All right, but there’s a fine line between shooting down self-help memes and unnecessarily discouraging project-builders from getting excited about their work. It’s not fun or helpful for a pioneer to have his or her every first step be met with boundless skepticism. Your concerns sound real enough to me, but even an honest concern can be rude, and even a rationalist can validly trade off a tiny little bit of honesty for a whole lot of politeness and sympathy.
Why do I say “a tiny little bit of honesty?” Well, if the minicamp were being billed as “finished,” “polished,” “complete,” “famous,” “proven,” or “demonstrably successful,” as many self-help programs are, then it would make sense to demand data supporting those claims.
Instead, the PR blurb says that “Starting on May 28th, the Singularity Institute ran a one-week Rationality Training Camp. Our exit survey shows that the camp was a smashing success, surpassing the expectations of the organizers and the participants.”
Leaving aside the colorful language that can and should characterize most press releases, this is a pretty weak claim: the camp beat expectations. Do you really need to see data to back that up?
All right, but there’s a fine line between shooting down self-help memes and unnecessarily discouraging project-builders from getting excited about their work. It’s not fun or helpful for a pioneer to have his or her every first step be met with boundless skepticism. Your concerns sound real enough to me, but even an honest concern can be rude, and even a rationalist can validly trade off a tiny little bit of honesty for a whole lot of politeness and sympathy.
Why do I say “a tiny little bit of honesty?” Well, if the minicamp were being billed as “finished,” “polished,” “complete,” “famous,” “proven,” or “demonstrably successful,” as many self-help programs are, then it would make sense to demand data supporting those claims.
Instead, the PR blurb says that “Starting on May 28th, the Singularity Institute ran a one-week Rationality Training Camp. Our exit survey shows that the camp was a smashing success, surpassing the expectations of the organizers and the participants.”
Leaving aside the colorful language that can and should characterize most press releases, this is a pretty weak claim: the camp beat expectations. Do you really need to see data to back that up?
“Please give us money” and “Co-organized and taught sessions for a highly successful one-week Rationality Minicamp” are stronger claims.