It is a good justification for this behavior, but it does not seem to be the most rational choice. Indeed, one could specify that the participant of the online workshop must have a private space (own bedroom, office, hotel room, remote place in a park—whatever fits). I am pretty sure there is a significant number of people, who would prefer an online workshop to the offline one (especially when all offline are canceled due to COVID), and who have or can find a private space for the duration of the workshop. To say that we are not doing it because some people do not have privacy is like for the restaurant to stop offer meat to everyone because there are vegans among customers. Of course, online workshop is not for everyone, but there are people for whom it would work.
It is a good justification for this behavior, but it does not seem to be the most rational choice.
That’s not what “rational” is about.
To know whether their decision is rational you would have to compare it to the alternative choices. Holding a workshop has an opportunity cost. If CFAR is not holding a workshop they are doing something else with the time.
I don’t have a good idea what CFAR did in the time they didn’t hold workshops but without knowing that you can’t make any decision about whether holding online workshops would have been better then what they did.
I am pretty sure there is a significant number of people, who would prefer an online workshop to the offline one
That’s mostly irrelevant given the goals that CFAR has. It would be toxic to make a decision on that basis given that “giving people what they prefer” and “giving people what will improve their rationality” are two different very things. There are a lot of personal development workshops who’s makers focus on the former. CFAR doesn’t.
To say that we are not doing it because some people do not have privacy is like for the restaurant to stop offer meat to everyone because there are vegans among customers.
As far as high end restaurants go, high end restaurants don’t let people order from multiple options. Attempting to give everybody different options is cheap low end and mid level restaurants do.
Apart from that a restaurant is a business that sells products to make a profit on selling products. That’s very far from what CFAR is.
I can understand your point, but I am not persuaded yet. Let me maybe clarify why. During the year and a half of COVID, the in-person workshops were not possible. During this time, there were people, who would strongly benefit from the workshop, and the workshop would be helpful at this time (for example, they were making a career choice). Some of them can allow private places for the time of the workshop. It seems that for them, during this time the online workshop would be certainly more beneficial than no workshop at all. Moreover, conducting at least one online workshop would be a good experiment that would give useful information. It is totally not obvious to me why the priors that “online workshop is useless or harmful, taking into account opportunity cost” are so high that this experiment should not be conducted.
Yes, I hope someone from CFAR can maybe explain it better to me.
It is a good justification for this behavior, but it does not seem to be the most rational choice. Indeed, one could specify that the participant of the online workshop must have a private space (own bedroom, office, hotel room, remote place in a park—whatever fits). I am pretty sure there is a significant number of people, who would prefer an online workshop to the offline one (especially when all offline are canceled due to COVID), and who have or can find a private space for the duration of the workshop. To say that we are not doing it because some people do not have privacy is like for the restaurant to stop offer meat to everyone because there are vegans among customers. Of course, online workshop is not for everyone, but there are people for whom it would work.
That’s not what “rational” is about.
To know whether their decision is rational you would have to compare it to the alternative choices. Holding a workshop has an opportunity cost. If CFAR is not holding a workshop they are doing something else with the time.
I don’t have a good idea what CFAR did in the time they didn’t hold workshops but without knowing that you can’t make any decision about whether holding online workshops would have been better then what they did.
That’s mostly irrelevant given the goals that CFAR has. It would be toxic to make a decision on that basis given that “giving people what they prefer” and “giving people what will improve their rationality” are two different very things. There are a lot of personal development workshops who’s makers focus on the former. CFAR doesn’t.
As far as high end restaurants go, high end restaurants don’t let people order from multiple options. Attempting to give everybody different options is cheap low end and mid level restaurants do.
Apart from that a restaurant is a business that sells products to make a profit on selling products. That’s very far from what CFAR is.
I can understand your point, but I am not persuaded yet. Let me maybe clarify why. During the year and a half of COVID, the in-person workshops were not possible. During this time, there were people, who would strongly benefit from the workshop, and the workshop would be helpful at this time (for example, they were making a career choice). Some of them can allow private places for the time of the workshop. It seems that for them, during this time the online workshop would be certainly more beneficial than no workshop at all. Moreover, conducting at least one online workshop would be a good experiment that would give useful information. It is totally not obvious to me why the priors that “online workshop is useless or harmful, taking into account opportunity cost” are so high that this experiment should not be conducted.
Yes, I hope someone from CFAR can maybe explain it better to me.