Postscript first: I’m interested, and I would like to see you succeed. At my present level of information, I am pessimistic about your chances of success and my desire to attend.
10 weeks is a massive time commitment. That’s as long as actual basic. Do you have a plan for all that time, or or is that just why you picked that number?
Because at 6 days a week at 11 hours a day (presuming you use the same time as basic) for 10 weeks, you’re looking at 660 hours of training. I can see how you can fill 660 hours with exercise and drills; it’s not clear to me mental or group exercises scale similarly.
The comparison to what colleges would do if they tried to teach you how to think seems off. The standard college course represents 42 hours of in-class time; summer courses do that at 14 hours a week for 3 weeks. You’re proposing a college course and a half’s worth of class time per week, for 10 weeks. Now, that’s possibly doable- especially if what you’re doing is more like pushups and less like absorbing lectures- but a proof of concept seems like a good plan.
I’m also curious about the “next level of awesome” line. What’s your current level of awesome? Do any of the instructors have experience as drill sergeants or instructors? Have you done similar programs? You mention the visiting fellows but the only obvious carryover is “we know how to pay for travel/accommodations.” When you say “speedbumps,” what sort of things are you talking about? I’m imagining: running out of material three weeks in, the instructor resigning because of burnout, being unable to actually admit international students because of immigration concerns, critical staff becoming ill, having trouble securing a location, students withdrawing, and that’s probably enough for now. How do our imaginations differ?
I’m also curious about how you select the curriculum. I can see how learning to draw is useful, but it’s not clear to me that it’s useful enough for everyone to learn it as part of basic. Is it rationality training or life-enjoyment training? How will you deal with people who are uninterested or unwilling to engage in some of the training?
My suggestion: any complex system that works derives from a simple system that works. A 1-week training program will help you figure out many of the speed bumps that could derail a 10-week training program. A 2-week program will be feasible for people who need to take vacation time to be able to attend, while still allowing you enough time to develop several skills. It also makes it easier to experiment with structure: do people learn to draw better when they do it for an hour a day for 2 weeks, or 4 3 hour blocks spread over 2 days? Instead of changing midway through, you run two separate camps and can compare the results.
Also, it’s not boot camp unless a man in uniform is shouting at me. :3
What are you going to do about sleep? The 9:30P − 5A schedule the US Army uses? A 3A-12N schedule? Will you schedule night owls and morning larks differently, or force everyone to be one type?
One of the intentions of boot camp is shared suffering. The last line of the parent comment was sort of a joke, but the more I think about it the more serious it is. Hazing actually increases group strength, and one of basic’s functions is as a giant hazing program. Drill sergeants are trained to be hateable in a precise way. Is shared suffering one of your goals? Are you skilled at controlling how you make other people suffer?
Suffering is a big part of being a soldier and being physically active, but not necessarily part of being a rationalist and being mentally active. Will you keep that for the group effects, or try and make the process as pleasant as possible? Is rationality training something that goes better when you force it, like physical training or unit cohesion, or something that goes worse when you force it? Will you try to manage/preserve the curiosity of students, and how? How skilled are you at detecting and manipulating the bounds of human endurance?
Is there a reason you picked boot camp (training to become a soldier) as a model instead of novice or postulant in the Bayesian Order (training to become a monk)? Monks do the things you mention, and tend to have a more recognizably mental focus than soldiers, and seem much like a much more obvious model.
I’ve gone twice to IHS seminars (applications close in a week!), and greatly enjoyed the experience. They’re week-long, with 4 105 minute lectures a day, lots of discussion time, and a nightly social that supposedly ends at midnight, before (optional) breakfast the next morning at 8. The other students are great, and I still keep up with several that I’ve met there, but the professors are the real draw. The slogan is “sleep less and think more,” and it’s clear by the end of the week that the pace isn’t sustainable (the middle day has a free afternoon which I use to catch up on sleep, so I tend to be better off than most).
I still can’t get over the time. 10 weeks is basic combat training. 10 weeks is Y Combinator (and they’re the same 10 weeks). 10 weeks is two summer sessions at college, or almost a full long semester. 660 hours at California’s minimum wage is $5,280. A 10-week communal experience is a good format for many things, but I don’t yet see why it’s a good format for rationality training, and risking that much time on something under someone else’s control seems risky at best.
I agree with Vaniver about the time commitment issue. Even ignoring being able to find things for people to do for all that time, and accounting for burnout, and similar troubles, there remains the problem that ten weeks is a sizeable portion of someone’s life. Most people, especially those who work during the summer, will have a lot of difficulty putting their lives on hold for two and a half months.
At this point in my life, I could not sacrifice a summer of job experience (and the money I would earn from that). I would be happy, ecstatic even, to attend something like this for one, maybe two, weeks, but ten is simply too much time. Running shorter workshops would also let you do some research, and iron out the wrinkles before you try something on this scale.
I appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish, and it’s a great idea, and a valiant effort, but I think you’re going too big, too fast.
(Disclaimer: As a past SIAI Visiting Fellow and current Bay Area resident, I’ve talked to Jasen about his plans, but do not speak for him or SIAI.)
I think you may be overextending the “boot camp” analogy a bit beyond the intended connotations of organization/discipline/intensity. That said:
Suffering is a big part of being a soldier and being physically active, but not necessarily part of being a rationalist and being mentally active.
Doing anything hard often involves fear, frustration, self-doubt, disapproval, sacrifice, and other sorts of pain. Not suffering in response to these signals, and not letting them overly sway your actions (giving up too soon, or not doing scary things) is really useful. Make no mistake, the intent of the course is not just to train theoretical rationality, but to enable people to do hard and meaningful things.
(I don’t mean to say that causing suffering is an intended part of the course, just to state why I think learning to withstand pain is more important to becoming a formidable rationalist than it sounds like you do.)
Will you keep that for the group effects, or try and make the process as pleasant as possible? Is rationality training something that goes better when you force it, like physical training or unit cohesion, or something that goes worse when you force it? Will you try to manage/preserve the curiosity of students, and how? How skilled are you at detecting and manipulating the bounds of human endurance?
I don’t mean to say that causing suffering is an intended part of the course, just to state why I think learning to withstand pain is more important to becoming a formidable rationalist than it sounds like you do.
I agree with you that it is very important and a very valuable skill. What I was trying to get across is that the suffering faced by a solider and a rationalist are different kinds of suffering, and the same strategies may not be effective. Does the ability to continue pumping iron, despite your screaming muscles, translate into the ability to speak in public, despite your screaming brain?
Does the ability to continue pumping iron, despite your screaming muscles, translate into the ability to speak in public, despite your screaming brain?
Interesting. I haven’t had any fear of public speaking, and so I don’t know what it’s like to overcome it (while I do have difficulty motivating myself to continue exercising). Are there other mental fears / obstacles that seem like good examples?
I guess ‘noticing a bias’ might be an entirely orthogonal skill, but I’m not sure if that’s applicable.
Mind you I wouldn’t call pumping iron despite your screaming muscles a particularly efficient way to improve your ability to speak in public despite your screaming brain. But it certainly helps. Some relevant mediating factors:
Improved willpower and self control.
Decreased salience of psychological distress—you can feel the discomfort without it needing to control or define you.
Increased testosterone levels promote social risk-taking.
Physical conditioning increases self esteem—your perception of your own status. The instinct to not draw public attention—and not place yourself above your station—is intrinsically linked to your relative status levels.
Exercise changes posture. Even things as simple as standing differently change how difficult public speaking is!
Regarding your comments on “shared suffering,” increasing group strength, I find it interesting that the original poster mentions, “And then at the end, some of us are going to go to Burning Man for training in desert survival and living in an emotionally positive community.” I have heard many people comment that the shared hardships of the Playa (dust storms, wild temperature swings, alkaline corrosion of everything around, and paralyzing post-rain mud, to name a few) are much of what makes the community work as well as it does. Having attended last year, I’m inclined to agree, but would love to understand more concretely (data, research, …) what aspects, if any, of Burner culture (gifting, for example?) can be causally linked to shared hardship.
Back on topic, wouldn’t this be a great chance for a study on shared hardship? Put half of the participants on the top floor of a leaky dorm with no elevator and old, crummy utilities, and the other half in cushy appartments… maybe change locations halfway through, so the “advantage” is reversed.
Though I guess with only 10-15 participants, the amount of useful data will be limited.
In any case, if the organizers doesn’t already know about the cohesion-inducing effects of shared hardship, they may well learn about them at Burning Man...
It seems likely to me that people invest more in friends when things are going poorly because that’s when friends are more valuable. When you’re in a desert, you probably realize on some level that foraging is a bad strategy and you are a hairless primate dependent on the other hairless primates around you. But I don’t know a way to test that explanation.
I can see how learning to draw is useful, but it’s not clear to me that it’s useful enough for everyone to learn it as part of basic.
Do you have other suggestions for “learn[ing] how to pay attention to previously unnoticed details, and see[ing] that they can do things that previously seemed like mysterious superpowers”?
I am skeptical of its value for the second one- but that’s because I’m not directly familiar with art instruction. All of the people I know who can draw are artists who have been drawing without instruction for thousands of hours more than they have been drawing with instruction, and while I am aware that almost anyone can learn how to draw competently I don’t how long it takes to learn under instruction. If it could be done in a few days, or an hour’s practice each day for ten weeks, then it would probably be worthwhile as a confidence-building measure. But it’s not clear to me that it’s a better confidence-building measure than alternatives.
And that’s my main point- not “I don’t think that X is a good plan” but “I don’t see enough reason to accept your judgment on this issue.” What alternatives did they consider to drawing? How did they consider them? How did they decide what fraction of their time should be spent on confidence-building, and what fraction should be spent on rationality-building?
Postscript first: I’m interested, and I would like to see you succeed. At my present level of information, I am pessimistic about your chances of success and my desire to attend.
10 weeks is a massive time commitment. That’s as long as actual basic. Do you have a plan for all that time, or or is that just why you picked that number?
Because at 6 days a week at 11 hours a day (presuming you use the same time as basic) for 10 weeks, you’re looking at 660 hours of training. I can see how you can fill 660 hours with exercise and drills; it’s not clear to me mental or group exercises scale similarly.
The comparison to what colleges would do if they tried to teach you how to think seems off. The standard college course represents 42 hours of in-class time; summer courses do that at 14 hours a week for 3 weeks. You’re proposing a college course and a half’s worth of class time per week, for 10 weeks. Now, that’s possibly doable- especially if what you’re doing is more like pushups and less like absorbing lectures- but a proof of concept seems like a good plan.
I’m also curious about the “next level of awesome” line. What’s your current level of awesome? Do any of the instructors have experience as drill sergeants or instructors? Have you done similar programs? You mention the visiting fellows but the only obvious carryover is “we know how to pay for travel/accommodations.” When you say “speedbumps,” what sort of things are you talking about? I’m imagining: running out of material three weeks in, the instructor resigning because of burnout, being unable to actually admit international students because of immigration concerns, critical staff becoming ill, having trouble securing a location, students withdrawing, and that’s probably enough for now. How do our imaginations differ?
I’m also curious about how you select the curriculum. I can see how learning to draw is useful, but it’s not clear to me that it’s useful enough for everyone to learn it as part of basic. Is it rationality training or life-enjoyment training? How will you deal with people who are uninterested or unwilling to engage in some of the training?
My suggestion: any complex system that works derives from a simple system that works. A 1-week training program will help you figure out many of the speed bumps that could derail a 10-week training program. A 2-week program will be feasible for people who need to take vacation time to be able to attend, while still allowing you enough time to develop several skills. It also makes it easier to experiment with structure: do people learn to draw better when they do it for an hour a day for 2 weeks, or 4 3 hour blocks spread over 2 days? Instead of changing midway through, you run two separate camps and can compare the results.
Also, it’s not boot camp unless a man in uniform is shouting at me. :3
More thoughts:
What are you going to do about sleep? The 9:30P − 5A schedule the US Army uses? A 3A-12N schedule? Will you schedule night owls and morning larks differently, or force everyone to be one type?
One of the intentions of boot camp is shared suffering. The last line of the parent comment was sort of a joke, but the more I think about it the more serious it is. Hazing actually increases group strength, and one of basic’s functions is as a giant hazing program. Drill sergeants are trained to be hateable in a precise way. Is shared suffering one of your goals? Are you skilled at controlling how you make other people suffer?
Suffering is a big part of being a soldier and being physically active, but not necessarily part of being a rationalist and being mentally active. Will you keep that for the group effects, or try and make the process as pleasant as possible? Is rationality training something that goes better when you force it, like physical training or unit cohesion, or something that goes worse when you force it? Will you try to manage/preserve the curiosity of students, and how? How skilled are you at detecting and manipulating the bounds of human endurance?
Is there a reason you picked boot camp (training to become a soldier) as a model instead of novice or postulant in the Bayesian Order (training to become a monk)? Monks do the things you mention, and tend to have a more recognizably mental focus than soldiers, and seem much like a much more obvious model.
I’ve gone twice to IHS seminars (applications close in a week!), and greatly enjoyed the experience. They’re week-long, with 4 105 minute lectures a day, lots of discussion time, and a nightly social that supposedly ends at midnight, before (optional) breakfast the next morning at 8. The other students are great, and I still keep up with several that I’ve met there, but the professors are the real draw. The slogan is “sleep less and think more,” and it’s clear by the end of the week that the pace isn’t sustainable (the middle day has a free afternoon which I use to catch up on sleep, so I tend to be better off than most).
I still can’t get over the time. 10 weeks is basic combat training. 10 weeks is Y Combinator (and they’re the same 10 weeks). 10 weeks is two summer sessions at college, or almost a full long semester. 660 hours at California’s minimum wage is $5,280. A 10-week communal experience is a good format for many things, but I don’t yet see why it’s a good format for rationality training, and risking that much time on something under someone else’s control seems risky at best.
I agree with Vaniver about the time commitment issue. Even ignoring being able to find things for people to do for all that time, and accounting for burnout, and similar troubles, there remains the problem that ten weeks is a sizeable portion of someone’s life. Most people, especially those who work during the summer, will have a lot of difficulty putting their lives on hold for two and a half months.
At this point in my life, I could not sacrifice a summer of job experience (and the money I would earn from that). I would be happy, ecstatic even, to attend something like this for one, maybe two, weeks, but ten is simply too much time. Running shorter workshops would also let you do some research, and iron out the wrinkles before you try something on this scale.
I appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish, and it’s a great idea, and a valiant effort, but I think you’re going too big, too fast.
(Disclaimer: As a past SIAI Visiting Fellow and current Bay Area resident, I’ve talked to Jasen about his plans, but do not speak for him or SIAI.)
I think you may be overextending the “boot camp” analogy a bit beyond the intended connotations of organization/discipline/intensity. That said:
Doing anything hard often involves fear, frustration, self-doubt, disapproval, sacrifice, and other sorts of pain. Not suffering in response to these signals, and not letting them overly sway your actions (giving up too soon, or not doing scary things) is really useful. Make no mistake, the intent of the course is not just to train theoretical rationality, but to enable people to do hard and meaningful things.
(I don’t mean to say that causing suffering is an intended part of the course, just to state why I think learning to withstand pain is more important to becoming a formidable rationalist than it sounds like you do.)
These are good questions.
I agree with you that it is very important and a very valuable skill. What I was trying to get across is that the suffering faced by a solider and a rationalist are different kinds of suffering, and the same strategies may not be effective. Does the ability to continue pumping iron, despite your screaming muscles, translate into the ability to speak in public, despite your screaming brain?
Thanks!
Yes.
Interesting. I haven’t had any fear of public speaking, and so I don’t know what it’s like to overcome it (while I do have difficulty motivating myself to continue exercising). Are there other mental fears / obstacles that seem like good examples?
I guess ‘noticing a bias’ might be an entirely orthogonal skill, but I’m not sure if that’s applicable.
Mind you I wouldn’t call pumping iron despite your screaming muscles a particularly efficient way to improve your ability to speak in public despite your screaming brain. But it certainly helps. Some relevant mediating factors:
Improved willpower and self control.
Decreased salience of psychological distress—you can feel the discomfort without it needing to control or define you.
Increased testosterone levels promote social risk-taking.
Physical conditioning increases self esteem—your perception of your own status. The instinct to not draw public attention—and not place yourself above your station—is intrinsically linked to your relative status levels.
Exercise changes posture. Even things as simple as standing differently change how difficult public speaking is!
Regarding your comments on “shared suffering,” increasing group strength, I find it interesting that the original poster mentions, “And then at the end, some of us are going to go to Burning Man for training in desert survival and living in an emotionally positive community.” I have heard many people comment that the shared hardships of the Playa (dust storms, wild temperature swings, alkaline corrosion of everything around, and paralyzing post-rain mud, to name a few) are much of what makes the community work as well as it does. Having attended last year, I’m inclined to agree, but would love to understand more concretely (data, research, …) what aspects, if any, of Burner culture (gifting, for example?) can be causally linked to shared hardship.
Back on topic, wouldn’t this be a great chance for a study on shared hardship? Put half of the participants on the top floor of a leaky dorm with no elevator and old, crummy utilities, and the other half in cushy appartments… maybe change locations halfway through, so the “advantage” is reversed.
Though I guess with only 10-15 participants, the amount of useful data will be limited.
In any case, if the organizers doesn’t already know about the cohesion-inducing effects of shared hardship, they may well learn about them at Burning Man...
It seems likely to me that people invest more in friends when things are going poorly because that’s when friends are more valuable. When you’re in a desert, you probably realize on some level that foraging is a bad strategy and you are a hairless primate dependent on the other hairless primates around you. But I don’t know a way to test that explanation.
Also, is there an alternate subject for people who already know how to draw?
Do you have other suggestions for “learn[ing] how to pay attention to previously unnoticed details, and see[ing] that they can do things that previously seemed like mysterious superpowers”?
Not at the moment.
I am skeptical of its value for the second one- but that’s because I’m not directly familiar with art instruction. All of the people I know who can draw are artists who have been drawing without instruction for thousands of hours more than they have been drawing with instruction, and while I am aware that almost anyone can learn how to draw competently I don’t how long it takes to learn under instruction. If it could be done in a few days, or an hour’s practice each day for ten weeks, then it would probably be worthwhile as a confidence-building measure. But it’s not clear to me that it’s a better confidence-building measure than alternatives.
And that’s my main point- not “I don’t think that X is a good plan” but “I don’t see enough reason to accept your judgment on this issue.” What alternatives did they consider to drawing? How did they consider them? How did they decide what fraction of their time should be spent on confidence-building, and what fraction should be spent on rationality-building?