LW survey on practical/instrumental rationality

This survey is designed to gather information, in aggregate. We won't tell you how good your rationality is or isn't; we don't know how to do that yet. Instead, we'll *use* your very kind help to improve our conjectures on what rationality techniques do and don't help LW-ers on a practical level. The survey therefore contains a bunch of questions on both indicators of life-success (e.g. happiness, income) and on what rationality techniques you do or don't employ. The survey should take about 15 minutes; feel free to be quick and approximate with your answers. Much thanks for your participation =).

The data will be released in aggregate, but, hopefully, no one will ever know which set of answers was yours. So please be honest. Also, feel free to skip prying, ill-fitted, or otherwise annoying questions.

Unique ID

Enter either your name, or a unique ID that you'll remember, and that is at least six characters long. If you do the latter, *please* email it to yourself, so that you'll remember what it is at the one-year follow-up.

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Are you a summer 2011 rationality camp participant (from the nine-week program)?

Asked to separate you from the previous survey completers, and from those happening on this form on the web.

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Were you a May/June 2011 Mini-camp participant?

Asked to separate you from the previous survey completers, and from those happening on this form on the web.

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Where do you live?

USA
Elsewhere

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How satisfied are you with your current romantic arrangements, or lack of arrangements?

very
kind of
not

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Are you currently in school?

yes, full time
yes, part time
no

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Highest level of education completed:

no university degrees
bachelor's degree
master's degree
PhD

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Gender:

male
female

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Highest tested IQ (leave blank if never tested)

(This isn't a rationality question. I'm trying to *control* for IQ, so as to distinguish between "rationality is useful" and "IQ both improves rationality and is useful".)

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How much of OB and LW have you read?

almost none
some
most

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Have you commented on OB and/or LW?

never
occasionally
often

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Do you know people offline who read OB/LW?

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How much impact has OB/LW had on your thinking?

little or none
some
life-changing

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Preferred currency (for three financial questions, coming right up)

(if you're concerned about privacy/identifiability, you may want to convert to dollars or euros instead of naming an unusual currency.)

US dollars
Euros
Other:

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Income over the last year:

(in units of the currency you chose above)

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Expected income next year

(in units of the currency you chose above)

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Savings

(in units of the currency you chose above)

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Are there any late bills, bounced checks, or bad debts on your credit record?

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How happy have you been for the last week?

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How happy have you been for the last year?

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Have you ever been in an auto accident?

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Do you have a current driver's license?

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Do most people your age, who live where you live, have a driver's license?

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How many times have you exercised in the last week?

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How many times a week do you usually exercise?

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Do you smoke?

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Have you had any dental cavities in the last two years?

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Are you romantically involved with anyone?

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[Even more optional]: Any other comments?

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How many friends have you talked to in the last week?

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Excluding family, how many people would lend you $500 if you needed it?

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Excluding family, how many people would let you crash at their house for a week?

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Are you signed up for cryonics?

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Do you plan to sign up for cryonics?

(skip if you answered "yes" above)

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How often do you manage to get things in by deadlines?

Nearly always
About like most people
Much worse than most people

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Relative to others at your work, how effective are you at your job (e.g., if you’re a teacher, to what extent do your students actually learn)?

Top 10%
Above average
Below average

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In the last year, have you earned more or less than most of people you grew up with?

Include whichever reference community you like: others you went to school with, others form your community or country, etc. The goal is to get people with a similar amount of starting advantage (e.g., not born in rural Africa). Feel free to guess.

Much more
Somewhat more
Average or less

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Overall, is your life better or worse than the lives of most of those you grew up with?

Much better
Somewhat better
Similar
Worse

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How good are you at acheiving your goals, compared to most of those you grew up with?

Much better
Somewhat better
Similar
Worse

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How many self-help, business, or productivity books have you read in the last two months?

Count any books you read at least 1/3rd of.

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How many hours/week do you spend on self-help, business, or productivity blogs or discussion groups?

Do not count OB/LW.

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In the last month, how many conversations have you had about specific strategies for becoming more effective at some work-related or personal task?

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In the last week, how many times have you used “outside view” strategies to estimate the time necessary to complete a project?

(I.e., how often have you asked how long such projects usually take, or how long such projects would take a non-you person with your characteristics?)

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In the last week, how many times have you used “outside view” strategies to judge whether the other party might be right in a dispute, or what your blindspots might be?

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Do you make a conscious effort to deal correctly with sunk costs?

always
sometimes
not really

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Do you make a conscious effort to avoid rationalizations?

always
sometimes
not really

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Have you ever consciously used Eliezer’s “leave a line of retreat” technique?

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How many new habits, or new ways of proceeding, have you tried out in the last month?

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How useful do you find rationality?

hugely useful
somewhat useful
not significantly useful

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Give a 98% confidence interval for the number of republics the USSR broke up into, following the output of the cold war.

Please don't look these up. These are calibration questions. Regardless of how much or how little you know, you can form an (perhaps vast) interval within which you're *confident* the answer falls.

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Untitled Question

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Give a 98% confidence interval for the year in which the global population reached 1 billion.

Please don't look these up. These are calibration questions. Regardless of how much or how little you know, you can form an (perhaps vast) interval within which you're *confident* the answer falls.

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Give a 98% confidence interval for the average percent of a watermelon's weight that comes from water.

Please don't look these up. These are calibration questions. Regardless of how much or how little you know, you can form an (perhaps vast) interval within which you're *confident* the answer falls.

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[Optional]: What rationality techniques do you get the most practical use from?

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How old are you?

Please enter your answer as a whole number amount, e.g. "34". Rounding is fine if you're concerned about anonymity.

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