Introduction / What's up with this post

My main aim with this post is to have a real conversation about aCFAR[1] that helps us be situated within a community that (after this conversation) knows us. My idea for how to do this is to show you guys a bunch of pieces of how we’re approaching things, in enough detail to let you kibitz.[2]

My secondary aim, which I also care about, is to see if some of you wish to donate, once you understand who we are and what we’re doing. (Some of you may wish to skip to the donation section.)

Since this post is aimed partly at letting you kibitz on our process, it's long.[3] Compared to most fundraiser posts, it's also a bit unusually structured. Please feel free to skip around, and to participate in the comment thread after reading only whatever (maybe tiny) pieces interest you.

I’d like CFAR to live in a community

I’d like CFAR to live in a community where:

People can see aCFAR
We can see you guys seeing us
Folks are sharing what they’re seeing, not what their theory says they should see
Interested folks within LessWrong, and within [...]

---

Outline:

(00:25) Introduction / What's up with this post

(01:16) I'd like CFAR to live in a community

(03:47) Kibitzing requests

(04:51) Introductions: Me, aCFAR... and you, Reader?

(07:40) Workshops

(08:40) Workshops: favorite bits

(08:49) 1. People made friends at the workshops and in the alumni network.

(09:46) 2. People had conversations at the workshops that updated the real generators of their actions.

(10:27) 3. The workshop was visibly alive in that it felt organic, filled with zany details, etc.

(11:39) 4. Truth-seeking, curiosity-eliciting, rationality-friendly context

(11:55) Workshops: iffy bits, and their current state

(12:15) Power over / doing something to people (current status: looks solved)

(14:36) More workshop iffy bits

(14:53) More about the new workshop

(15:37) Larger contexts surrounding our workshops

(15:54) aCFAR's instructors and curriculum developers

(17:13) aCFAR's alumni community

(19:07) Lineage-crediting and gatekeeping

(21:57) Michael Valentine Smith

(22:54) The broader rationality community

(23:35) Flows of money, and what financial viability looks like within our new ethos

(27:36) How our ethos fits together

(27:45) Is aCFAR aimed at getting AI not to kill everyone? If not, why are you (Anna) working on it?

(28:17) Principles

(28:51) Truth is crucial

(29:02) Honor who-ness

(29:23) Stay able to pivot or shut down, without leaving anybody in the lurch

(29:40) Serious conversation, done in hearty faith

(33:14) The caring that tends its own sources

(35:32) No large costs without a feedback loop grounded in earned knowledge and caring

(41:26) Some principles you might assume we have that we don't have:

(42:19) Why we need your support / some cruxes for continuing this CFAR

(42:50) Why ask for donations?

(43:56) Some disagree with us, and we're doing this anyway

(47:13) Donations

(47:16) Our finances

(48:09) Who I hope does, and doesn't, consider donating

(51:49) Ways to help CFAR or to connect to CFAR besides donating:

(52:59) Perks for donating

(54:16) To the conversation!

The original text contained 12 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

---

First published:
December 29th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/4W8ZbcRr47x9bNEf6/what-s-going-on-at-cfar-updates-and-fundraiser

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Fundraising progress bar showing $0 donations toward $125K and $200K targets.

Whiteboard with handwritten message in speech bubble from

Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.

“What’s going on at CFAR? (Updates and Fundraiser)” by AnnaSalamon

LessWrong (30+ Karma)