Heaps can be said to exist because of vagueness in the definition of what precisely makes something a heap. Race is the same way, which is why it is a social construct.
I'm not saying that "heap" and "race" are not useful terms. They do correlate with actual differences, but they are social constructs because they are convenient simplifications to help us describe phenomena.
Also, in case you're wondering, the reason I didn't object to "mixed race" being treated as a race wasn't because I thought mixed-race people are genetically distinct enough to be put in a separate category, but because the phrasing in the survey (asking about what we identify as, not to mention including "Hispanic" as an option) implies that the survey-writers are mainly interested in race as an indicator of self-identity and/or culture rather than genetics. Race is still a social construct even when you use a cultural/identity definition, for reasons that might be more obvious. This was a definition I had in mind (alongside the biological one) when I said "race is a social construct anyway". By default I do tend to use the biological definition though, simply because this is what most people seem to do, e.g. an Asian girl adopted as a baby and raised by whites in an all-white community is still considered Asian.
Also, "other" isn't necessarily going to feel like a satisfactory answer for all of us. Including "mixed race" as an option to a race question is like including "atheism" as a result to a religion question. Atheism is not technically a religion, but it's nice to include an option to account for it anyway. The data wouldn't be as informative otherwise.
Heaps can be said to exist because of vagueness in the definition of what precisely makes something a heap. Race is the same way, which is why it is a social construct.
Right conclusion, wrong reason. (The first sentence strikes me as incorrect all by itself. I could still call certain things heaps even if I had a sharp definition of a heap.) Race is a social construct because genetic data underdetermine racial categories.
Expanding: although knowledge of human population structure rules out (or at least makes implausible) many potential racial classifica... (read more)
It's that time of year again.
If you are reading this post and self-identify as a LWer, then you are the target population for the Less Wrong Census/Survey. Please take it. Doesn't matter if you don't post much. Doesn't matter if you're a lurker. Take the survey.
This year's census contains a "main survey" that should take about ten or fifteen minutes, as well as a bunch of "extra credit questions". You may do the extra credit questions if you want. You may skip all the extra credit questions if you want. They're pretty long and not all of them are very interesting. But it is very important that you not put off doing the survey or not do the survey at all because you're intimidated by the extra credit questions.
It also contains a chance at winning a MONETARY REWARD at the bottom. You do not need to fill in all the extra credit questions to get the MONETARY REWARD, just make an honest stab at as much of the survey as you can.
Please make things easier for my computer and by extension me by reading all the instructions and by answering any text questions in the simplest and most obvious possible way. For example, if it asks you "What language do you speak?" please answer "English" instead of "I speak English" or "It's English" or "English since I live in Canada" or "English (US)" or anything else. This will help me sort responses quickly and easily. Likewise, if a question asks for a number, please answer with a number such as "4", rather than "four".
The planned closing date for the survey is Friday, November 14. Instead of putting the survey off and then forgetting to do it, why not fill it out right now?
Okay! Enough preliminaries! Time to take the...
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[EDIT: SURVEY CLOSED, DO NOT TAKE!]
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Thanks to everyone who suggested questions and ideas for the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey. I regret I was unable to take all of your suggestions into account, because of some limitations in Google Docs, concern about survey length, and contradictions/duplications among suggestions. The current survey is a mess and requires serious shortening and possibly a hard and fast rule that it will never get longer than it is right now.
By ancient tradition, if you take the survey you may comment saying you have done so here, and people will upvote you and you will get karma.