Open thread, Oct. 27 - Nov. 2, 2014

MrMind

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.

Notes for future OT posters:

1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.

2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)

3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.

4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.

Do you think it was unhelpful because you already had a high level of knowledge on the topics they were teaching and thus didn't have much to learn or because the actual techniques were not effective?

I don't believe I had a high level of knowledge on the specific topics they were teaching (behavior change, and the like). I did study some cognitive science in my undergraduate years, and I take issue with the 'science'.

Do you think your experience was typical?

I believe that the majority of people don't get much, if anything, from CFAR's rationality lessons. However, after the lesson, people may be slightly more motivated to accomplish whatever they want to, in the short term just because they've paid money towards a course to increase their motivation.

How useful do you think it would be to an average person?

There was one average person at one of the workshops I attended. e.g. never read LessWrong/other rationality material. He fell asleep a few hours into the lesson, I don't think he gained much from attending. I'm hesitant to extrapolate, because I'm not exactly sure what an average person entails.

An average rationalist?

I haven't met many rationalists, but would believe they wouldn't benefit much/at all.

(Dan from CFAR here)

Hi cursed - glad to hear your feedback, though I'm obviously not glad that you didn't have a good experience at the CFAR events you went to.

I want to share a bit of information from my point of view (as a researcher at CFAR) on 1) the role of the cognitive science literature in CFAR's curriculum and 2) the typical experience of the people who come to a CFAR workshop. This comment is about the science; I'll leave a separate comment about thing 2.

Some of the techniques that CFAR teaches are based pretty directly on things from the academi... (read more)

2Jackercrack12y

Well that's a bit dispiriting, though I suppose looking back my view of CFAR was a bit unrealistic. Downregulating chance that CFAR is some kind of panacea.

0[anonymous]12y

Well, that's a bit dispiriting but thanks for responding anyway. Was this recently or when they were just starting up?