FAQ

How much does WARP cost to attend?
Free tuition, meals, and lodging! Travel scholarship is available.

Who is the camp for?
At WARP, we're all about figuring out how to improve our thinking, and how that can translate into better doing. We welcome students curious about decision-making and modeling the world, and figuring out how to better test their beliefs against reality. If you're passionate about mathematics, logic, cognitive science, philosophy, economics, or history, we'll probably love to have you! 

What do participants actually do?
We run sessions that teach concrete subjects like information theory, cryptography, psychology, and game theory, as well as more experiential learning about how to better understand yourself, communicate with others, and make judgments under uncertainty.

One of the major themes of the camp is learning how to actually do things that are important to us. This means taking ideas like “we can change ourselves/the world” seriously, figuring out what we think we know and why we think we know it, and actually going out and trying things with an experimental frame of mind. We empower our students with the tools to make progress on difficult issues, whether personal or global.

Which means we also encourage and help participants design and run their own content! Things students have done in past years includes successfully inviting Stephen Wolfram to give a talk to the camp, student lectures on everything from art theory to nuclear physics, and professional tutorials on Go or ultra-fast language learning.

We sometimes have talks by intellectuals from a variety of fields. Past speakers have included renowned theoretical scientist Scott Aaronson and grand futures researcher Anders Sandberg.

Is the camp for me?
At WARP, we're all about better thinking and how that translates into better doing. We welcome students curious about decision-making and modeling the world. If you're passionate about cognitive science, mathematics, philosophy, economics, logic or history, we'll probably love to have you! 

How do I apply?
Check out the Apply page.

I’m really interested but can’t make these dates
We are also running another camp in Spring focused on similar topics: The Asian Spring Programme on Rationality (ASPR) held in Taiwan in February.

We are going to run more events in Summer 2024. To be notified of future programs by the FABRIC team, subscribe for updates at the bottom of this page.

Can I apply to both WARP and ASPR?
Yes! You can apply using the same form, the application process is the same. However, you can accepted only to one of them.

I’m not 16 yet. Can I still apply?
Unfortunately, we can’t accept anyone younger than 16 years old at the start of the camp due to venue restrictions.

I’m older than 19 but still interested in attending the camp!
If you are 20, you can apply, but the bar for acceptance is higher.

What’s the relationship between WARP, ESPR, FABRIC and SPARC?
In the beginning, there were two projects: Summer Program for Applied Rationality and Cognition (SPARC) which runs camps in the USA, and later the European Summer Program on Rationality (ESPR), which runs in the UK. In the last few year, the activities of the ESPR team expanded outside Europe and in 2023 they were united under a new brand called FABRIC.

What does the name mean? Why is this camp called The “Wandering” Applied Rationality Program?
WARP, previously called The Winter Program on Applied Rationality, was first run by the ESPR team in the UK in 2022. Last year, it was run in collaboration with the SPARC team in sunny Texas. This year, we are returning to the UK and decided to change the name to reflect WARP’s wandering nature and the fact that it will actually run in Spring.

Who is funding this?
All FABRIC’s activities are funded by a generous grant from the Open Philanthropy Project.