2023 Unofficial LessWrong Demographics Census
This census is divided into sections. All together, it is fairly long! At any point, you should feel free to decide you're done and scroll to the bottom to submit the survey. Ideally you'd do this just after reaching the end of a section, but the important thing is to remember to submit it.

I am not a member of the LessWrong staff or official site administration. I'm another user, one stepping up to the lineage of the Demographics Census which is (on all the cases I could find) run by someone in the community.
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You understand the survey is closed and your information will not be counted? *
Private Mark whether to make your responses private; ie exclude them when this data is made public. Keep in mind that although it should in theory be difficult to identify you from your survey results, it may be possible if you have an unusual answer to certain questions, for example your Less Wrong karma. Please also be aware that even if this box is checked, the person collecting the surveys (Screwtape) will be able to see your results (but will keep them confidential) *
ID Key
On some past surveys, there's been an option for people to include an ID key. If you want, you can enter your ID key here. If you'd like to generate one, I suggest using https://correcthorse.pw/ but any typical method to make reasonably random keys should work.
Previous Surveys
Have you taken previous incarnations of the Less Wrong Census/Survey?
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Section 1: Basic demographics
If you answer nothing else, please at least answer this section.
Age Please write only your age in years, with no other text or characters. For example, 18
Country
If multiple possible answers, please choose the one you most identify with. Ten popular answers are given below; otherwise please write your country into "Other" in the same format as the answers given
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State / Province / Prefecture
Please enter the full name of the state, province, prefecture or other subregion you live in. Note that this is one of the easier ways to de-anonymize yourself accidentally, and it's perfectly fine to skip this question. It will not be in the general public dataset.
Nearest City
Please enter the name of the nearest city or town you live near, ideally one where it would be easy to get to regularly. Note that this is a super easy way to de-anonymize yourself, it will not be in the public dataset, I (Skyler/Screwtape) promise to guard who answered this from anyone other than the LessWrong team or law enforcement with a warrant, and if you want to skip it anyway go ahead.

I'm asking because I spent the last year working on improving the in-person community, and it is really frustrating to have no finer resolution than "California" when asked how many rationalists are in an area. I'd love to be able to say to a particular town "I'm not saying who, but there's fifteen rationalists there."
Race
With what race do you most identify? "Hispanic" is a term mostly used in the US referring to people whose ethnic background is from Mexico, Central America, and South America.
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Section 2: Sex, Gender, and Relationships
Sex
What sex were you assigned at birth?
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Gender
With what gender do you primarily identify?
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Sexual Orientation
What is your sexual orientation?
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Relationship Style
What is your preferred relationship style?
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Number of Current Partners
(for example, 0 if you are single, 1 if you are in a monogamous relationship, higher numbers for polyamorous relationships)
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Relationship Goals
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Relationship Status What is your current relationship status?
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Living With
Who do you currently live with most of the time?
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Children
How many children do you have? (Do not count sperm-donations)
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More Children
Are you planning on having more children? Answer yes if you don't have children but want some, or if you do have children but want more.
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Section 3: Work and Education
This is the second of four basic demographics sections.
Work Status
What do you currently do?
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Profession
In what field do you currently work or study? If more than one, please choose most important.
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What is your highest degree earned?
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Have you completed your formal education?
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Section 4: Politics and Religion
This is the last of the obvious demographic questions. If you finish this section and then decide you're done, you'll have given us a good idea of what general kind of person reads LessWrong.
Political
Given that no label can completely describe a person's political views, with which of these labels do you MOST identify? You will have the chance to give more detail later if you wish.
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Write-in: What political label do you most identify with?
Religious Views
How would you describe your religious views?
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Religious Denomination
If you are religious, which best describes the religion you practice? If atheist, please skip this question.
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Family Religion
How would you describe the religious views of your family when you were growing up?
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Religious Background
What is your family's religious background, as of the last time your family practiced a religion?
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Moral Views
With which of these moral philosophies do you MOST identify?
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Section Five: Numbers That Purport to Measure Your Intelligence
This is basically a Demographics Bonus Round. If you don't know these numbers, you can leave them blank and this will be very quick.
IQ
If unsure or decline to answer, please leave blank. Please give as precise an answer as you have available, but please use only respectable tests: no amateur Internet IQ tests please!
IQ Age
At what age, in years, did you take the IQ test above?
SAT scores out of 1600
American students take the SATs before going to college. Prior to 2005 and after 2016, the maximum score was 1600. If you have an SAT score out of 1600, please put it here; otherwise leave blank.
SAT scores out of 2400
American students take the SATs before going to college. From 2005 to 2016, the test was scored out of 2400. If you have an SAT score out of 2400, please put it here; otherwise leave blank.
ACT score out of 36
Some American students take the ACTs before going to college. If you have an ACT score out of 36, please put it here; otherwise leave blank.
Section 6: LessWrong, the basics
This section is all about the site you presumably found this census link on. It's pretty interesting to see how people find and use the site.
Referrals
How did you find out about Less Wrong?
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Blog Referrals
If you were referred here by another blog (other than Overcoming Bias or SSC/ACX) or website, please name the site. Otherwise, please leave this blank.
Less Wrong Use
How do you use Less Wrong?
(A quick way to check for frontpage if you aren't sure is 
"https://www.lesswrong.com/users/[YOUR USERNAME]?filter=frontpage")
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Sequences
About how much of the Sequences - the collection of Eliezer Yudkowsky's original posts - have you read? You can find a list of them at http://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Sequences
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Codex
About how much of the Codex - a collection of Scott Alexander's original posts- have you read? You can find a list of them at https://www.lesswrong.com/codex

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Time in Community
How long, in years, have you been in the Overcoming Bias/Less Wrong community? Enter periods less than 1 year in decimal, eg "0.5" for six months (hint: If you've been here since Overcoming Bias started in November 2006, put 17)
Time on LW
How long, in number of minutes, do you spend on Less Wrong in the average day?
LW Karma
If you have no account, your karma score is 0. Be aware it may be easy to identify you from this information. Feel free to round your karma score if you want to be less identifiable.  If your karma score is 15,000 or above, you may put 15,000 if you want to be less identifiable.
Survey Referral
Where did you find the link to this survey from?
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Section 7: Less Wrong and the community
This section is on how you interact with the community. I'd greatly appreciate you finishing this section as I just spent a year working on rationality meetups.
Adjacent Community Identity
Do you consider yourself a member of the following communities?
No
Sorta
Yes
Effective Altruism
Slate Star Codex / Astral Codex Ten
Post-Rationality
TPOT / Vibecamp
Guild of the Rose
Glowfic
Forecasting (Metaculus, Manifold, etc)
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Adjacent Community Other
If there's another community you think is obviously adjacent which you belong to, feel free to list it below. You can also leave this blank.
Attending Meetups
Do you attend Less Wrong meetups?
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Have you ever attended a rationalist-style Secular Solstice?
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Organizing Meetups
Do you organize Less Wrong meetups?
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If you answered yes to the last question... 
If you organize Less Wrong meetups, consider bookmarking this Organizer Survey (https://forms.gle/PzytpoM6oBxJoG2Z6) to take later. Finish this survey first though. (For whatever definition of "finish" you decide on! Remember you can scroll to the bottom and hit submit whenever you decide you're done taking it.)
Community
Is physical interaction with the Less Wrong community otherwise a part of your everyday life, for example you live with other Less Wrongers, or you are close friends and frequently go out with them?
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Romance
Have you ever been in a romantic relationship with someone you met through the Less Wrong community?
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Guild Question
If you went to a rationality dojo, what would keep you coming back to it? Be as specific as possible, a short answer is fine.
If you wouldn't go to something like that in the first place, leave this blank.
Section 8: Probabilities
Each of these questions will ask you for a probability. Please answer on a scale from 0% (definitely false) to 100% (definitely true). Do not include the percent sign in your answer. For your convenience, 0% will be interpreted as "epsilon" and 100% as "100 minus epsilon". Do NOT give your answer in the form of a decimal between 0 and 1 unless you deliberately mean for it to be interpreted as a very small percent. For example, 0.5 will be interpreted as 0.5%, that is, a one in two hundred chance, NOT as 50%.

There is no obligation to do research for these questions. If you really really want to research, you may do so using any resource EXCEPT the answers to previous Less Wrong surveys and discussion about this current Less Wrong survey. For the two Manifold questions, you are also not allowed to look at Manifold Markets when answering them.
Instructions
Do you understand the instructions above?
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Test Question To See If You're Paying Attention
Please give the obvious answer to this question, so I can automatically throw away all surveys that don't follow the rules: What is the probability of a fair coin coming up heads?
P(Many Worlds)
What is the probability that the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics is more or less correct?
P(Aliens)
What is the probability that non-human, non-Earthly intelligent life exists in the observable universe?
P(Aliens) 2
...in the Milky Way galaxy?
P(Supernatural)
What is the probability that supernatural events (including God, ghosts, magic, etc) have occurred since the beginning of the universe?
P(God)
What is the probability that there is a god, defined as a supernatural intelligent entity who created the universe?
P(Religion)
What is the probability that any of humankind's revealed religions is more or less correct?
P(Hippobamapus)
What is the probability that Barack Obama is secretly a hippopotamus?
P(Time travel)
What is the probability that a human being has or will travel backwards in time to before the current date?
P(Cryonics)
What is the probability that an average person cryonically frozen today will be successfully restored to life at some future time, conditional on no global catastrophe destroying civilization before then?
P(Anti-Agathics)
What is the probability that at least one person living at this moment will reach an age of one thousand years, conditional on no global catastrophe destroying civilization in that time?
P(Simulation)
What is the probability that our universe is a simulation?
P(Warming)
What is the probability that significant global warming is occurring or will soon occur, and is primarily caused by human actions?
P(Global catastrophic risk)
What is the probability that the human race will make it to 2100 without any catastrophe that wipes out more than 90% of humanity?
P(Mars Train)
What is the probability that there will someday be a train service running between two places on Mars at least 5km apart? If it has frequent stops between the start and end, and the start and end are at least 5km apart, that still counts.
P(GPT-5 Release)
What is the probability that OpenAI will release GPT-5 before the end of 2024? "Release" means that a random member of the public can use it, possibly paid.
P(Dow Jones)
What is the probability that the Dow Jones Industrial Average price will be higher on July 1st, 2024, than it was on December 1st, 2023? ($36,245.50)
P(LLM Hallucination) or The 1st Manifold Question
Will there exist by May 1, 2024 an LLM, that is at least as otherwise capable as GPT-4, that hallucinates in typical conversations on questions where human experts exist at most (about as) often as human experts hallucinate when asked similar questions?
Don't look at Manifold when you're about to answer this question.
P(Hamas Rules Gaza) or The 2nd Manifold Question
Will Hamas still rule Gaza by June 1st, 2024? Hamas must be the ruling party in Gaza, operating freely to supply public services and collect taxes.
Don't look at Manifold when you're about to answer this question.
Section 9: Other Less Wrong Census Questions, Which Used To Be Called More Complicated Probability Questions
This is the last of the traditional, reasonable questions for the LessWrong census. If you complete this section and decide you're done, know that you have given us all the data needed to compare against most previous years.
Singularity
By what year do you think the Singularity will occur? Answer such that you think, conditional on the Singularity occurring, there is an even chance of the Singularity falling before or after this year. If you think a singularity is so unlikely you don't even want to condition on it, leave this question blank.
AI Knowledge Work
By what year do you think AI will be able to do intellectual tasks that expert humans currently do?
Cryonics Status
Are you signed up for cryonics?
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Calibration IQ
What do you think is the probability that the IQ you gave earlier in the survey is greater than the IQ of over 50% of survey respondents? If you left that blank, also leave this blank.
Calibration Question
Without checking a source, please give your best guess for the weight of the Opportunity rover in kg (according to Wikipedia's "Opportunity (Rover)" article)
Calibration Answer
Without checking a source, estimate the probability that the answer you just gave is within 10% of the true value. Same rules for percents apply as above.
Section 10: LessWrong Team Questions
Here's a selection of questions I got from a list one of the LessWrong team members shared with me last year.

This is the point of the survey where the questions start getting more open ended. If you've been waiting for an excuse to be done, this is probably the point where twenty percent of the effort has gotten eighty percent of the effect.
Underrated Contributor
In your opinion, who is the most underrated contributor on LessWrong?
LW Net Impact
What do you think the net impact of LessWrong has been on the world?
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Californian LW
Have you ever been to the In-Person Californian LessWrong community?
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Heavy AI Has it been good for the world for LessWrong to become extremely heavy in AI alignment content in the past 3 years? (1 means definitely not, 10 means definitely yes)
Definitely not
Definitely yes
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Best LW Thing
What's the best thing about LessWrong for you?
Worst LW Thing
What's the worst thing about LessWrong for you?
LW Recommendation
How likely are you to recommend LessWrong to a friend or a colleague? 
Almost never
I do so often
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Sequences Hardcopy
How many US dollars would you pay for a set of The Original LessWrong Sequences (by Eliezer Yudkowsky)? Imagine they are equally well-produced to the LessWrong 2019 books.

HPMOR Hardcopy
How many US dollars would you pay for a set of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality (by Eliezer Yudkowsky)? Imagine they are equally well-produced to the LessWrong 2019 books.

The Codex Hardcopy
How many US dollars would you pay for a book set of The Codex (100 selected essays by Scott Alexander)? Imagine they are equally well-produced to the LessWrong 2019 books.
Discouraging Users
This question will be kept private to the LW team
and Skyler/Screwtape who is running the census. Which posters/commenters cause you to not want to contribute to (or even read) LessWrong?
GreaterWrong Use
How often do you use GreaterWrong.com?

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Most Interesting People
The answers to this question will be kept private to the LessWrong team and Skyler/Screwtape who is running this census. Who are the 1-3 most interesting and/or impressive people you have personally met in the Rationalist/EA communities, not counting people who are already established figures in the community like Scott Alexander or Zvi Mowshowitz?
Adjacent Labels
How much do you identify with the following labels? Put another way, how true is it for you to say "I am a [insert here]"
1 means actively contrary to your identity, 7 means it's core to who you are.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Rationalist
Effective Altruist
Longtermist
Good person
Risk-neutral
Contrarian
Bystander
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Section 11: Questions the LessWrong Team should have asked
Here's a collection of questions the LessWrong team hasn't asked, but I (Skyler/Screwtape) think they really should have.
Encouraging Users
This question will be kept private to the LW team and Skyler/Screwtape who is running the census. Which posters/commenters cause you to actively want to contribute to (or even read) LessWrong?

Known features
Which of the following features of the LessWrong website did you know how to use before you read this question?
LW Feature Wish
What feature do you wish LessWrong had?
LessWrong Norms
Please rate how much you would like the following discussion norms to become expected on LessWrong and in related in-person groups.
Links:
Basics of Rationalist Discourse
Elements of Rationalist Discourse
Strongly dislike
Dislike
Neutral
Like
Strongly Like
Basics of Rationalist Discourse
Elements of Rationlist Discourse
Fucking Goddamn Basics of Rationalist Discourse
SSC Comment Policy
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Section 12: Indulging my curiosity
This section is a bit sillier, and consists entirely of questions that I wanted to ask for my own curiosity. If you made it this far, I'd love it if you'd answer this too, but you have entirely discharged any census duties by this point. If you're looking for the bonus questions from previous years, they're in Section 13. If you've been patiently waiting for the politics questions, they're in section 14.
Most used lesson
What is the lesson from Rationality that you have most internalized and use most often, ideally one you find yourself using daily? Please use the title of the relevant article, post, or video if possible.
Most Wanted Ratfic
What's a piece of fiction that you want someone to make a new rationalist fanfiction of?
Favourite Tactile Sensation?
What's your favourite tactile sensation? Examples include the feeling of running your thumb along a book's pages, or the feeling of petting a cat, or rubbing a maple leaf between your fingers.
Most Important Community
What is the most important community in your life? Feel free to use whatever definition you want for "important" and "community." If the answer would be the Rationality Community, please give that and the second most important community.
Random Number Pick
Pick a random number between 1 and 100, inclusive. Do not use any external random generator, just use your brain.
Random Number Probability
Using the same probability format as before, what is the probability that a randomly selected respondent (counting yourself) gave the same number you did for the last question? This should be about 1 if everyone is a perfect random number generator.
P(Global catastrophic risk and Global Warming)
Using the same probability format as before, what is the probability that the human race will make it to 2100 without any catastrophe that wipes out more than 90% of humanity and that significant global warming is occurring or will soon occur primarily caused by human actions?

Please don't scroll up to look at the previous probability section.
Random Weirdness
In your own opinion, does your life contain the right amount of mysterious old wizards dropping hints about transformative and/or perilous quests?
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Section 13: Detailed questions we've asked on previous surveys
This consists of questions that were on previous Less Wrong Censuses and probe for more detail. (Plus the Kidney question which is topical this year and the Blood Amount question which has been itching at me.) Feel free to answer whichever parts you like.
Income
What is your approximate annual income in US dollars (non-Americans: convert at www.xe.com)? Obviously you don't need to answer this question if you don't want to. Please don't include commas or dollar signs.
Charity
How much money, in number of dollars, have you donated to charity over the past year? (non-Americans: convert to dollars at http://www.xe.com/ ). Please don't include commas or dollar signs in your answer. For example, 4000
Height
What is your height *in number of centimeters*? (Americans: convert from feet/inches to centimeters at http://www.albireo.ch/bodyconverter/)
Blood
Have you ever donated blood?
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Blood Amount
About how many times have you donated blood over the course of your life? Please use a number, such as 0, 3, or 20.
Kidney
Have you ever donated a kidney?
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Diet
Do you follow any dietary restrictions related to animal products?
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Primary Language
What is your primary language?
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Number of Languages
In how many languages do you consider yourself fluent?
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Section 14: Bonus Politics Questions
Alright, I said earlier that you'd have a chance to give more detail on your political position. Here are the bonus politics questions (plus the Interest question from previous years) from LessWrong user Tailcalled. This is the second to last section, and the last section is very short.
How would you describe your level of interest in politics?
Not interested at all
Extremely Interested
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TC1
Companies that focus on profit buy up and reduce the wages of companies that try to pay workers more.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC2
The stock market fails to punish powerful people for poor investments because people in power just get the government to bail them out using taxpayer money.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC3
The government has regulations that make financial markets work well and fairly.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC4
The government knows well how to balance costs and benefits.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC5
Academia has been taken over by a woke culture which suppresses dissent.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC6
Minority groups tend to be biased and favor wokeness over fairness.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC7
You can see from the gender ratios in income and work areas that there's still tons of sexism around.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC8
Climate science is critically important due to global warming.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC9
One of the greatest benefits of art is that management can place it in workplaces to set a calming, productive tone.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC10
Brand reputation is the main way consumers know that products are safe and high-quality.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC11
Fashion is a good way to build confidence.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC12
Democratic elections are basically polls about who you trust to lead the country, so democratically elected leaders are considered especially trustworthy.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC13
Teaching will need to start incorporating AI technology.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC14
Genetically modified organisms will make farming more effective in the future.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC15
AI cannot replace designers as computers lack creativity.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC16
Elon Musk's project of colonizing Mars is a useless vanity project.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC17
To save the environment, people should eat seasonal locally grown food instead of importing food from across the world.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC18
Claims that it's soon the end of the world are always hyperbolic and exaggerated.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC19
It is important that the news is run independent of the government so it can serve as a check on those in power.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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TC20
The moon landing was faked.
Disagree Strongly
Agree Strongly
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Politics Open Section
In as much detail as you care to give, how would you describe your political views? 
This is the last question before the wrapup.
Section 15: Final questions
Three more questions, all a bit meta, and you're done!
Census Length
How long was this survey?
I'm happy answering more
This is way too long
Clear selection
Have you answered this survey honestly and accurately?
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Any further comments?
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