5 ms·

The first question I got already gives me pause: > Do you have a better music taste than average? What does this even mean? How can an opinion be averaged?

kristopolous 5y ago
The entire exercise is an inversion. It's really asking you about confidence and insecurities
vineyardmike 5y ago
you're not averaging actual numbers, its just "X than the average person"
- distrill 5y ago
  Right, but comparing opinions in the first place is odd. Is this concept more common than I'm giving credit for? I would assume that everyone thinks they have the best taste in music - if they like something better that would be their taste in music.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    No doubt mine is best ;)
  - vineyardmike 5y ago
    Yeah i think you're just missing something here. Its pretty common for people to compare themselves to others like this. Not all of the questions are equally qualitative. Some are "i give more money to the homeless than average". You could theoretically measure this. The purpose is probably just to understand peoples perceptions of themselves. (For example), i think i have better than average taste in music... after all, i meet artists and spend my free time going though new albums to find the next needle in a haystack.
inimino 5y ago
You don't need to average opinions. Just imagine you pick a person at random from your peer group and ask yourself how likely it is that you have better taste in music than that person.
- distrill 5y ago
  Right, but what does that even mean? My taste in music is the best, if there were music that I liked better, that music would be my taste in music. It's just an odd concept, comparing a taste like that.
  - inimino 5y ago
    The concept that there is such a thing as objectively better or worse music is not, I think, a totally new idea.
BlackFly 5y ago
I had this exact problem. > Are your feet better looking than average? Ok, I understand what they mean but I have no opinion on that, just generally not finding feet attractive and I can honestly say I have never considered the question before. I consider it for a few moments and realize I have no values that would allow me to formulate an opinion on it. So then I fall back to, would an average foot lover find my feet more or less attractive than average? I still have no idea. So then I fall back to a meta strategy, ok if I am going to answer questions stating my opinion when I have no opinion, what should I do? Alternate answers? Always answer that I am better? Always answer that I am worse? I understand that they are interested in what the distribution is going to be after people answer the questions so someone hedging is not giving helpful information. I decided that my strategy was to leave the website. I was curious if anyone else found being presented with a binary choice for an estimate at a continuous random variable off putting. I would have been much more willing to give a confidence interval around some abstract mean.

kristopolous 5y ago

The entire exercise is an inversion. It's really asking you about confidence and insecurities

vineyardmike 5y ago

you're not averaging actual numbers, its just "X than the average person"

distrill 5y ago
Right, but comparing opinions in the first place is odd. Is this concept more common than I'm giving credit for? I would assume that everyone thinks they have the best taste in music - if they like something better that would be their taste in music.
- pjerem 5y ago
  No doubt mine is best ;)
- vineyardmike 5y ago
  Yeah i think you're just missing something here. Its pretty common for people to compare themselves to others like this. Not all of the questions are equally qualitative. Some are "i give more money to the homeless than average". You could theoretically measure this. The purpose is probably just to understand peoples perceptions of themselves. (For example), i think i have better than average taste in music... after all, i meet artists and spend my free time going though new albums to find the next needle in a haystack.

inimino 5y ago

You don't need to average opinions. Just imagine you pick a person at random from your peer group and ask yourself how likely it is that you have better taste in music than that person.

distrill 5y ago
Right, but what does that even mean? My taste in music is the best, if there were music that I liked better, that music would be my taste in music. It's just an odd concept, comparing a taste like that.
- inimino 5y ago
  The concept that there is such a thing as objectively better or worse music is not, I think, a totally new idea.

BlackFly 5y ago

I had this exact problem. > Are your feet better looking than average? Ok, I understand what they mean but I have no opinion on that, just generally not finding feet attractive and I can honestly say I have never considered the question before. I consider it for a few moments and realize I have no values that would allow me to formulate an opinion on it. So then I fall back to, would an average foot lover find my feet more or less attractive than average? I still have no idea. So then I fall back to a meta strategy, ok if I am going to answer questions stating my opinion when I have no opinion, what should I do? Alternate answers? Always answer that I am better? Always answer that I am worse? I understand that they are interested in what the distribution is going to be after people answer the questions so someone hedging is not giving helpful information. I decided that my strategy was to leave the website. I was curious if anyone else found being presented with a binary choice for an estimate at a continuous random variable off putting. I would have been much more willing to give a confidence interval around some abstract mean.