CFAR’s approach of first focusing on figuring out what’s useful advice, instead of first focusing on marketing is good.
Sounds like false dilemma. How about splitting CFAR into two groups? The first group would keep inventing better and better advice (more or less what CFAR is doing now). The second group would take the current results of their research, and try to deliver it to as many people as possible. The second group would also do the marketing. (Actually, the whole current CFAR could continue to be the first group; the only necessary thing would be to cooperate with the second one.)
You should multiply the benefit from the advice by the number of people that will receive the advice.
Yeah, it’s not really a linear function. Making one person so super rational that they would build a Friendly AI and save the world may be more useful than teaching thousands of people how to organize their study time better.
But I still suspect that the CFAR approach is to a large degree influenced by “how we expect people in academia to behave”.
I actually spoke to Anna Salamon about this, and she shared that CFAR started by trying a broad outreach approach, and found it was not something they could make work. That’s when they decided to focus on workshops targeting a select group of social elites who would be able to afford their high-quality, high-priced workshops.
And I really appreciate what CFAR is doing—I’m a monthly donor. I think their targeting of founders, hackers, and other techy social elites is great! They can really improve the world through doing so. I also like their summer camps for super-smart kids, and training for Effective Altruists, too.
However, CFAR is not set up to do mass marketing, as you rightly point out. That’s part the reason we set up Intentional Insights in the first place. Anna said she looks forward to learning from what we figure out and collaborating together. Also working with ClearerThinking as well, which I described in my comment here.
teaching thousands of people how to organize their study time better.
Given the amount of akrasia in this community I’m not sure we are at a point where we have a good basis on lecturing other people about this.
Given the current urge propagtion exercise a lot of people who got it taught in person and who have the CFAR texts can’t do it successfully. Iterating on it till it reaches a form that people can take and use would be good.
But I still suspect that the CFAR approach is to a large degree influenced by “how we expect people in academia to behave”.
From my understanding CFAR doesn’t want to convince academia directly and isn’t planning on running any trials themselves at the moment that they will publish.
Actually, the whole current CFAR could continue to be the first group; the only necessary thing would be to cooperate with the second one.
I would appreciate if CFAR would publish their theories publically in writting sooner but I hope the will publish in the next year.
I don’t have access to the CFAR mailing list and I understand that they do get feedback on their writing via the mailing list at the moment.
The first group would keep inventing better and better advice (more or less what CFAR is doing now).
CFAR very recently renamed implentation intentions into Trigger Action Plans (TAP’s). If we already would have marketed implentation intentions widely as vocabulary it would be harder to change the vocabulary.
You should multiply the benefit from the advice by the number of people that will receive the advice.
Landmark reaches quite a lot of people and most of their core ideas aren’t written down in small articles. Scientology would be another organisation that tries to do most idea communication in person. It still reached a lot of people.
When doing Quantified Self community building in Germany, the people who came to our meetups mostly didn’t came because of mainstream media but other sources. It got to the point of another person telling me that giving media interviews is just for fun and not community building.
Sounds like false dilemma. How about splitting CFAR into two groups? The first group would keep inventing better and better advice (more or less what CFAR is doing now). The second group would take the current results of their research, and try to deliver it to as many people as possible. The second group would also do the marketing. (Actually, the whole current CFAR could continue to be the first group; the only necessary thing would be to cooperate with the second one.)
You should multiply the benefit from the advice by the number of people that will receive the advice.
Yeah, it’s not really a linear function. Making one person so super rational that they would build a Friendly AI and save the world may be more useful than teaching thousands of people how to organize their study time better.
But I still suspect that the CFAR approach is to a large degree influenced by “how we expect people in academia to behave”.
I actually spoke to Anna Salamon about this, and she shared that CFAR started by trying a broad outreach approach, and found it was not something they could make work. That’s when they decided to focus on workshops targeting a select group of social elites who would be able to afford their high-quality, high-priced workshops.
And I really appreciate what CFAR is doing—I’m a monthly donor. I think their targeting of founders, hackers, and other techy social elites is great! They can really improve the world through doing so. I also like their summer camps for super-smart kids, and training for Effective Altruists, too.
However, CFAR is not set up to do mass marketing, as you rightly point out. That’s part the reason we set up Intentional Insights in the first place. Anna said she looks forward to learning from what we figure out and collaborating together. Also working with ClearerThinking as well, which I described in my comment here.
Given the amount of akrasia in this community I’m not sure we are at a point where we have a good basis on lecturing other people about this.
Given the current urge propagtion exercise a lot of people who got it taught in person and who have the CFAR texts can’t do it successfully. Iterating on it till it reaches a form that people can take and use would be good.
From my understanding CFAR doesn’t want to convince academia directly and isn’t planning on running any trials themselves at the moment that they will publish.
I would appreciate if CFAR would publish their theories publically in writting sooner but I hope the will publish in the next year. I don’t have access to the CFAR mailing list and I understand that they do get feedback on their writing via the mailing list at the moment.
CFAR very recently renamed implentation intentions into Trigger Action Plans (TAP’s). If we already would have marketed implentation intentions widely as vocabulary it would be harder to change the vocabulary.
Landmark reaches quite a lot of people and most of their core ideas aren’t written down in small articles. Scientology would be another organisation that tries to do most idea communication in person. It still reached a lot of people.
When doing Quantified Self community building in Germany, the people who came to our meetups mostly didn’t came because of mainstream media but other sources. It got to the point of another person telling me that giving media interviews is just for fun and not community building.