This is the weekly visible open thread. Odd-numbered open threads will be no-politics, even-numbered threads will be politics-allowed. This one is odd-numbered, so be careful. Otherwise, post about anything else you want. Also:

1: Thanks to everyone who took the Reader Research Survey. All those surveys are now closed. If you were a team who submitted a survey, I should have sent you an email with the General Demographics answers, a link to a spreadsheet you can use to exchange contact details with other teams, and a description of when I might be interested in hearing about your results. If you ran a survey but didn’t get the email, or have any other questions for me, please contact me at scott@slatestarcodex.com so we can figure out what’s going on.

2: If you absolutely insist on filling out more surveys, fine, you can answer a very short (six question) form for me on a topic I’m going to keep secret until you click on it to prevent accidental selection bias.

3: The rationalist community is always experimenting with new institutions, and now we’re trying an old one - official community matchmaker. My friend Elena has stepped up to the plate and is doing good work interviewing lots of people about their preferences and trying to set them up on dates with other people she’s interviewed (poly vs. mono is optional, she has good matches available in both categories). She finds we need more of three particular demographics: men who want kids, women who don’t necessarily want kids, and people who are open to dating a transgender partner. If you fall into one of these three groups, we’re expanding the definition of “rationalist community” wide enough to cover you as an ACX reader, whether you identify as “rationalist” in any other way or not, and you’re eligible for Elena’s (free) service. Consider checking out her website ; she’ll also be around to answer any questions in the comments here. Currently most available matches are in the SF Bay Area, so though in theory the service isn’t geographically limited she’ll probably be best positioned to help people who live near there. [EDIT: All Elena’s free appointments are now full, she is trying to figure out some kind of better business model, you can sign up for her wait list if you want]

4: On last week’s Mantic Monday, I complained that new prediction market Kalshi had some high fees. A representative of theirs contacted me to say that it’s more complicated. He writes: “We actually charge 7% of the variance (price times one minus the price) for each trade. We only charge this for takers, so effectively a single user would expect to pay 3.5% of the variance (since they pay 7% half the time).” I regret any misimpression my oversimplified numbers may have given.