Workshop: Introduction to Applied Rationality for Programmers (beta)

In Berkeley, California, on Sunday, September 29, 2013.

(There are no spaces remaining for this event, but you can still register to be notified when the next iteration happens.)

Isn’t it time you debugged yourself?

The Center for Applied Rationality collects the most important scientific research on failure patterns in human thinking and behavior, and conducts testing to determine the best methods for training improvement in effective decision-making and productivity.

As it happens, many of our 4-day workshop participants are programmers. Why? Programmers continually manage huge amounts of their own time on large projects, and they know that anything you do continually is worth setting aside time to optimize.

That’s why we’re compressing highlights from our 4-day workshop into a one-day beta test aimed specifically at an audience of programmers.

So, take your mental server offline for some serious upgrades. Hack your mind. Make it better. Sound like a plan?

Results to expect

After spending a day with CFAR, you can expect to catch yourself making a lot more mistakes. They won’t be new; you’ll just be more attuned to how your brain’s innate heuristics can lead you astray, so you’ll catch on to slip-ups faster. And instead of feeling bad about these failure modes, you’ll have the tools you need to jump out of them quickly. In fact, it won’t feel as much like making mistakes as discovering bugs — you’ll be curious and confident about figuring out a solution, and proud of yourself for catching the opportunity.

Our 4-day workshop costs $3900, or $970/day. But since this one-day event is a beta test, we’re charging a reduced admission fee of $330. With a conversion rate of one day of training to years of applications, we’re certain our workshop will be a valuable investment of time and money. If afterward you think it wasn’t worth it, we’ll give you a refund.

Our training style

Schools and colleges teach people a lot of words about how the world works, without training them to connect that verbal knowledge to everyday action. We bridge that gap using games and exercises that maximize your connection to your daily habits and experiences. To train yourself to make changes, you have to fire the neurons responsible for that change, not just run your inner monologue about how you could do it or how you ought to.

Outline:

Our sessions are highly interactive. After our introduction, instructors aim to never speak for more than 5 minutes at a time. That way, we spend our time focussed on you, not us. As such, the following outline is only approximate:

              Got questions? Email us.