JoshuaZ comments on Help Fund Lukeprog at SIAI - Less Wrong

40 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 24 August 2011 07:16AM

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Comment author: lukeprog 25 August 2011 12:38:42AM *  11 points [-]

Great, so did I! Now communicate that evidence. If it can't be communicated, I don't think you should be so confident in it.

Here:

  1. Surprisingly positive reviews in both qualitative and quantitative forms on our exit surveys.
  2. Follow-ups with many individual minicampers who report that several of the things we taught have stuck with them and improved their lives.
  3. People telling me to my face during minicamp that they were getting lots of value out of it.
  4. Enthusiastic testimonials.

It may take time for the participants to report back, but not for you to tabulate the results.

No, it definitely takes time to tabluate the results and write a presentable post about the results. I've personally spent 3 hours on it already but the project is unfinished.

Do you want your audience to be people who just take your word on something like this?

Ah. I may not have communicate this clearly: I think your skepticism concerning the success of the minicamp is warranted because almost no evidence is available to you. You're welcome to not take my word for it. When I have another 5-10 hours to finish putting together the results and write a post with more details about minicamp, I will, but I'm mostly waiting to invest that time until I can do it most profitably, for example when we've gathered more 'after minicamp' data.

Then why don't you mention this in your "how to be happy" post, which is also being used as evidence of your productivity?

I don't understand. The 'How to Be Happy' post was written before I helped run minicamp. And, there are tons of things not mentioned in that post. That post barely scratches the surface of my thoughts on happiness, let alone research on happiness in general.

Do you know a single person who has improved fashion to an acceptable level as a result of those magazines?

I doubt magazines is ever the sole input on someone's fashion sense, but yes I know people who have improved their fashion as a result of following magazines (or fashion blogs; same thing basically). Ask Peter Scheyer about this, for example.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 25 August 2011 08:46:33PM 11 points [-]

Given the large amount of effort it took to get to the miny camps, all four of these could be easily explained by cognitive dissonance.

Comment author: ciphergoth 26 August 2011 07:39:58AM *  2 points [-]

What evidence would you expect them to have if the "minicamp" was a genuine success? (Edited - thanks for the correction, wedrified!)

Comment author: wedrifid 26 August 2011 08:02:01AM 8 points [-]

What evidence would you expect them to have if the "bootcamp" was a genuine success?

Bootcamp? I found the wording Eliezer used fascinating:

Co-organized and taught sessions for a highly successful one-week Rationality Minicamp, and taught sessions for the nine-week Rationality Boot Camp.

Have they actually claimed anywhere here that the bootcamp was successful?

Comment author: ciphergoth 26 August 2011 11:54:00AM 0 points [-]

Oops, fixed - thanks!

Comment author: JoshuaZ 26 August 2011 12:56:09PM 4 points [-]

Honestly, I'm not sure. Having a randomized control group and then looking at actual success would be nice. Even without a good control, one obvious thing to do would have been to do before and after tests of similar questions that test for rational behavior (e.g. whether they can recognize they are engaging in the sunk cost fallacy and things like that). It may be that given the circumstances the best evidence we have is self-reporting like this. If so, it is evidence for the success of the minicamps. But, it is not very strong evidence precisely because it is consistent with a variety of other not implausible hypotheses. This thread has made me more inclined to believe that the minicamps were successful, but had not strongly increased my confidence.

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