1 | Timestamp | Testimonial | Your Name |
|---|---|---|---|
2 | 6/4/2011 16:28:24 | I would recommend the minicamp to people who have noticed they are capable of defending a belief they no longer hold and want to learn how to prevent rationalizing. | Peter Scheyer |
3 | 6/4/2011 16:30:37 | If you're tired of just thinking about rationality and you want to start *living* it, I strongly recommend Minicamp. You get a broad survey of how to actually apply lots of incredibly useful skills, in a comfortable, friendly, stimulating environment. The neighborhood is nice, the food is tasty, the bunks are easy to sleep in, and you'll be hard-pressed to find a week-long vacation that will do as much to give you a lasting capacity to improve your life. | Jason GL / Mass_Driver |
4 | 6/4/2011 16:35:30 | The week I spent in minicamp had by far the highest density of fun and learning I have ever experienced. It's like taking two years of college and condensing it to a week: you learn just as much and you have just as much fun. The skills I've learned will help me set and achieve my own life goal, and the friends I've made will help me get there. | Alexei |
5 | 6/4/2011 16:36:00 | This was an intensely positive experience. This was easily the most powerful change self-modification I've ever made, in all of the social, intellectual, and emotional spheres. I'm now a more powerful person than I was a week ago -- and I can explain exactly how and why this is true. At mini-camp, I've learned techniques for effective self-modification -- that is, I have a much deeper understanding of how to change my desires, gather my willpower, channel my time and cognitive resources, and model and handle previously confusing situations. What's more, I have a fairly clear map of how to build these skills henceforth, and how to inculcate them in others. And all this was presented in such a way that any sufficiently analytical folk -- anyone who has understood a few of the LW sequences, say -- can gain in extreme measures. | Matt Elder; fiddlemath |
6 | 6/4/2011 16:58:59 | I expected a week of interesting things and some useful tools to take away. What I got was 8 days of constant, deep learning, challenges to my limits that helped me grow. I finally grokked that I can and should optimize myself on every dimension I care about, that practice and reinforcement can make me a better thinker, and that I can change very quickly when I'm not constrained by artificial barriers or stress. I would not recommend doing something like this right before another super-busy week, because I was learning at 100% of capacity and will need a lot of time to unpack all the things I learned and apply them to my life, but I came away with a clear plan for becoming better. It is now a normal and easy thing for me to try things out, test my beliefs, and self-improve. And I'm likely to be much more effective at making the world a better place as well, by prioritizing without fear. The material was all soundly-researched and effectively taught, with extremely helpful supplemental exercises and activities. The instructors were very helpful in and out of session. The other participants were excited, engaged, challenging, and supportive. I look forward to sharing what I've learned with my local Lesswrong meetup and others in the area. If that's even 1/4 as awesome as my time at the Mini-Camp, it will make our lives *much* better. | Ben Hoffman / Benquo |
7 | 6/5/2011 19:16:24 | Anyone interested in actively becoming a better rationalist, and a better more effective person, would be well served to attend this program or any similar one held by The Singularity Institute. The quality of the information to be had and the practical methods I learned from the instructors, the attendees, and even temporary guests was astounding. The variety of novel but highly intelligent viewpoints presented gave any topic discussed more depth than I could have achieved anywhere else. I learned many concrete methods for using rationality skills, such that I am confident I will be able to quickly become more rational in everyday life, and make decisions that are as near optimal as possible- attending this event has given me superpowers. I was very surprised at how quickly and consistently the quality of lessons exceeded my original expectations. I would be willing to have spent a week of my time to get the benefits I did from any two of the days I spent here. I honestly expect to remember this week for the rest of my life- if I become wildly successful, there's a very good chance that I will look back and see this week as the point where everything changed for the better. | jschulter |
8 | 6/6/2011 18:33:46 | I really can't recommend this camp enough! This workshop broke down a complex and intertwined set of skills labelled in my brain as "common sense" and distinguished each part so that I could work on them separately. Sessions on motivation, cognition, and what habits to build to not fool yourself were particularly helpful. This camp was also the first example that I've seen of people taking current cognitive science and other research, decoding it, and showing people what's been documented to work so that they can use it too. It feels to me now as though the coolest parts of the sequences have been given specific exercises and habits to build off of. This camp, and the people in it, have changed my path for the better. | David Jones |
9 | 6/6/2011 21:11:37 | Rationality mini-camp with the Singularity Institute was absolutely amazing. I highly recommend it to anyone in the rationalist community - working with friends on the great unsolved problem of how to think was a life-changing experience. On the path to becoming stronger, comrades are always welcome. Instruction was excellent, with many opportunities for feedback. Even if you've read the Sequences six times, group discussion and practice exercises will bring your understanding to a level you haven't seen before. We also covered topics of interest for applying our rationality, like AI risk. The instructors and participants were both indispensable for finding nonmysterious answers to my questions. The social effectiveness sessions were shockingly useful. I witnessed at least five mini-camp members exit with an insane new wardrobe and a fearless perspective on social interaction. I left mini-camp with a deeper understanding of rationality, a massive list of motivation techniques and rationality-building exercises, and 30 great friends (instructors included!). I have never felt so intellectually alive in my life. I do not say this lightly... but if you're looking for superpowers, this is the place to start. | Michael Curzi |
10 | 6/7/2011 18:06:34 | Not only was this camp an absolute blast, but I have gained major new skills. I've learned to understand my emotional motivation and thought processes better, how to interact more effectively with other people and how to have more effective goals. | John Salvatier |