Among the ultimate criteria for the minicamps is their impact on long-term life success. To assess this, both minicamp participants and a control group completed a long, anonymous survey containing many indicators of life success (income, self-reported happiness and anxiety levels, many questions about degree of social connectedness and satisfaction with relationships, etc.); we plan to give it again to both groups a year after mini-camp, to see whether minicampers improved more than controls. I’m eager to see and update from those results, but we’re only a couple months into the year’s waiting period. (The reason we decided ahead of time to wait a year is that minicamp aimed to give participants tools for personal change; and, for example, it takes time for improved social skills, strategicness, and career plans to translate into income.)

Meanwhile, we’re working with self-report measures because they are what we have. But they are more positive than I anticipated, and that can’t be a bad sign. I was also positively surprised by the number of rationality, productivity, and social effectiveness habits that participants reported using regularly, in response to my email asking, two months out. To quote a significant fraction of the numerical data from the exit survey (from the last day of minicamp), for those who haven’t seen participants’ ratings:

• In answer to “Zero to ten, are you glad you came?”, the median answer was 10 (mean was 9.3).
• In answer to “Zero to ten, will your life go significantly differently because you came to mini-camp?” the median answer was 7.5 (the mean was 6.9). [This was the response that was most positively surprising to me.]
• In answer to “Zero to ten, has your epistemic rationality improved?”, the median answer was 7 (mean 6.9)
• In answer to “Zero to ten, are you more motivated to learn epistemic rationality, than you were when you came?”, the median answer was 8.5 (mean 8.1)
• In answer to “Zero to ten, have you become more skilled at modifying your emotions and dispositions?”, the median answer was 7 (mean 6.3).
• In answer to “Zero to ten, are you more motivated to modify your emotions and dispositions, than you were when you came?”, the median answer was 9 (mean 8.3).
• In answer to “Zero to ten, are you more motivated to gain social skills than you were when you came?”, the median answer was 8 (mean 7.7).
• In answer to “Zero to ten, have you gained social skills since coming?”, the median answer was 7.5 (mean 7.2).
• In answer to “zero to ten, did you like Luke’s sessions?”, the median answer was 9 (mean answer 8.7).

Some excerpts from the survey, about about Luke’s sessions in particular:

• “Luke is an excellent presenter. These sessions exceeded my expectations: I am convinced I have under-valued social interaction and techniques and that I can accelerate my success curve by aggressively adopting them. ”
• “I really liked Luke's sessions. They were fun and interactive and well put together. There is an effect of being a bit more personally interested in the material.”
• “Very useful content. Great presentation of it. Very good at handling the practical camp-issues and also useful fashion tips.”
• “Luke’s sessions were concise, and well structured. Good PPT templates!”
• “The social effectiveness and fashion sessions were very useful for me. ”
• “Some parts of some sessions i felt went too slowly... but mostly extremely valuable information. wish we could have more social skills sessions - i would take another camp just for these super low-hanging fruit.”
• “Luke gave concrete examples and advice. It was very helpful.”
• “Luke was great as a session leader. His sessions were very clearly, cleanly organized, and discussions in his sessions were handled very well. Luke has, by far, the presence to lead a discussion among 16 people. :)”
• “Luke was great. His sessions hit the relevant points in an effective manner.”
• “Luke was very helpful and knowledgeable. The pace of his sessions was really good, and there was a lot of room for discussion. Luke also gave some helpful and specific fashion advice. ”
• “Pretty much everything with Luke was phenomenal... Luke really made this whole camp worthwhile. I know this is more praise than constructive feedback, but I legitimately can't think of anything!”

I worked on mini-camp with Luke, and I can honestly say that it’s only because of Luke that we were able to hold minicamp at all, and also that he was a phenomenal work partner in organizing the camp, getting all the logistics together, and generally making it a positive and, for many, life-changing experience.

More generally: In minicamp and other SingInst projects, Luke combines energy, reliable ability to carry projects to completion, and strategicness as to which projects make sense and which aspects of those projects are most worth the extra effort; if you’re looking to reduce existential risk, making it possible for SingInst to stably hire Luke seems to me to offer unusually good bang for your buck.