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Xachariah comments on New applied rationality workshops (April, May, and July) - Less Wrong
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I have a couple of questions:
1) Does the $3900 cost primarily cover the cost of the workshop itself, or is it mostly used as a revenue source for CFAR to keep the doors open year-round?
2) What advantages does the weekend retreat system offer that other systems don't, specifically distance learning?
3) Are there any plans to expand into distance learning, for example into the Khan Academy, edX, Udacity model?
Everything you've mentioned sounds great, but I'm inherently skeptical of a weekend retreat format. After all, even gay cure camps 'work' and have their testimonials; how do you control for the self-help effect? Additionally, it seems odd to me to be building a program around teaching rationality in-person, when every other educational institution is trying to move in the opposite direction. I'm just curious about why you've chosen to structure the program the way it is.
Most of the value that I got out of the January workshop was in having face-to-face contact with the instructors and the other students. This was enjoyable, impressed the units on me strongly, and led to many interesting, unplanned, and high-value conversations (e.g. one 5-minute conversation completely changed my attitude towards both nutrition and exercise, which I finally started paying attention to after the workshop). If you want something less squishy, networking is easier in person.
CFAR does extensive followups with workshop participants.
I think you're using the wrong reference class. Think about rationality as a martial art and ask yourself whether you think an online course centered around learning a martial art would be successful.
I can see the usefulness of networking. Though I don't feel like I'm in the phase of my life where I'd want to go to such lengths just to network and have excellent conversations. I could imagine that being worthwhile enough to me one day.
It's good to hear about the followups. They mentioned that in the original post, but I didn't know how extensive it was. I suppose it's unfair to demand concrete data, when dealing with such small sample sizes.
Reference class tennis, but I did learn dancing via youtube + a partner. A couple of years of dance classes were pretty useless compared to how much I learned after a month of study online.
I bet that partner thing was kind of important.
Are you suggesting that rationality takes the same level of one-on-one contact that dancing does?
I'm sure it wouldn't be too much trouble to go out and find rationality partners, if that's what it took. I'd still need the curriculum though.
Talking with a rational person who disagrees with you can be a great experience, if both of you prefer finding the truth above winning the discussion.
(I am not saying that the minicamps are about this. Just answering your question, out of context.)
I bet that "kind of important" thing was kind of an understatement.
Re (1): The $3900 covers the cost of the workshop (the earliest workshops were offered at a loss to start testing the material). It covers cost of venue, outreach to find participants, and time spent on curriculum development and research to make sure the material offered is useful and clear.
1) There isn't that much of a pragmatic difference between whether the money is going to the workshop cost or to keep the CFAR doors open year round. CFAR needs to keep the doors open year round in order to continue to be able to host workshops and keep developing and refining curriculum. The venues and food are always great, but not $1000/night nice.
2) There's something about the weekend retreat format that allows for a really strongly transformative experience. Your time at a CFAR workshop somehow feels more significant than your time in everyday life, like each moment is just pulsing with more of the very fiber that gives reality its existence. This also results in some optimization for remembering self -- the moments at the CFAR workshop feel like something that will be remembered and deconstructed for far longer than the experience itself lasts. And there is a neat change towards increased emotional openness that happens over the course of spending such an intense weekend with new friends. Also, the kinds of people that attend $3900 weekend workshops can make for incredibly high value networking.
3) I expect it will happen eventually, sure.