I think that how “connected to reality” scientists are has to do with this trend.
In older times, being a scientist or an engineer meant being able to exert real, measurable, almost magical force upon your (and people around your’s) surroundings. You made a bridge come to existence, you created a vaccine.
Nowadays, being a scientist or an engineer is associated with spending long days holed up in a room doing work which is incredibly complex and expensive, yet does not seem to create net benefit except in rare occasions. Furthermore, this isolation is considered to reduce social aptitude (which is high-status). Compare this to people with capital or social skills, who can almost magically navigate and cause things to happen in our modern very-social world.
The two castes of scientists or engineers which can still “make things happen” are the mad scientist (going against social rules) or the startupist (and his friend, the DIY Maker), and from my local zeitgeist, they are considered positions with status.
Also, this trend is supported by the fact that (As Mitchell_Porter pointed out) scientists get payed to research obscure subjects with questionable value to the world at large. I’m not saying this is bad, but I’m saying that it makes people correlate scientists with obscure subjects.
And how do we fix it? I have two ideas (both of which I actively pursue, and (I believe) let me enjoy a high status life as an engineer and science-lover (Given, I live in Tel Aviv, Israel, where engineers and scientists (I feel) are higher status than the US).
Gain actual real-world power. (Either via capital, social skills, connections, or applicable real-world skillsets)
Use your advantage as a scientist to make people’s lives better in the real world. (Make stuff! Explain stuff!)
PROFIT (Please! No! Not the lol tax!)
Yes, this isn’t as rewarding as learning more about your favorite subject and requires taking risks, but (and sadly I can’t find the reference for this right now) doing hard, risky, not very rewarding work is in itself a way to create status.
Or, in other words, go out and do stuff :) We’ll all benefit from it.
tl;dr—I went to the July minicamp, met interesting, ambitious people and am still applying things I learnt at camp months later to a subjectively great effect. Also, instructors and speakers were good, the food was good and I had lots of fun.
I went to a previous CFAR camp, and so can help give evidence regarding how helpful this might be from my personal experience. (I am not affiliated with CFAR).
I signed up for the July minicamp, not really knowing what to expect (and flying half-way around the world to get there). Having gone, I’m very happy that I did (although that might just be me rationalizing my choice). Here are some things that are more objective that happened (Note: That camp had a different syllabus than the workshop):
I learned new skills I use every day. For Example—Curiosity (I think about how to be more curious often), Value of information and micro-econ related things (Which I now use to convince my friends to do research before buying expensive things and gauge how much effort to put into negotiating with clients), habit forming and how to have more rational discussions. Its hard to assess whether they brought me a significant improvement (I don’t know how life would be not knowing them), but for the more concrete ones (GTD, Anki) the results are immediate. I feel that the fuzzier ones are also helping me (measured for example by how I feel better when using them compared to not) - but that’s harder to say for sure.
I met a diverse group of people. Some of them I would call ambitious, and most I would call interesting, but that’s a judgment call. They did include managers of small companies, programmers, software freelancers, scientists of various fields, journalists and a movie producer. Also, I think I gained from talking to every single one of them. I am still in touch with a couple of them.
I learned about X-Risk. While I am very into the instrumental rationality area of Less Wrong, I was never very sold on the FAI-Cryo subjects, and at camp I got to talk to smart people with opinions different than mine and explore the subject. I am still not sold, btw.
I learned about subjects outside curriculum, from neuroscience to professional poker. This came from casual discussions with other participants.
I had lots of fun. Hanging out with cool, smart, rationality minded people is awesome.
From a personal perspective the CFAR staff did a tremendous job. The speakers were good at speaking, prepared and cared about their material. The camp instructors were constantly available to talk to one-on-one and were knowledgeable and passionate about rationality in general and improving me as a camp-goer specifically. The environment was clean and the food was good. (I think the workshop is in a different venue, so no guarantees on the food :) )
Again, all in all I am very happy that I went and think it was a good investment. This doesn’t mean you should go—but given that you are similar to me (analytic, loves instrumental rationality, software entrepreneur, doesn’t already know the subject matter, doesn’t hang out with lots of rationalists day to day, social), I would give an over 50% probability that you would be happy that you did.