4 ms·

Is self evaluation of one's "modus operandi" really a recipe for happiness? Not to be a smart ass, but throwing around confident statements about rationality an

Is self evaluation of one's "modus operandi" really a recipe for happiness? Not to be a smart ass, but throwing around confident statements about rationality and charging people $3,900 just smells like "Garage Scientology."

pjscott 11y ago
In general, it's a bad idea to form opinions of people from a news story about them -- sometimes accurate news doesn't make for a good story. The CFAR folks are... what's the opposite of cocksure? Epistemically cautious? Here's an illustrative example. The New York Times article says this: "[...] Afterward, participants are required to fill out an elaborate self-report, in which they’re asked to assess their own personality traits and behaviors. (A friend or family member is given a similar questionnaire to confirm the accuracy of the applicant’s self-assessment.)" What the article doesn't mention is that the reason they're giving such a questionnaire to a friend or family-member is to cut down on self-report bias in their one-year longitudinal study of whether or not they're getting real results [1]. People can trick themselves into thinking that their lives have changed for the better after spending time and money on it, and the ask-a-friend thing is an attempt by the CFAR people to avoid getting a rosy-tinted picture of their own efforts. They could get away with being a lot less honest. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/n2g/results_of_a_oneyear_longitudinal_study_of_cfar/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/n2g/results_of_a_oneyear_longitudina...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
SwellJoe 11y ago
Scientology was the ramblings of a narcissist. It emerged from many dubious sources; pop psychology, stage hypnotism, and a wide variety of other bullshit, all piled together into a reckless mass of bad ideas. What CFAR is doing is based on a reasonably solid foundation of current science. Expensive? Yes. I'm unlikely to ever pay $3900 for the program (though I can definitely see why a company might send its teams to CFAR workshops), but it isn't in any way cult-like. There's so much evidence that they're genuinely trying to evolve their program based on what works and what doesn't (the longitudinal study, the ongoing research, the very frequent sharing of what they do and how across a wide variety of media), I don't see any evidence they want to build a cult and lots of evidence they genuinely want to help people make more rational decisions and be happier because of it.

pjscott 11y ago

In general, it's a bad idea to form opinions of people from a news story about them -- sometimes accurate news doesn't make for a good story. The CFAR folks are... what's the opposite of cocksure? Epistemically cautious? Here's an illustrative example. The New York Times article says this: "[...] Afterward, participants are required to fill out an elaborate self-report, in which they’re asked to assess their own personality traits and behaviors. (A friend or family member is given a similar questionnaire to confirm the accuracy of the applicant’s self-assessment.)" What the article doesn't mention is that the reason they're giving such a questionnaire to a friend or family-member is to cut down on self-report bias in their one-year longitudinal study of whether or not they're getting real results [1]. People can trick themselves into thinking that their lives have changed for the better after spending time and money on it, and the ask-a-friend thing is an attempt by the CFAR people to avoid getting a rosy-tinted picture of their own efforts. They could get away with being a lot less honest. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/n2g/results_of_a_oneyear_longitudinal_study_of_cfar/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/n2g/results_of_a_oneyear_longitudina...

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

SwellJoe 11y ago

Scientology was the ramblings of a narcissist. It emerged from many dubious sources; pop psychology, stage hypnotism, and a wide variety of other bullshit, all piled together into a reckless mass of bad ideas. What CFAR is doing is based on a reasonably solid foundation of current science. Expensive? Yes. I'm unlikely to ever pay $3900 for the program (though I can definitely see why a company might send its teams to CFAR workshops), but it isn't in any way cult-like. There's so much evidence that they're genuinely trying to evolve their program based on what works and what doesn't (the longitudinal study, the ongoing research, the very frequent sharing of what they do and how across a wide variety of media), I don't see any evidence they want to build a cult and lots of evidence they genuinely want to help people make more rational decisions and be happier because of it.