- Maybe CFAR workshop requires full embedding with no distraction?
This is fairly close. Zoom has some distractions that limit its ability to fully replace being in the same room with people. More importantly, CFAR depends on a social environment where it feels safe to question how rational you currently are. That safety might be compromised by taking a workshop while staying in a house with people who aren't actively promoting the right kind of curiosity. I haven't talked with CFAR people about this in the past few years, but it's at least a rough explanation of their original reasons.
For me, concern about "taking a workshop while staying in a house with people who aren't actively promoting the right kind of curiosity" rings really loud alarm bells.
It is a good justification for this behavior, but it does not seem to be the most rational choice. Indeed, one could specify that the participant of the online workshop must have a private space (own bedroom, office, hotel room, remote place in a park - whatever fits). I am pretty sure there is a significant number of people, who would prefer an online workshop to the offline one (especially when all offline are canceled due to COVID), and who have or can find a private space for the duration of the workshop. To say that we are not doing it because some pe...
I take my guess from what I know by speaking with CFAR people. An answer from CFAR directly would likely tell you more.
The goal of a CFAR workshop is not just teaching individual techniques but giving people agency about how the think. The shared group spirit helps with that. That sense of being together is less strong with an online event and thus it's harder to reach people at that deep level.
I agree that for some people physical contact (like hugs, handshaking etc.) indeed means a lot. However, it is not for everyone. Moreover, even if the online workshop is less effective due to lack of this spirit, is it indeed so ineffective that it is worse than no workshop at all? Finally, why just not to try? It sounds like a thing that should be tried at least one time, and if it fails - well, then we see that it fails.
Yes, I hope someone who attended CFAR (or even somehow related to it) would see this question and give their answer.
The particular instruments are not the point.
When asked whether CFAR wanted to collaborate of scientifically validating their instruments, the answer I heard was that CFAR doesn't because it doesn't consider the instruments of central importance but considers giving people agency about changing their own thinking process of central importance.
There are many aspects of Lifespring. If I look at the Wikipedia page it suggests that they tried to maximize the amount of people enrolled to lifespring seminars. You complain that CFAR doesn't do enough to maximize the amount of people who are exposed to CFAR content.
As I understand Lifespring tries to sell people more couses after they completed their first training. CFAR is not setup to sell you more courses after you went to the 4 day workshop.
Teaching people instruments does relatively little if people don't use them. Teaching people agency means that they won't only use the instruments taught at the workshop but also ways of thinking they make up themselves.
After leaving CFAR Julia Galef wrote the Scout Mindset because she believes that the mindset people have is of critical importance. The Solider Mindset/Scout Mindset isn'...
As there are many people here here who attended CFAR workshops, I wanted to ask, if you understand why there are no online workshops, even when the in-person workshops were not possible due to the pandemic. In my experience, everything that does not require physical contact (like martial arts) can be taught online. There can be some inconveniences, of course, but if planned well, it can work quite smoothly. I can think about very small amount of reasons, and none of them seems persuasive to me.
1. Maybe CFAR workshop indeed requires physical contact? Sounds quite strange.
2. Maybe organizers are not good with technologies and don't know how to do different Zoom rooms, how to make parties in Mozilla Hubs etc.? Maybe they have never heard about properly organized online schools? Sounds even less likely.
3. Maybe CFAR workshop requires full embedding with no distraction? Well, it can be clarified in the announcement as a requirement for the participants, and for many people, it is certainly a possible thing to do.
4. Maybe CFAR somehow got into a death spiral and turned into something like Lifespring? I would hope it is unlikely in the rationalistic community, but here is more hope than actual belief.