I’m glad to hear some form of CFAR experimentation/iteration is in the offing. (For those who don’t know my handle, I’m Leah, who was a CFAR instructor/developer for a year).
To try to summarize back, it sounds like this version of CFAR has a big focus on an exploratory mindset vs an instrumentalizing mindset (e.g. insert thoughtful, driven people into workshop, output x-risk-pilled possible researchers). While I was at CFAR, it was clear that some folks in the project were working there as their best applied effort to improve X-risk (this wasn’t my reason for working there, so it did a lot less to shape my view of curriculum/participant recruitment and outcomes).
When I explained my job to people, I said I taught defensive driving for your brain (how to make the best use of your tools for reasoning + how to steer away from the circumstances where you’d be least able to reason well).
If I expanded more, and talked a little more about System 1 and System 2, I’d say that we taught about how to more explicitly understand/actively apply System 2 reasoning, and how to treat System 1 as a rich source of data that System 2 might be prone to skip over too quickly, because it isn’t well formatted as a source of input System 2 parses well.
I’m curious how well this maps on to aCFAR’s current understanding of itself. It seems like there’s a bigger emphasis on a receptive posture to the world.
I’d say that part of how I saw success for participants was
-more comfort reasoning under uncertainty
-more of a sense of where you want to lean into risk (strong EV from trying out a low cost 1 in 10 chance more often vs “that didn’t work”) that is built up by prediction market games etc
-more ability to sit curiously with conflicting impulses/desires vs reasoning only verbally and then sticking to the “right” choice no matter how much you don’t like it
I think of all of this as gaining an internal freedom to think and to act, and thus to take on more ambitious projects because you have a sense you’ll be able to navigate turbulence.
Great to hear from you; thanks for popping in! I like the thing you’re describing, re: your work at CFAR_2013, and that angle on rationality/CFAR more generally. I’d say it describes our current stuff… 5 out of 10 maybe? I agree there’s more emphasis now on receptive posture to the world (and also on tuning into taste, and the data taste brings up). I’m not sure what else to say at this moment, but I’m really glad you’re bringing your perspective in, and wanted to say that and say hi.
I’m glad to hear some form of CFAR experimentation/iteration is in the offing. (For those who don’t know my handle, I’m Leah, who was a CFAR instructor/developer for a year).
To try to summarize back, it sounds like this version of CFAR has a big focus on an exploratory mindset vs an instrumentalizing mindset (e.g. insert thoughtful, driven people into workshop, output x-risk-pilled possible researchers). While I was at CFAR, it was clear that some folks in the project were working there as their best applied effort to improve X-risk (this wasn’t my reason for working there, so it did a lot less to shape my view of curriculum/participant recruitment and outcomes).
When I explained my job to people, I said I taught defensive driving for your brain (how to make the best use of your tools for reasoning + how to steer away from the circumstances where you’d be least able to reason well).
If I expanded more, and talked a little more about System 1 and System 2, I’d say that we taught about how to more explicitly understand/actively apply System 2 reasoning, and how to treat System 1 as a rich source of data that System 2 might be prone to skip over too quickly, because it isn’t well formatted as a source of input System 2 parses well.
I’m curious how well this maps on to aCFAR’s current understanding of itself. It seems like there’s a bigger emphasis on a receptive posture to the world.
I’d say that part of how I saw success for participants was
-more comfort reasoning under uncertainty
-more of a sense of where you want to lean into risk (strong EV from trying out a low cost 1 in 10 chance more often vs “that didn’t work”) that is built up by prediction market games etc
-more ability to sit curiously with conflicting impulses/desires vs reasoning only verbally and then sticking to the “right” choice no matter how much you don’t like it
I think of all of this as gaining an internal freedom to think and to act, and thus to take on more ambitious projects because you have a sense you’ll be able to navigate turbulence.
Great to hear from you; thanks for popping in! I like the thing you’re describing, re: your work at CFAR_2013, and that angle on rationality/CFAR more generally. I’d say it describes our current stuff… 5 out of 10 maybe? I agree there’s more emphasis now on receptive posture to the world (and also on tuning into taste, and the data taste brings up). I’m not sure what else to say at this moment, but I’m really glad you’re bringing your perspective in, and wanted to say that and say hi.