A question for Eliezer, Anna or Luke: under which circumstances would you prefer people came to minicamp, and under which circumstances would you prefer people just gave that money (inc. travel) to the SI?
Not that I’m necessarily going to follow this advice, just curious which factors you think are relevant.
Vaguely related question: I’m sure I remember there being a minicamp in New York in the past (EDIT: I was wrong). What’s the expected length of time before the next east coast camp?
People seem to be getting the impression that these minicamps may be primarily fundraising opportunities for the Singularity Institute. So, by way of explanation:
At my request, our Board of Directors put Anna in charge of developing Rationality Group and gave her a separate budget for it.
Rationality Group has been developing lessons, testing them, iterating the lessons in response to feedback, researching how to run a successful non-profit in this space, networking, and hiring founding members for a couple months now.
Rationality Group hopes to learn how to run these kinds of camps without losing money. (Minicamp paid for itself as a result of future donations from minicamp participants who plausibly wouldn’t have donated nearly as much had they not had this in-person encounter with us, but we’d like to learn how to run these kinds of minicamps without losing money while not counting future donations.)
The lessons are now more tested and practiced than what we put together for minicamp, but we always appreciate opportunities to get feedback on them from additional participants.
Who knows? Maybe we’ll want to hire some of the participants to be part of our team.
Oops. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of “the people we most want to come to minicamp are the people who are most easily brainwashed into giving us money”. Sorry if I gave that impression.
I was more thinking along the lines of “when should I buy utilons, and when should I buy self-improvement in order that I can acquire more resources and/or more effectively turn resources into utilons?”
Minor point: can you clarify whether Rationality Group is the same thing as the Center for Modern Rationality?
can you clarify whether Rationality Group is the same thing as the Center for Modern Rationality?
They are the same. We’re still testing names. I’ve talked with several marketing firms, and right now my assistant is tracking down additional companies who focus on market-testing organization names.
If in doubt, apply. You can always decide to not come after being accepted, gaining info, etc. (Applying is a 10-15 minute process.)
As to money vs. minicamp: come to minicamp. Especially if you’ve had little to no in-person contact with this community before. You’ll learn more, acquire more money-making skills, make friends, and get into a better position for long-term influence. At least, that’s my impression.
We haven’t run any on the east coast; at some point we’d like to run do this, probably after refining our curriculum, growing our instructor-set, etc., but probably not in the next 12 months.
A question for Eliezer, Anna or Luke: under which circumstances would you prefer people came to minicamp, and under which circumstances would you prefer people just gave that money (inc. travel) to the SI?
Not that I’m necessarily going to follow this advice, just curious which factors you think are relevant.
Vaguely related question: I’m sure I remember there being a minicamp in New York in the past (EDIT: I was wrong). What’s the expected length of time before the next east coast camp?
People seem to be getting the impression that these minicamps may be primarily fundraising opportunities for the Singularity Institute. So, by way of explanation:
At my request, our Board of Directors put Anna in charge of developing Rationality Group and gave her a separate budget for it.
Rationality Group has been developing lessons, testing them, iterating the lessons in response to feedback, researching how to run a successful non-profit in this space, networking, and hiring founding members for a couple months now.
Rationality Group hopes to learn how to run these kinds of camps without losing money. (Minicamp paid for itself as a result of future donations from minicamp participants who plausibly wouldn’t have donated nearly as much had they not had this in-person encounter with us, but we’d like to learn how to run these kinds of minicamps without losing money while not counting future donations.)
The lessons are now more tested and practiced than what we put together for minicamp, but we always appreciate opportunities to get feedback on them from additional participants.
Who knows? Maybe we’ll want to hire some of the participants to be part of our team.
Above all, we want to start making a greater push to raise the sanity waterline, help aspiring rationalists along their journey, and help create more heroes who do cool things like ethical careers, efficient chairty, and x-risk reduction.
Oops. I wasn’t thinking along the lines of “the people we most want to come to minicamp are the people who are most easily brainwashed into giving us money”. Sorry if I gave that impression.
I was more thinking along the lines of “when should I buy utilons, and when should I buy self-improvement in order that I can acquire more resources and/or more effectively turn resources into utilons?”
Minor point: can you clarify whether Rationality Group is the same thing as the Center for Modern Rationality?
They are the same. We’re still testing names. I’ve talked with several marketing firms, and right now my assistant is tracking down additional companies who focus on market-testing organization names.
If in doubt, apply. You can always decide to not come after being accepted, gaining info, etc. (Applying is a 10-15 minute process.)
As to money vs. minicamp: come to minicamp. Especially if you’ve had little to no in-person contact with this community before. You’ll learn more, acquire more money-making skills, make friends, and get into a better position for long-term influence. At least, that’s my impression.
We haven’t run any on the east coast; at some point we’d like to run do this, probably after refining our curriculum, growing our instructor-set, etc., but probably not in the next 12 months.