uncommonsense.html

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<div id="uncommonsense">
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            <h1>Uncommon Sense</h1>
            <span class="title-text">
                A free, experimental program launched in partnership with <a
                    href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/ea/">Stanford Effective Altruism</a>. Priority applications
                close
                February 1st at midnight PT. After that applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis.
            </span>
            <div class="info-banner">
                Play with cutting-edge artificial intelligence and try to figure out its impact on the world.
            </div>
            <div class="info-banner">
                Challenge your ideas.
            </div>
            <div class="info-banner">
                Compete in the <strong>The Economist's World in 2021</strong> forecasting challenge.
            </div>
            Uncommon Sense has been wound down and will not run again.

{{/*              
            <p>
                <strong>What is Uncommon Sense?</strong>
                Our program is a free online seminar for high schoolers offered in partnership with 
                <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/group/ea/">
                    Stanford Effective Altruism
                </a>
                that gives inquisitive high schoolers the opportunity to master decision-making techniques based 
                in philosophy, economics, game theory, cognitive science, and statistics. Our teaching team of 
                Stanford students provides students with valuable critical thinking skills in a unique 
                discussion-based format.
            </p>
            <p>
                Students will use the skills they learn in Uncommon Sense to compete in global forecasting 
                competitions like 
                <a href="https://www.gjopen.com/challenges/50-the-economist-the-world-in-2021">
                    The Economist's World in 2021 forecasting challenge
                </a> for the chance to win the 
                title of Superforecaster. In these contests, students will practice answers to questions such as 
                “How many COVID-19 vaccines will be approved and/or authorized for emergency use by the U.S. FDA 
                as of 31 March 2021?” and “What will be China's year-on-year GDP growth rate for the second quarter 
                of 2021?”
            </p>
            <p>
                In addition to forecasting, accepted students will learn to build models of complex systems, create 
                Bayesian priors, examine and combat their cognitive biases, and make more accurate predictions. Classes 
                are project-based, incorporating interactive activities such as a cold war nuclear simulation, an 
                iterated prisoner’s dilemma tournament, betting with fake currency, and much more.
            </p>
            <p>
                Above all, Uncommon Sense will help you reconsider the countless decisions you make each day, like:
            </p>
            <p>
                Should you be taking vitamin D to prevent COVID 
                (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2020.105751">one study shows it significantly reduced COVID-19 
                    hospitalizations
                </a> 
                but 
                <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-77093-z">
                    another study shows it doesn’t help patients who are already hospitalized</a>)? 
                What career will make you happiest and have the best impact on the world  
                (<a href="https://80000hours.org/2012/08/how-many-lives-does-a-doctor-save/">a doctor typically only saves
                </a>
                as many lives as 
                <a href="https://80000hours.org/2017/05/how-much-do-hedge-fund-traders-earn/#how-do-hedge-funds-make-money-and-how-is-it-shared-among-the-employees">
                    a quantitative trader
                </a> 
                <a href="https://www.givewell.org/how-we-work/our-criteria/cost-effectiveness/cost-effectiveness-models">
                    donating
                </a> 
                1% of their income)? How should the US tackle 
                climate change (<a href="https://www.vox.com/2014/10/4/6901299/plastic-bags-environment">a plastic bag ban may actually 
                    increase emissions</a>, though it would decrease litter)?
            </p>
            <p>
                <strong>Too often, these decisions are automatic, or influenced by our cognitive biases, or 
                    dictated by social norms.
                </strong>
                Even people’s most strongly held opinions are often just a product of their environment, not 
                something they’ve actually thought through and come to their own conclusion on ⁠— you can 
                predict someone’s political party with, 
                <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/14515/teens-stay-true-parents-political-perspectives.aspx">
                    70% accuracy
                </a> 
                based on how their parents voted.
            </p>
            <p>
                Graduates of Uncommon Sense will gain the skills they need to come to their own conclusions about 
                critical problems, make more informed choices, and better understand the levers and gears in the world 
                around them.
            </p>
            <p>
                <strong>The program is free for all admitted students and occurs weekly on Wednesday from 4-5 pm PT.</strong>
            </p>

            <!--<p>
                <strong>What: </strong>
                From world leaders deciding whether to launch nuclear missiles, to students deciding
                where to apply to college, turning information into effective decisions is hard, and it
                matters. Uncommon Sense is a program for inquisitive high schoolers interested in
                learning ways to challenge their beliefs, improve their decisions-making, and think about world-changing
                ideas. We aim to
                teach not what to think, but how to think critically. To do this, we immerse students in
                the discoveries of cognitive science, statistics, philosophy, decision theory, and more,
                and we support students in applying these ideas to help solve global problems and
                achieve their own goals. </p>

            <p><strong>Who: </strong>Grades 9-12
            </p>
            <p>
                <strong>When: </strong>
                From 4-5pm PT every Wednesday.
            </p>
            <p><strong>Where: </strong>Online. Join us from anywhere.</p>

            <p><strong>Cost: </strong> Free, with a suggested donation of $20 per month! <a
                    href="{{ 'donate.html' | relative_url | remove: '.html' }}">Click here</a> to contribute.</p>-->

            <a
                href="https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfR2lw8nR5O6m5yJoN__JdJtjfsAE4-13kOIC1IRj7NBlAVzw/viewform" id="us-signup"><button
                    class="action-button largebutton">Apply</button></a>
        </div>
    </div>

    <div class="section">
        <section class="faqs">
            <h3>FAQs</h3>
            <details>
                <summary>What, exactly, do you teach?</summary>
                <p>
                    Great question! The things we teach fall into two broad categories:
                <ol>
                    <li>
                        Instrumental Rationality: the skills you need to achieve your goals. What do you value for
                        its own sake? What are the things you want to achieve above all else, the things your other
                        actions are stepping-stones towards? These terminal goals could be happiness, improving the
                        world, becoming famous, anything. Now ask yourself what you did this past hour. Was it the
                        best possible action you could have taken to achieve your goals? We help you achieve your
                        goals by giving you tools that help you become accustomed to making plans and habits that
                        actually work and inch you in the direction you want to go.
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        Epistemic rationality: the use of evidence and reason to form accurate beliefs about the world.
                        Specific skills we will teach include Bayesian reasoning, statistics, epistemology, cognitive
                        biases, forecasting, and building models of complex systems. We teach epistemic rationality by
                        offering interesting and complex ideas for you to discuss, debate, and form beliefs about. We
                        also equip you with useful ideas that help you think clearly about uncertainty and complex
                        systems.
                    </li>
                </ol>
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>What do you mean by "beliefs"?</summary>
                <p>
                    When we say “belief,” we mean anything you think is true about the world. Something as simple as
                    “the
                    sky is blue” is a belief. So is something as controversial as “GMOs are safe to eat.” Beliefs are
                    not
                    indisputable Truths about the world--you can be very confident in some beliefs, but you should still
                    be
                    willing to change your mind about them based on evidence. If I go outside and see that the sky is
                    purple,
                    I might change my mind about believing the sky is blue. If I read a study that says many GMOs have
                    been
                    linked to cancer, I might change my mind about GMOs being safe.
                </p>
                <p>
                    Many people think their beliefs are infallible. They spend most of their time trying to persuade
                    other
                    people of their beliefs and very little of their time seeing if other people's beliefs persuade them
                    to
                    change their own opinions. But most people also fiercely disagree with each other about many of
                    their
                    core beliefs (X political party is best, Y religion is true, Z is the most important issue facing
                    humanity right now). So it stands to reason that many of them are simply wrong and unwilling to even
                    entertain this possibility. Uncommon Sense is for the people who think they could be wrong about
                    their
                    beliefs, people who seek out contrasting viewpoints to test their beliefs, people who see changing
                    their
                    beliefs as an opportunity to learn rather than as a personal attack.
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>Who should sign up/is this stuff I already know?</summary>
                <p>
                    If you are not already familiar with and interested in most of the following concepts, Uncommon
                    Sense might be for you:
                <ul>
                    <li>Bayesian reasoning</li>
                    <li>Applied game theory</li>
                    <li>Collaborative truth-seeking</li>
                    <li>Moral philosophy</li>
                    <li>Epistemology</li>
                </ul>
                </p>
                <p>
                    Here are a few fun little puzzles that should give you a taste of the flavor of questions we
                    focus on:
                <ul>
                    <li>You are on a jury trying to decide whether or not to condemn someone for kidnapping and
                        ransoming an innocent man. Police are certain the perpetrator was one of 30 people staying
                        in a certain motel who match the basic demographics of the kidnapper and have weak alibis.
                        The businessperson then picked the accused out of a lineup. You know a perpetrator gets
                        correctly identified in a lineup about 60% of the time, and any given innocent person gets
                        identified about 10% of the time. Based on this evidence, what are the odds that the
                        accused is guilty? (<a href="https://arbital.com/p/bayes_rule/?l=1zq">hint</a>)
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        You are an economics professor who forgot to go to the ATM before leaving for work, and who
                        has only $20 in your pocket. You have a lunch meeting at a very expensive French restaurant,
                        but you're stuck teaching classes until lunchtime and have no way to get money. Can you trick
                        your students into giving you enough money for lunch in exchange for your $20, without lying
                        to them in any way?
                        (<a href="https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/A2Qam9Bd9xpbb2wLQ/game-theory-as-a-dark-art">source
                            and answer</a>)
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        According to the
                        <a
                            href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_voting#:~:text=The%20paradox%20of%20voting%2C%20also,normally%20exceed%20the%20expected%20benefits.&text=Moreover%2C%20the%20expected%20benefits%20are,will%20never%20be%20certainly%20pivotal.">
                            paradox of voting
                        </a>
                        , voting is never a rational choice for a self-interested individual to make because your
                        vote has a minuscule chance of influencing the election but there is a significant cost to
                        yourself to go out and vote. Yet, it’s possible that even a selfish person should go out
                        and vote. Why might this be?
                        (<a
                            href="https://www.lesswrong.com/tag/timeless-decision-theory#:~:text=Timeless%20decision%20theory%20(TDT)%20is,abstract%20computation%20that%20they%20implement.">hint</a>)
                    </li>
                </ul>
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>Why are you qualified to teach this?</summary>
                <p>
                    We are a team of Stanford students with experience in computer science, economics, machine
                    learning, and public policy. We have combined our own knowledge and experiences with select
                    ideas from cognitive science, economics, psychology, philosophy, computer science, and forecasting,
                    game theory, statistics, and many other fields. (These various disciplines may all seem disparate,
                    but they all provide useful tools that help instill what it means to think critically.) We
                    regularly
                    run programs to teach these concepts to Stanford students, and we developed our curriculum with
                    advice from people who have run workshops, summer camps, and seminars aimed at teaching critical
                    thinking techniques to professionals, high schoolers, and students at top universities.
                </p>
                <p>
                    But at the end of the day, we don’t claim to be more rational or correct than anyone else. We think
                    we have some ideas people might find useful, ideas we’ve thought about and some ideas we’ve adapted
                    from organizations like <a href="https://www.rationality.org/">CFAR</a> (though we are not
                    affiliated
                    with them). We regularly try new teaching methods and are constantly and iterating, learning, and
                    improving. It seems like students in our programs agree, as does preliminary data we’ve been
                    collecting
                    about the efficacy of our program (though our sample size is small and we can’t implement a RCT).
                    We encourage you to be skeptical of everything we say and call us out if you think we’re wrong about
                    something.
                </p>
                <p>
                    We’d love for you to apply and test the program out! If it’s not useful, you’re free to leave
                    (and maybe give us some feedback!)
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>Why was I rejected?</summary>
                <p>
                    We receive many wonderful applications, but unfortunately we can only accommodate a small number
                    of students to maintain our low student-to-teacher ratio. You are encouraged to apply again next
                    year. An application decision reflects only our guess about how good of a fit you would be for
                    this particular program at this time, nothing more.
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>What does a typical meeting look like?</summary>
                <p>
                    Students start each day with a five-minute <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_problem">
                        Fermi problem</a> warm-up. Then, we dive into the day’s concept. Each week focuses on adding
                    a different tool to students’ repertoire, and weeks are grouped into monthly themes like “statistics”
                    and “ethical frameworks.” Often, the week’s focus is determined by what students want to learn
                    more about. Examples of weekly topics include: Game Theory as a Dark Art, Cognitive Biases
                    Speedround, Intro to Forecasting, The Economics of Your Career Choice, and How to Read a
                    Scientific Study. Meetings typically include at least ten minutes of discussions in small groups
                    as well about twenty minutes dedicated to activities that explore a concept in-depth. Some sample
                    discussion questions: How Do you think equality is a terminal or instrumental goal?
                </p>
                <p>
                    Activities include: a cold war nuclear simulation,
                    <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stag_hunt">stag hunts</a>, a walk through a map of moral
                    philosophies, a lottery with varying odds, and a chance to forecast when at least 10 million
                    Americans will receive a COVID-19 vaccine.
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>Why should I sign up for this?</summary>
                <p>
                    If you love to poke, prod, and question this complicated thing called “reality” and figure out
                    how it works, or if you have something you want to achieve (be that a better world, happiness,
                    or something else), and if you want to join a community of people who strive to become sharper
                    and stronger and better informed, then this is the place for you.
                </p>
            </details>
            <details>
                <summary>What if I have more questions?</summary>
                <p>We would love to hear from you! Email us at <a
                        href="mailto:{{site.contact.email}}">{{site.contact.email}}</a>.</p>
            </details>  
        </section>*/}}
    </div>

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