Risto_Saarelma comments on Rationality Boot Camp - Less Wrong
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This would be great next year, when I take my gap year between high-school and uni. Although I must say, just seeing the results will be amazing in itself - I can't wait until you release the details of the games and such you used, and how well they worked. (I'm taking from your previous replies to comments that you intend on this, for now at least.)
Are there age limits? I saw on the application it asks about degrees, employment etc... which, as a 16-year-old, I don't have yet. But I think I could really benefit from this if it's still running in 2012.
I'm not going to say this is a brilliant idea, because I'm sure it's not original at all - but actually doing something about it, bringing this to life - that's brilliant. I'm sure it takes a hell of a lot of planning, effort and money: so thank you.
I'm really hoping this is the start of something that will grow, because the sense of pure awesome that filled me when I read it is something I don't want to have to fall down.
Oh, side note, I had to go and look up 'rejection therapy' - it sounded iffy. After researching, it sounds scary and iffy. Has anyone here tried it before?
I don't particularly like the rejection therapy thing. I see what the idea for social skills would be, but since the thing involves strangers, it's no longer about just the person doing it, and like you say it would be obnoxious if a large fraction of people were actively doing it. I'd probably give a free pass to anyone categorically refusing to do the exercise themselves based on that, but wouldn't go as far as to say people actually shouldn't do the thing at all.
These sort of categorical imperative / game theoretic things where you can get a positive sum advantageous outcome (as opposed to stuff like shoplifting which a few people can get away with, but which is zero or negative sum and therefore much more obviously undesirable) for yourself for doing something that wouldn't work very well if everyone was doing it are tricky, since in practice only a few people will be doing the thing. The impression I've gotten of Tim Ferriss' Four Hour Work Week thing is that it's mostly composed of stuff like that. People also don't tend to like it because it comes off as iffy.
The particular iffiness in rejection therapy is probably the way how it goes blatantly against the convention that people should express themselves genuinely in random social interactions. Trashing unspoken social contract in the name of self-empowerment therapy sounds like a good recipe for resentment.
ETA: The ask vs guess culture thing is relevant here.