Last night, I recorded a Callin/podcast with Razib on his recent excellent article on the genetic history of Egypt. At the beginning, he mentioned that he had recently sent out a reader survey, which is something that I’ve wanted to do for a while.
In Australia she was very supportive of lockdowns, although to be fair nearly everyone there was. But even if she was great it’s just a funny contrast.
Sometime during the last couple years, Claire Lehmann and Jon Kay seem to have exchanged characters. Editing Quillette must have been a dangerous experiment...
Too bad it's missing the all important "don't know/no opinion" option because that's how I felt about a lot of the questions asked -- so I simply clicked the middle, "meh" choice instead.
Also, some nuance to the questions would have helped.
COVID vaccines, yea or nay? I mean, are you asking my my opinion on whether they work, or asking me whether I would support paramilitary hunting parties to stalk and forcibly vaccinate every survivalist prepper in every backwoods town in America?
I put 3 for people I hadn't heard of, because by default I'm neutral towards people until I have a reason to like or dislike them. In some sense this biases the results, but it's also in a sense more accurate than skipping the question, because it will more accurately reflect the views of the majority of readers, right? I don't want the results to say "Richard Hanania Fans HATE Spresguld Omagawani" just because the 3 people who had heard of him hate him. (But maybe you'd already accounted for that, in which case I apologize for not skipping those questions.)
Just took the survey and want to say that my favorite part of the whole thing is that you even know who Roissy is. Its just more proof that you really are a broad minded eclectic reader with a true desire for knowledge. This is why you are one of my favorite substacks.
The question about US leadership being important to world peace got a "1" from me due to a knee-jerk reaction about how awful the US foreign policy establishment is. I guess I could give it a "4" and believe the same thing, but with the assumption that our leadership needs to be completely gutted and replaced.
> There should be no law against a boss pressuring an employee for sex.
I thought it was still black-letter law that there is no law against this, and what we punish is applying this pressure in a sex-discriminatory manner.
It was personally interesting to do this. The ‘firebrand’ types I tend to despise all got 3s because plurality has come to matter much more to me now that we’re under so much social pressure to self sort into clear camps. Something I refuse to participate in.
Just a quick nitpick - how people feel about plastic surgery or implants might depend on the reason. I doubt anyone would begrudge a burn victim or breast cancer survivor their plastic surgery or implant, but some might be less enthusiastic about vanity surgery. And by some, I mean me.
Sure, but I promise you that I am not the only one of your readers who will be annoyed enough at the very personal questions (and the necessity of logging into a google account) to not fill out the survey at all. Whatever results you get, they will exclude those of us concerned enough with personal privacy to avoid such things.
It seems I was already logged in to a google account when I clicked on the survey. The survey then gave me an option to change accounts, but not to log out entirely. But when I logged out of google first, and then clicked the survey link, it did indeed let me remain anonymous.
Once I got to the part which asked for my opinion, after a short while the machine kept interrupting me and repeating that, when I had no opinion I was to leave blank rather than choose "3". This kept happening, again and again (even when I hadn't chose 3. I stopped after about the seventh or eighth iteration.
‘Claire Lehman’ after the listing of several of the harshest dictators in history made me involuntarily wake up my neighbors.
There were a lot of my 2s that would have been 1s if people like Mao and Stalin weren't on the list.
Same
Why are people down on her?
In Australia she was very supportive of lockdowns, although to be fair nearly everyone there was. But even if she was great it’s just a funny contrast.
Sometime during the last couple years, Claire Lehmann and Jon Kay seem to have exchanged characters. Editing Quillette must have been a dangerous experiment...
Should have allowed for ""never heard pf this person or issue/know little about this person or issue
Too bad it's missing the all important "don't know/no opinion" option because that's how I felt about a lot of the questions asked -- so I simply clicked the middle, "meh" choice instead.
Better to probably just skip those, I’ll add a note.
Also, some nuance to the questions would have helped.
COVID vaccines, yea or nay? I mean, are you asking my my opinion on whether they work, or asking me whether I would support paramilitary hunting parties to stalk and forcibly vaccinate every survivalist prepper in every backwoods town in America?
I didn’t know a few either, so just left them blank, which didn’t seem to bother it.
Everybody whose name I didn’t recognize got the number 3 treatment
OK let's try this.
There were issues I wish you had probed
Deficit and how to reduce it
Attracting high skilled immigration
Freer trade
Taxation of net CO2 emissions
VAT for financing SS and Medicare instead of the wage tax
Using cost-benefit analysis to reform regulations
I put 3 for people I hadn't heard of, because by default I'm neutral towards people until I have a reason to like or dislike them. In some sense this biases the results, but it's also in a sense more accurate than skipping the question, because it will more accurately reflect the views of the majority of readers, right? I don't want the results to say "Richard Hanania Fans HATE Spresguld Omagawani" just because the 3 people who had heard of him hate him. (But maybe you'd already accounted for that, in which case I apologize for not skipping those questions.)
I’m going to include number of respondents for each, don’t worry, there are plenty of people who’ve heard of everything on the list.
Fun survey. As has been said needed a don’t know
Just took the survey and want to say that my favorite part of the whole thing is that you even know who Roissy is. Its just more proof that you really are a broad minded eclectic reader with a true desire for knowledge. This is why you are one of my favorite substacks.
Btw, Tyler Cowen also reads/knows about him too.
Also, not saying I endorse everything he writes!
The question about US leadership being important to world peace got a "1" from me due to a knee-jerk reaction about how awful the US foreign policy establishment is. I guess I could give it a "4" and believe the same thing, but with the assumption that our leadership needs to be completely gutted and replaced.
> There should be no law against a boss pressuring an employee for sex.
I thought it was still black-letter law that there is no law against this, and what we punish is applying this pressure in a sex-discriminatory manner.
It was personally interesting to do this. The ‘firebrand’ types I tend to despise all got 3s because plurality has come to matter much more to me now that we’re under so much social pressure to self sort into clear camps. Something I refuse to participate in.
Very interesting survey. I was a bit biased towards people who have come on the podcast.
Just a quick nitpick - how people feel about plastic surgery or implants might depend on the reason. I doubt anyone would begrudge a burn victim or breast cancer survivor their plastic surgery or implant, but some might be less enthusiastic about vanity surgery. And by some, I mean me.
I am not going to answer a bunch of deeply personal questions, so I quit long before the end.
I suspect this is going to heavily bias your results.
You can skip questions.
Sure, but I promise you that I am not the only one of your readers who will be annoyed enough at the very personal questions (and the necessity of logging into a google account) to not fill out the survey at all. Whatever results you get, they will exclude those of us concerned enough with personal privacy to avoid such things.
It shouldn’t require email addresses or signing on. There’s an option for that and it’s been off.
It seems I was already logged in to a google account when I clicked on the survey. The survey then gave me an option to change accounts, but not to log out entirely. But when I logged out of google first, and then clicked the survey link, it did indeed let me remain anonymous.
Once I got to the part which asked for my opinion, after a short while the machine kept interrupting me and repeating that, when I had no opinion I was to leave blank rather than choose "3". This kept happening, again and again (even when I hadn't chose 3. I stopped after about the seventh or eighth iteration.
Sorry, maybe you were taking it in the middle of when I made the change to the instructions? Hopefully it doesn’t happen for others.
Fun survey. Lots of odd juxtapositions.
Very interesting questions.