No, there are better happy media. Plenty of career-minded people can take three weeks off. I could probably even pull off five. But doing 10 is going to mean drawing from a class of people who haven’t gotten a “real” job yet, where they’re paid to think, and have to hold it.
As one commenter complained on the boot camp thread, this is basically setting yourself up for failure—you don’t have an independent check on your filtering ability, and indeed a visiting fellow problem had exactly such a predictable failure mode.
I applied for the 10 week (while hoping it will be shortened, though fully ready to do it as planned), but I expect to be the only one there who’s held a thinking job—most other such people can’t take a 10 week break. I can do it because of significant savings.
Three weeks would be eminently reasonable. Making people go to either 1 or 10 is … poorly considered.
I applied for the 10 week (while hoping it will be shortened, though fully ready to do it as planned), but I expect to be the only one there who’s held a thinking job
I assign a greater than 95% chance to you being mistaken.
Much can be inferred from my confidence in my model of what Jasen is looking for, an estimate of how many people applied, the relative easy of holding a thinking job, the extent to which the opportunity would appeal to people who have at some point held a thinking job, the likelyhood that thinking jobs would appeal to those likely to apply to a rationalist bootcamp and the ease of finding a new thinking job if that is necessary after the event.
I’m interested in knowing who was, and how it works out.
Anyway, even with all those factors, it doesn’t seem to override my points above about the difficulty for such people of taking ten weeks off, or SIAI’s past tendency to overlook such criteria. Very successful people who can basically set their own hours could spare the block of time, but wouldn’t they already have achieved what this course has to offer?
Anyway, even with all those factors, it doesn’t seem to override my points above about the difficulty of such people of taking ten weeks off, or SIAI’s past tendency to overlook such criteria.
Absolutely, I don’t have an overall position to express on that one (talk to me in a few months) but your points seem valid.
Very successful people who can basically set their own hours could get the time off, but wouldn’t they already have achieved what this course has to offer?
I would disagree on this one. Even, say, Tim Ferris could benefit from such a program despite already being successful and having an undeniable ability to research and train himself in practical skills independently. There is a level of strategy above that required for the social phenomenon of ‘success’ which is both rare and (I assume) at least part of what would be covered by a boot camp.
No, there are better happy media. Plenty of career-minded people can take three weeks off. I could probably even pull off five. But doing 10 is going to mean drawing from a class of people who haven’t gotten a “real” job yet, where they’re paid to think, and have to hold it.
As one commenter complained on the boot camp thread, this is basically setting yourself up for failure—you don’t have an independent check on your filtering ability, and indeed a visiting fellow problem had exactly such a predictable failure mode.
I applied for the 10 week (while hoping it will be shortened, though fully ready to do it as planned), but I expect to be the only one there who’s held a thinking job—most other such people can’t take a 10 week break. I can do it because of significant savings.
Three weeks would be eminently reasonable. Making people go to either 1 or 10 is … poorly considered.
I assign a greater than 95% chance to you being mistaken.
Because you were accepted? ;-)
Anyway, it looks like I was indeed overconfident there—I didn’t get accepted. I’m interested in knowing who was, and how it works out.
Much can be inferred from my confidence in my model of what Jasen is looking for, an estimate of how many people applied, the relative easy of holding a thinking job, the extent to which the opportunity would appeal to people who have at some point held a thinking job, the likelyhood that thinking jobs would appeal to those likely to apply to a rationalist bootcamp and the ease of finding a new thinking job if that is necessary after the event.
So am I!
So you were or weren’t accepted?
Anyway, even with all those factors, it doesn’t seem to override my points above about the difficulty for such people of taking ten weeks off, or SIAI’s past tendency to overlook such criteria. Very successful people who can basically set their own hours could spare the block of time, but wouldn’t they already have achieved what this course has to offer?
Was, but the question dodge was deliberate!
Absolutely, I don’t have an overall position to express on that one (talk to me in a few months) but your points seem valid.
I would disagree on this one. Even, say, Tim Ferris could benefit from such a program despite already being successful and having an undeniable ability to research and train himself in practical skills independently. There is a level of strategy above that required for the social phenomenon of ‘success’ which is both rare and (I assume) at least part of what would be covered by a boot camp.