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michaelcurzi comments on Minicamps on Rationality and Awesomeness: May 11-13, June 22-24, and July 21-28 - Less Wrong
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Even ignoring all of the benefits the actual training had for my life (perhaps I'll post about those below), I was glad I went for the people. The right Christian retreat probably could have had this aspect as well, for a certain kind of person; I'm always hearing about how amazingly friendly and productive and successful Mormons are. But so what?
I didn't go to a Christian retreat because Christianity is false. It would have bothered me the whole time, and I wouldn't have been able to take it seriously. For someone like me, finding these deep connections at a Christian retreat is probably impossible.
Finding people who could converse at a high level about the most important topics in the world was more fulfilling than I could have imagined. You can get some of this at a meetup - and I've been to meetups in Chicago, St. Louis, and the Bay - but the level of fulfillment I got at the mini-camp was the greatest by far.
Again, forgetting all the rationality training - there were moments at mini-camp when everyone was hanging out and I would literally have trouble deciding where to stand in a room because every conversation going around me was so ridiculously interesting that I couldn't stand choosing where to place myself. I felt like a wealth of knowledge was being spilt around me, and if I didn't scramble to consume as much as possible I'd miss some lifechanging insight and regret it forever. It was so beautiful it hurt.
I remember another minicamper remarking to me at the time - "Isn't it ridiculous that no matter where you stand in this room, you're going to hear one of the most interesting conversations you've ever heard?"
It's like this quote:
Except it was one of those restaurants. More accurately, it felt like a convention where the Illuminati had gathered to unveil the secrets of the universe, but all the secrets were being explained at the same time at different tents across an enormous convention center. (This wasn't because of bad planning; it would have been insane for the participants to try too hard to control the wellspring of amazing conversation.)
Wow. That's like the opposite of most parties.
Can you describe the difference between a typical conversation at the mini-camp, and a typical conversation on LW? (Would it be accurate to say that you're more impressed with the former than the latter? I'm curious to find out why if that's the case.)
It would be accurate to say I'm more impressed with the former than the latter. I think the majority of this effect is caused by a) the conversations being in person, which is a better format than this nested Reddit thing, and b) the fact that we were together so long.
That said, the conversations were also more enjoyable and interesting than conversations I've had at meetups (which have often been fantastic). I'm not exactly sure why - perhaps experiencing the somewhat rigorous mini-camp generated a sense of camaraderie, and thus friendship?
After trying to adjust for the above effects, it also does seem to me that any residual difference in quality could have to do with the group that was selected. Luke did mention to me that they tried to choose a relatively extroverted set of people for the first mini-camp. Also, the level of professional success at the mini-camp was higher than most other groups I've been in, including meetups. (I also think the median age of the mini-camp must have been higher than the median ages of the meetups I've attended. At 21, I was one of the youngest there.)
So it's more about the form of the conversations, and less about the content?
A problem I have with in-person group conversations is that I'd occasionally find that whoever is speaking is rambling or just not being as interesting as I hope, and wish there was some way to politely signal the person to make their point quickly and give someone else a turn. And then when I get a chance to speak, I'd fear that I'm not being as interesting as I had expected to be when I decided to speak up, and other people are thinking that I should stop talking.
I'm curious if other people have had this problem and how they dealt with it.
An experiment I tried once, when I was helping mediate a 60-person round-robin discussion group (1), was to give everyone in the room four colored index cards: red, blue, green, and white, and assign them meanings by convention:
red = "I disagree with what the speaker is saying"
green = "I agree with what the speaker is saying"
blue = "I have a question about what the speaker is saying"
white = "I do not care about what the speaker is saying"
My theory was that by establishing a communication channel that supported multiple simultaneous inputs, I could get the flow control to be a lot more efficient.
The experiment mostly failed, in that people didn't use the cards, so I can't really speak to results. It still seems plausible to me, and I haven't seen it done elsewhere.
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1 - Don't try this at home.
I think people already do something like this, using facial expressions and body language. Using your cards probably felt redundant, condescending (implying the speaker can't read the standard signals), weird, or too explicit (e.g., when you want to signal disagreement/disinterest but also want plausible deniability).
So I guess I was hoping for some tips on how to read/send the usual signals, and what to do when someone rambles on despite sending the usual signals. Another idea I just thought of is to have a smartphone app that allows one to send a covert anonymous signal to the speaker (but it would probably take too much work to get everyone to set it up and use it).
Certainly. Those mechanisms weren't working terribly reliably in a conversation that involved 60 people, which is precisely why I'd been looking for ways to augment the normal mechanisms.
Basically. But I think the form of the conversations leads to much better content, and more depth of exploration, and clearer / faster communication.
I honestly find that this is difficult. I think it's easier to learn how to politely interrupt, or just be careful about the groups one hangs out in, or speak in smaller groups.
That is interesting. I try to keep my points short, when possible. I think short points also facilitates better communication; shorter back-and-forth periods enable people to ask for the specific information they need, and closes inferential gaps.