I, in fact, asked a CFAR instructor in 2016-17 whether the idea was to psychologically improve yourself until you became Elon Musk, and he said “yes”. This part of the plan was the same.
Re: “this part of the plan was the same”: IMO, some at CFAR were interested in helping some subset of people become Elon Musk, but this is different from the idea that everyone is supposed to become Musk and that that is the plan. IME there was usually mostly (though not invariably, which I expect led to problems; and for all I know “usually” may also have been the case in various parts and years of Leverage) acceptance for folks who did not wish to try to change themselves much.
Yeah, I very strongly don’t endorse this as a description of CFAR’s activities or of CFAR’s goals, and I’m pretty surprised to hear that someone at CFAR said something like this (unless it was Val, in which case I’m less surprised).
Most of my probability mass is on the CFAR instructor was taking “become Elon Musk” to be a sort of generic, hyperbolic term for “become very capable.”
The person I asked was Duncan. I suggested the “Elon Musk” framing in the question. I didn’t mean it literally, I meant him as an archetypal example of an extremely capable person. That’s probably what was meant at Leverage too.
I also have zero memory of this, and it is not the sort of sentiment I recall holding in any enduring fashion, or putting forth elsewhere.
I suspect I intended my reply pretty casually/metaphorically, and would have similarly answered “yes” if someone had asked me if we were trying to improve ourselves to become any number of shorthand examples of “happy, effective, capable, and sane.”
2016 Duncan apparently thought more of Elon Musk than 2021 Duncan does.
One of the weirdest ideas in Bay Area rationalist/adjacent circles is that you become someone like e.g. Elon Musk, hyper-productive and motivated, by introspecting a ton
Re: “this part of the plan was the same”: IMO, some at CFAR were interested in helping some subset of people become Elon Musk, but this is different from the idea that everyone is supposed to become Musk and that that is the plan. IME there was usually mostly (though not invariably, which I expect led to problems; and for all I know “usually” may also have been the case in various parts and years of Leverage) acceptance for folks who did not wish to try to change themselves much.
Yeah, I very strongly don’t endorse this as a description of CFAR’s activities or of CFAR’s goals, and I’m pretty surprised to hear that someone at CFAR said something like this (unless it was Val, in which case I’m less surprised).
Most of my probability mass is on the CFAR instructor was taking “become Elon Musk” to be a sort of generic, hyperbolic term for “become very capable.”
The person I asked was Duncan. I suggested the “Elon Musk” framing in the question. I didn’t mean it literally, I meant him as an archetypal example of an extremely capable person. That’s probably what was meant at Leverage too.
I do not doubt Jessica’s report here whatsoever.
I also have zero memory of this, and it is not the sort of sentiment I recall holding in any enduring fashion, or putting forth elsewhere.
I suspect I intended my reply pretty casually/metaphorically, and would have similarly answered “yes” if someone had asked me if we were trying to improve ourselves to become any number of shorthand examples of “happy, effective, capable, and sane.”
2016 Duncan apparently thought more of Elon Musk than 2021 Duncan does.
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