I wonder though, what kind of people do these meetups attract? I’m guessing STEM workers are over represented?
Scott says the readership is around 90% male, and they seem rather intelligent; if nothing else, I'm guessing there are a lot of smart young men there.
I wonder why women are less interested? Is it because of rationalism’s association with math and science, which women are less likely to major in?
Aren't women less interested in general? Overall, specific interests seem to be much more of a male than a female thing.
By the way, have you seen Scott's latest post?
https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the-061
This is *still* going on - a huge, long discussion about an uninteresting and uncontroversial take on the news: the media doesn't lie, it just bends and distorts things with safe deniability. But oh my goodness, the arguments that have blossomed!
Part of the reason I love Wood From Eden is that I found you before you were popular. Scott's old blog was absolutely sparkling back in the day, when nobody really knew who he was.
Yes, I saw it and wondered whether there is something called reverse ADHD and if Scott has it. From where did he get all that super-human patience?
"before you were popular", that was an optimistic way of putting it. I discovered SSC late, so I guess I should take a closer look at the archives.
In much the same way that women who obsess over makeup and purses seem narrow and airheaded, men who obsess over Bayes' theorem and Utilitarianism come across as narrow and geeky. There's always been a lot of faddish terminology, niche hobbies, and odd customs in the lesswrong / Slatestarcodex crowd, not least of all the way they refer to themselves as "rationalists" and attempt to impress one another through mastery of a body of knowledge completely foreign to most people: Neurotransmitters, Eliezer Yudkowski, John Von Neumann, the Grey Tribe, etc. There are females there, but the scene doesn't generally attract them.
After interacting with them for a few years I've come away with the sense that they're like a hypersensitive clique who experience serious emotional distress when their shared beliefs are called into question - and I even agree with their views about most things. Tove earned a lot of points from me when she wrote this:
https://woodfromeden.substack.com/p/why-i-fear-the-fear-of-ai
None of the ordinary Slatestarcodex crowd would have written that.
If one is on the lookout for people who think freely, without strange groupish biases, they are hard to find in all organized groups: Wherever people are, they tend to have adapted their thinking to make it easier to be where they are. I have concluded that the point of going to the ACX meetup is to meet the fringe people: Those who come there once or twice, but do not belong to the core group. That means I should always be there. Otherwise I won't catch them.
Good luck, Tove! Maybe someday I'll go. Whatever criticisms I may have of the Astralcodex crowd, 80% is probably applicable to me, too - like Catholics and Protestants arguing in South Korea.
Oh no! I should have published this text a bit earlier. I have only been to the meetups in Copenhagen. There close to one hundred percent of attendees are programmers. Except me, that is... Most are male, the average autism score is probably rather high (I don't lower it with my presence), few people are older than 45. But other than that, I think there is a rather broad range of people. For example, people have different political opinions.
I assume it's the same for American meetups too. As someone not in STEM, I wonder if I'd feel out of place.
What do you do?
Once I found myself in the situation that the meetup attendees were divided physically into two groups. The group I participated in slid over into programming talk, so I tried to squeeze into the other group, positioned around a table, which was physically difficult.
"Is there any problem?", a group member asked.
"Yes, they only talk about programming over there", I replied sullenly. "Wait, are you also taking about programming?"
"Yes, but we can talk about something else instead", the group members agreed.
Conclusion: Yes, people talk a lot about programming on the Copenhagen ACX meetup. But they also have the ambition to include people who are not programmers.