Application to help with rationality curriculum design
Name
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Less Wrong username, if any
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Email address
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Phone number (optional) and city/state/country (for time zone info)
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Interested in:
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Full-time work
Hourly / part-time work
Volunteer position
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Location:
In SF bay area
Outside the area, but potentially willing to move to the bay area
Outside the area and unwilling to move
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Which of the following tasks might you be able to contribute to? Or which pieces of background do you have?
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Catchy professional writing. We need folks who can take rough-draft exercises and explanations, and make them fun to read -- at the level of published books.
Curriculum design. We need folks who can zoom in on the component skills for rationality (the analogs of throwing, catching, keeping your eye on the ball), and who can invent new exercises that systematically practice those components.
Example generation. Given an exercise, we need someone who can think of lots of specific examples from real life or important real-world domains, which illustrate the exact intended point and not something almost-like the intended point. E.g., turn "Sunk cost fallacy" into 20 story snippets like "Lara is playing poker and has bet $200 in previous rounds..."
Teaching or tutoring experience in whichever subjects (e.g., math / programming / science, martial arts / sports / dance, cognitive behavioral therapy, corporate trainings, social skills, meditation)
Technical diagram design. We need someone who can be asked for "A diagram that somehow represents the human tendency to overweight near pains relative to distant pains", understand the concept that is being conveyed, and invent a new diagram that conveys it.
Presentation design. The current intended form of a rationality kata involves a visual presentation with accompanying spoken words.
Powerpoint and Photoshop polishing. See above.
Illustration / cartooning. It would be nice if the exercises were accompanied by small, whimsical drawings. These drawings should prime the reader to both: (a) feel warmly toward the characters in the story-snippets (who will generally be struggling with rationality errors); (b) notice how ridiculous those characters, and the rest of us, are.
Social initiative enough to gather guinea pigs and run many practice trials of draft curriculum, while collecting data.
Skill at running scientific literature searches; knowledge of the heuristics and biases literature, the literature on how to teach critical thinking or rationality, neuroscience literature, or other literatures that should inform our curriculum design;
Background in game design, curriculum design, or in other disciplines that help with designing exercises that are fun and conducive to learning;
Having read and understood the core Sequences;
Having made a serious effort to train rationality skills on your own
Interested in helping design measures of rationality; (mention if you have background in psychometrics research, questionnaire design, or Stanovich's rationality work, or other relevant fields)
Up for odd jobs, data entry, tracking down info on the internet, copying and mailing booklets, ...
Other:
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Please add detail here, for how you may be able to contribute, or for what relevant background you have
E.g., if you have teaching experience, specify its nature here. If you have relevant writing on the web, include a link.
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List anything you'd like us to know about you here.
You might mention experience or past accomplishments (feel free to brag), ask questions you have about us, or say anything else. Leaving this blank is okay too.
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