I don’t know if I’m part of who Eliezer heard, but I’m planning on trying to start a rationality training group on Saturdays in the SF bay area, for middle and high school students with exceptional mathematical ability. I want to create a community that thinks about thinking, considers which kinds of thinking work for particular tasks (e.g., scientific progress; making friends), and learns to think in ways that work. The reason I’m focusing on kids with exceptional mathematical ability is that I’m hoping some of them will go on to do the kind of careful science humanity needs, with the rationality to actually see what actually helps. The aim is not so much to teach rationality knowledge, since AFAICT the “art of human rationality” is mostly a network of plausible guesswork at this point, but to get people aiming, experimenting, measuring, and practicing in a community, sharing results, trying to figure out what works and actually trying the best ideas (real practice; community resistance to akrasia). With some mundane math teaching mixed in.
As to “day job” credentials, I’ve had unusual success teaching mathematical thinking (does this count as “day job”? at least math teaching success is measurable by, say, the students’ performance on calculus exams), bachelor degrees in math and “great books”, and two or three years’ experience doing scientific research in various contexts. I don’t know if this would put me above or below Eliezer’s suggested bar to a stranger.
My secret identity just says that some combination of you and Michael Vassar thought I was worth taking a chance on. I was trying to do some analog of cross-validation, where we ask whether someone who was basically following your procedure but who didn’t know me or have particular faith in your or Michael Vassar’s judgment, would think it okay for me to try teaching. I was figuring that your focus on day job impressiveness was an attempt to get away from handed-down lineages of legitimacy / “true to the Real Teachings”ness, which Objectivism or martial arts traditions or religions sometimes degenerate into.
Really? If it’s not too private, who’s been discussing it?
I don’t know if I’m part of who Eliezer heard, but I’m planning on trying to start a rationality training group on Saturdays in the SF bay area, for middle and high school students with exceptional mathematical ability. I want to create a community that thinks about thinking, considers which kinds of thinking work for particular tasks (e.g., scientific progress; making friends), and learns to think in ways that work. The reason I’m focusing on kids with exceptional mathematical ability is that I’m hoping some of them will go on to do the kind of careful science humanity needs, with the rationality to actually see what actually helps. The aim is not so much to teach rationality knowledge, since AFAICT the “art of human rationality” is mostly a network of plausible guesswork at this point, but to get people aiming, experimenting, measuring, and practicing in a community, sharing results, trying to figure out what works and actually trying the best ideas (real practice; community resistance to akrasia). With some mundane math teaching mixed in.
As to “day job” credentials, I’ve had unusual success teaching mathematical thinking (does this count as “day job”? at least math teaching success is measurable by, say, the students’ performance on calculus exams), bachelor degrees in math and “great books”, and two or three years’ experience doing scientific research in various contexts. I don’t know if this would put me above or below Eliezer’s suggested bar to a stranger.
How has this project been going?
You’re focusing on easy-to-verify credentials of the sort you’d list on a resume to be hired by some skeptical HR person. You have a secret identity.
My secret identity just says that some combination of you and Michael Vassar thought I was worth taking a chance on. I was trying to do some analog of cross-validation, where we ask whether someone who was basically following your procedure but who didn’t know me or have particular faith in your or Michael Vassar’s judgment, would think it okay for me to try teaching. I was figuring that your focus on day job impressiveness was an attempt to get away from handed-down lineages of legitimacy / “true to the Real Teachings”ness, which Objectivism or martial arts traditions or religions sometimes degenerate into.
More of an attempt to make sure that people write instead of just doing literary criticism.
Got it. Sorry; I think I rounded you to the nearest cliche, maybe because of the emotional reaction you suggested some of us might be having.