Another possible problem with the Visiting Fellows program is that you're selecting for fairly unambitious/non-driven people. See this Less Wrong thread:
(Which suggests that the personality development agenda the Visiting Fellows program is currently pursuing may not succeed in transforming Visiting Fellows in to folks who are more driven and productive.)
I and at least 2 other people who have had a decent amount of direct contact with the Visiting Fellows agree on this.
Of course, another possibility is to make being a Visiting Fellow more like having a job--even relatively non-driven folks seem to be able to frequently get stuff done in job-like contexts. It's just that the portion of the population that's able to succeed in deadline-free not-intrinsically-fun self-directed activity seems to be pretty low. (And FWIW Eliezer, I am pretty sure you are part of this portion of the population--the fact that you're frequently disappointed with the amount you get done is a strong indicator. The real problem is when a person isn't disappointed with the amount they get done because their bar for themselves isn't set very high.)
http://lesswrong.com/lw/4wm/rationality_boot_camp/3qmd
And this Robin Hanson blog post:
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/lazy-hurt-less-than-st...
(Which suggests that the personality development agenda the Visiting Fellows program is currently pursuing may not succeed in transforming Visiting Fellows in to folks who are more driven and productive.)
I and at least 2 other people who have had a decent amount of direct contact with the Visiting Fellows agree on this.
Of course, another possibility is to make being a Visiting Fellow more like having a job--even relatively non-driven folks seem to be able to frequently get stuff done in job-like contexts. It's just that the portion of the population that's able to succeed in deadline-free not-intrinsically-fun self-directed activity seems to be pretty low. (And FWIW Eliezer, I am pretty sure you are part of this portion of the population--the fact that you're frequently disappointed with the amount you get done is a strong indicator. The real problem is when a person isn't disappointed with the amount they get done because their bar for themselves isn't set very high.)