I don't know which Melbourne you have in mind. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia had one last year and currently has two volunteers! (If you're one of them, you should have an email from me in your inbox.) If you're a different Melbourne, would you be willing and able to organize a meetup?
I have a sequence on LessWrong that's essentially a collection of meetup ideas, ranging from games to mini workshops to structured discussions. (https://www.lesswrong.com/s/eqtiQjbk83JHyttrr)
If you're looking for one or two weird ideas I don't think anyone's tried yet, someone recently told me about Ben Franklin's Leather Apron Club. Not tested, not even especially fact checked, but the questions he used seem like they'd be interesting to go through with a rationalist group. (http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/junto-club/)
My house is too distant from anyone to be a good place for a meetup. (I've tried.) I'd be happy to help someone else who was North of Los Angeles and had some reasonable expectation that people would show up if they were invited.
I’m trying to get popular support for the idea of an ACX-motivated god machine AI to do something truly disruptive and give $10,000/mo (or equivalent in Bitcoin or Etherium) to every adult in the US (UBI) in wealth redistribution. #FAFO Let’s really get this #abundance party started!
As for the meetup, I live way out in the reddest rural part of the only red county in western Washington state, where nobody wants to hear about ideas like this one.
This might be just my subjective reading, but I think Scott might not want to inspire the creation of ASI at this time.
If we create ASI, it will likely solve poverty, but possibly not in a way we would appreciate, for example by turning the solar system into paperclips.
If the poor cannot have hope then we should at least provide a more comprehensive Death with Dignity option for the elderly poor which doesn’t require them to have a terminal disease (or which allows that being elderly AND poor IS a terminal disease in our society). Note I say *option* not requirement or incentive. One shouldn’t have to resort to blowing one’s brains out with a firearm to end one’s life, if that is the desired outcome and indeed, one is in such an extremity. At a certain age, poverty does indeed become terminal. There is no “next act” career happening. Especially if mental acuity is failing, and/or if familial support is lacking. Many elders no longer have sufficient retirement savings to support them any longer, and it’s about to get much, much worse. We treat our pets better than this. Can’t we do at least as well for our beloved elders? And if there will be no UBI, what, then, about all these now “unproductive” elders? Company pension funds are (apparently) for raiding, not for elders’ retirement. And what goes out never seems to quite come back to the people it was meant for, even if a suit is won (minus attorneys fees, of course).
Our Elders have so many skills and knowledge to pass on; in some cases irreplaceable information and traditions which can’t be underestimated (transhumance, just for one). Dementia diseases are robbing us of this inheritance on the daily. Until a CURE is found for memory diseases AND poverty is met with a willful commitment to abundance, we owe it to our better selves to provide a more dignified choice than warehousing our elders until they die in darkness amongst strangers, unknown to even themselves. That is the ultimate cruelty, and nobody deserves that. We can - we must - do better.
But I do love your substack and read it faithfully, for its innovative ideas and hope for the future. I hope the meetups go well and many new converts are brought into the fold. Best of luck to all!!
I have an extended rabbit hole I keep falling into trying to predict potential ACX meetup attendees in different cities. The short version is I am very confused (Why do Boston and New York City come so close?) but my current wild guess is the important number isn't the population, the important number is the population which speaks English natively.
Oh for sure, I was explicitly using Tokyo / Singapore / Hong Kong as proxies for "english speaking * inclination * actually showing up (vs top-funnel interest)" rather than just estimating on population, I considered them all close enough in population to be roughly equivalent, at least for an order-of-magnitude estimate.
Culture has to be a big part of it too - Boston probably has more because it's a much nerdier and more academic and intellectual culture. It probably has higher per capita students, too, and I'd bet both of those give a meetup buff.
It's a fun rabbit hole, come on in and make yourself at home! :)
I didn't know you'd taken that into account for Bangkok. NYC is about twelve times bigger than Boston. Is it twelve times nerdier? That doesn't sound wildly wrong. Where does this theory suggest would have a big meetup? I don't know Asia very well; what do you think the academic/nerd capitals are?
I could definitely believe Boston is 12 times nerdier than NYC in some sort of concentration or per capita way. And I would actually bet on Boston as the major city that would drive the best turnout-per-capita - is there a better one on the board?
Nerds are a different species in Asia - they're grinds, more akin to med school students or junior legal partners, than people fascinated by niche interests or various aspects of the gedankenwelt. Tons of very studious and meticulous students all over the universities in China, Japan, Singapore, Bangkok, etc...but you don't really get western-style nerds out here who want to partake in the joy of exchanging complex ideas with like-minded folks nearly as often, funnily enough.
Almost certainly a cultural thing - I've known many American-born Asian "true nerds," which really makes me wonder what it is in the Western cultures that allows people like us to germinate and prosper in a way that's so rare everywhere else.
> - I've known many American-born Asian "true nerds," which really makes me wonder what it is in the Western cultures that allows people like us to germinate and prosper in a way that's so rare everywhere else.
One possible hypothesis - incomes are a lot higher in the US, especially for nerdy people. That means more slack and more opportunity for hobbies. It also doesn't have Japan's toxic work culture chaining people to their desks 24/7.
I mean, incomes are high in Singapore and Tokyo and Hong Kong too - but you're right, the work life balance is usually abysmal. But still, you'd think students at least could indulge their intellectual inclinations and proclivities before joining the working world.
Good schools in Asia are "threshold schools," sort of like the Ivy league - once you're in, which is immensely difficult to achieve, you're relatively safe in the sense there are a lot more resources and slack than before reaching the threshold, and you're very likely to graduate and be able to get a good job.
It could also easily be a more deeply engrained cultural / innate propensity thing like the infamous Eastern v Western babies "mask" study - Chinese babies were much more stoic and accepting of whatever fate, vs the European / American babies actively fighting a mask or being laid down on their face.
FREEDMAN, D. G., & FREEDMAN, N. C. (1969). Behavioural Differences between Chinese–American and European–American Newborns. Nature, 224(5225), 1227–1227. doi:10.1038/2241227a0
I think it’s pretty obviously English speaking intellectual population. LA has more English speakers but is a famously vapid area, so only 25 attendees. Bay and Boston have punched above their intellectual weight population would suggest for atleast 40 years now.
Austin: above
Miami: below
You could roughly predict the numbers on that list quite easily.
Directionality, I think I could do okay. Given two random cities and a look at their wikipedia pages I think I'd be maybe 90% accurate at guessing which was going to be bigger. Getting the numbers is trickier; I wouldn't have guessed NYC would be so close to Boston and those are cities I know decently well. If asked how intellectual Philadelphia and Chicago were for instance, I wouldn't have guessed they're about the same but that's what the population seems to show.
I was already planning to make Manifold markets for each meetup asking about attendee count predictions. If I do, we'll all have a chance to see if it's actually easy :)
Chicago has a clear lead every year, which is reflected by its 50% greater MSA population. Chicago would have a slight lead on intellectualness, but could be equalized by Philadelphia's proximity to DC, NYC, and Princeton. 90/40/50 Chi -> 70/30/17, looks right based on my model. For Boston <-> NYC, CSA would be the right population metric to compare, as people will commute a ways for a 2x year meetup. That looks like 8m to 23m, and Boston is clearly a more education focused city (Harvard/MIT/colleges per capita) compared to NYC, which focuses on finance, nightlife, and a wide range of people in its boroughs.
As someone who travels a lot, I often try to meet up with local SSC readers. If someone reading this lives in a country with few SSC readers (ie somewhere in Africa, central asia or w/e), it can still be helpful to post a meetup, so visitors to your city/country may find you in the future.
The earlier it comes in, the easier things are for me. (Not quite true; ideally for me everyone would volunteer evenly throughout the next three weeks.) If you're looking for a considerate target, three days (March 26th) is fine- that's enough time to be sure I'll see it on the 27th and email you with any questions, a day for you to get back with answers, and we're set for the 29th.
There isn't a set deadline other than before the big post goes up. That's because if someone fills out the form twenty minutes before I hand Scott a big list, I want more meetups and Scott (I assume) wants more meetups and the volunteer wants to do a meetup and it is quick to add one more meetup especially if the form was filled out neatly. Thus, I do add it. I don't want to say there is a rule people must fill out the form before an earlier date, because I'm predictably going to make a bunch of exceptions as people remember to fill it out the day of the big post.
"Be nice to your friendly neighborhood Meetup Czar and please volunteer by the 26th" isn't a rousing battle cry, I know.
If you are organizing an ACX Everywhere meetup in Virginia, want to coordinate so we don't overlap our meetup times (nor with DC's)? I have a meetup.com group that we can advertise the meetups on too if you'd like. Feel free to reply to me here or message me on LessWrong (my username there is 'Willa').
I'm 9x% sure someone else will host in Seattle, but I'd like to put my name in as a placeholder to avoid the bystander effect on the off-chance the regular folks can't do it. Is there a way to do that without expending the effort (which will very likely be wasted) of picking a location and time in advance?
This is a niche request, but I wish there was a highlighted/bullet-pointed "Relevant Dates" section in these posts (when to submit the form by, when the announcements will be posted, when the meetups should take place).
As a disorganized organizer, this is the only info I actually need, and I feel like I always have to skim the whole post looking for it while worrying that I missed something
That's a great suggestion! Including a "Relevant Dates" section in posts could help organizers stay on track without having to dig through details. https://slopeio.org
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A rendezvous at my residence is not feasible due to its excessive distance from any individual. (I have made an attempt.) I would be delighted to assist an individual who was located north of Los Angeles and had a reasonable expectation that individuals would attend if they were invited.
It sounds like you're setting up a fantastic opportunity for people to come together, and this detailed guide really helps make it clear and easy for potential meetup organizers to get involved! It's great how you're making it easy for anyone to step up and give it a try. I'm sure many will be excited to join in. I’d love to see how the meetups go!
If anyone is willing and able to organise a Meetup in Melbourne, I (and likely a couple of friends) would be keen
Central Florida is lovely this time of year. The one there is named after the one in Australia. Never been there, though.
I don't know which Melbourne you have in mind. Melbourne, Victoria, Australia had one last year and currently has two volunteers! (If you're one of them, you should have an email from me in your inbox.) If you're a different Melbourne, would you be willing and able to organize a meetup?
I attend the meetups in my area and we do the usual activities (talk, calibration games, information diet, etc.)
Wondering if anyone has more unique meetup ideas that would specifically interest the rationalist community?
I have a sequence on LessWrong that's essentially a collection of meetup ideas, ranging from games to mini workshops to structured discussions. (https://www.lesswrong.com/s/eqtiQjbk83JHyttrr)
Some other collections you may find interesting:
- Maia's Meetup Cookbook (https://tigrennatenn.neocities.org/meetup_cookbook)
- Jenn's Meetup Showcase (https://www.lesswrong.com/s/9GExrjksy3hCopmNz)
- Chicago Rationality's past meetups (https://chicagorationality.com/meetups/)
- Freiburg Rationality's past meetups (https://www.rationality-freiburg.de/events/)
- The CFAR Handbook (https://www.lesswrong.com/s/KAv8z6oJCTxjR8vdR)
If you're looking for one or two weird ideas I don't think anyone's tried yet, someone recently told me about Ben Franklin's Leather Apron Club. Not tested, not even especially fact checked, but the questions he used seem like they'd be interesting to go through with a rationalist group. (http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/junto-club/)
Thank you, I will check these out
My house is too distant from anyone to be a good place for a meetup. (I've tried.) I'd be happy to help someone else who was North of Los Angeles and had some reasonable expectation that people would show up if they were invited.
I’m trying to get popular support for the idea of an ACX-motivated god machine AI to do something truly disruptive and give $10,000/mo (or equivalent in Bitcoin or Etherium) to every adult in the US (UBI) in wealth redistribution. #FAFO Let’s really get this #abundance party started!
As for the meetup, I live way out in the reddest rural part of the only red county in western Washington state, where nobody wants to hear about ideas like this one.
(Population 863)
This might be just my subjective reading, but I think Scott might not want to inspire the creation of ASI at this time.
If we create ASI, it will likely solve poverty, but possibly not in a way we would appreciate, for example by turning the solar system into paperclips.
If the poor cannot have hope then we should at least provide a more comprehensive Death with Dignity option for the elderly poor which doesn’t require them to have a terminal disease (or which allows that being elderly AND poor IS a terminal disease in our society). Note I say *option* not requirement or incentive. One shouldn’t have to resort to blowing one’s brains out with a firearm to end one’s life, if that is the desired outcome and indeed, one is in such an extremity. At a certain age, poverty does indeed become terminal. There is no “next act” career happening. Especially if mental acuity is failing, and/or if familial support is lacking. Many elders no longer have sufficient retirement savings to support them any longer, and it’s about to get much, much worse. We treat our pets better than this. Can’t we do at least as well for our beloved elders? And if there will be no UBI, what, then, about all these now “unproductive” elders? Company pension funds are (apparently) for raiding, not for elders’ retirement. And what goes out never seems to quite come back to the people it was meant for, even if a suit is won (minus attorneys fees, of course).
Our Elders have so many skills and knowledge to pass on; in some cases irreplaceable information and traditions which can’t be underestimated (transhumance, just for one). Dementia diseases are robbing us of this inheritance on the daily. Until a CURE is found for memory diseases AND poverty is met with a willful commitment to abundance, we owe it to our better selves to provide a more dignified choice than warehousing our elders until they die in darkness amongst strangers, unknown to even themselves. That is the ultimate cruelty, and nobody deserves that. We can - we must - do better.
But I do love your substack and read it faithfully, for its innovative ideas and hope for the future. I hope the meetups go well and many new converts are brought into the fold. Best of luck to all!!
Everyone is welcome to the Sofia ACX meetup in Bulgaria
Man, no Bangkok at all in 4 years (11M people)? No Manila (15M people)?? Where are all my nomad expat peeps who love SE Asia??
If any of you exist, let me know and I'll set up a meet somewhere.
Looking at the Tokyo / Singapore / HK numbers, I'd guess there'd be about 5 people for either Bangkok or Manila, so maybe that's the problem.
I have an extended rabbit hole I keep falling into trying to predict potential ACX meetup attendees in different cities. The short version is I am very confused (Why do Boston and New York City come so close?) but my current wild guess is the important number isn't the population, the important number is the population which speaks English natively.
Oh for sure, I was explicitly using Tokyo / Singapore / Hong Kong as proxies for "english speaking * inclination * actually showing up (vs top-funnel interest)" rather than just estimating on population, I considered them all close enough in population to be roughly equivalent, at least for an order-of-magnitude estimate.
Culture has to be a big part of it too - Boston probably has more because it's a much nerdier and more academic and intellectual culture. It probably has higher per capita students, too, and I'd bet both of those give a meetup buff.
It's a fun rabbit hole, come on in and make yourself at home! :)
I didn't know you'd taken that into account for Bangkok. NYC is about twelve times bigger than Boston. Is it twelve times nerdier? That doesn't sound wildly wrong. Where does this theory suggest would have a big meetup? I don't know Asia very well; what do you think the academic/nerd capitals are?
I could definitely believe Boston is 12 times nerdier than NYC in some sort of concentration or per capita way. And I would actually bet on Boston as the major city that would drive the best turnout-per-capita - is there a better one on the board?
Nerds are a different species in Asia - they're grinds, more akin to med school students or junior legal partners, than people fascinated by niche interests or various aspects of the gedankenwelt. Tons of very studious and meticulous students all over the universities in China, Japan, Singapore, Bangkok, etc...but you don't really get western-style nerds out here who want to partake in the joy of exchanging complex ideas with like-minded folks nearly as often, funnily enough.
Almost certainly a cultural thing - I've known many American-born Asian "true nerds," which really makes me wonder what it is in the Western cultures that allows people like us to germinate and prosper in a way that's so rare everywhere else.
> - I've known many American-born Asian "true nerds," which really makes me wonder what it is in the Western cultures that allows people like us to germinate and prosper in a way that's so rare everywhere else.
One possible hypothesis - incomes are a lot higher in the US, especially for nerdy people. That means more slack and more opportunity for hobbies. It also doesn't have Japan's toxic work culture chaining people to their desks 24/7.
I mean, incomes are high in Singapore and Tokyo and Hong Kong too - but you're right, the work life balance is usually abysmal. But still, you'd think students at least could indulge their intellectual inclinations and proclivities before joining the working world.
Good schools in Asia are "threshold schools," sort of like the Ivy league - once you're in, which is immensely difficult to achieve, you're relatively safe in the sense there are a lot more resources and slack than before reaching the threshold, and you're very likely to graduate and be able to get a good job.
It could also easily be a more deeply engrained cultural / innate propensity thing like the infamous Eastern v Western babies "mask" study - Chinese babies were much more stoic and accepting of whatever fate, vs the European / American babies actively fighting a mask or being laid down on their face.
FREEDMAN, D. G., & FREEDMAN, N. C. (1969). Behavioural Differences between Chinese–American and European–American Newborns. Nature, 224(5225), 1227–1227. doi:10.1038/2241227a0
I think it’s pretty obviously English speaking intellectual population. LA has more English speakers but is a famously vapid area, so only 25 attendees. Bay and Boston have punched above their intellectual weight population would suggest for atleast 40 years now.
Austin: above
Miami: below
You could roughly predict the numbers on that list quite easily.
Directionality, I think I could do okay. Given two random cities and a look at their wikipedia pages I think I'd be maybe 90% accurate at guessing which was going to be bigger. Getting the numbers is trickier; I wouldn't have guessed NYC would be so close to Boston and those are cities I know decently well. If asked how intellectual Philadelphia and Chicago were for instance, I wouldn't have guessed they're about the same but that's what the population seems to show.
I was already planning to make Manifold markets for each meetup asking about attendee count predictions. If I do, we'll all have a chance to see if it's actually easy :)
Chicago has a clear lead every year, which is reflected by its 50% greater MSA population. Chicago would have a slight lead on intellectualness, but could be equalized by Philadelphia's proximity to DC, NYC, and Princeton. 90/40/50 Chi -> 70/30/17, looks right based on my model. For Boston <-> NYC, CSA would be the right population metric to compare, as people will commute a ways for a 2x year meetup. That looks like 8m to 23m, and Boston is clearly a more education focused city (Harvard/MIT/colleges per capita) compared to NYC, which focuses on finance, nightlife, and a wide range of people in its boroughs.
Where are you located? I could do Bangkok on 5 or 6 April early afternoon
As someone who travels a lot, I often try to meet up with local SSC readers. If someone reading this lives in a country with few SSC readers (ie somewhere in Africa, central asia or w/e), it can still be helpful to post a meetup, so visitors to your city/country may find you in the future.
Is there any particular deadline for when aspiring meetup-organizers should have the form filled out by, beyond "before the big post goes up"?
The earlier it comes in, the easier things are for me. (Not quite true; ideally for me everyone would volunteer evenly throughout the next three weeks.) If you're looking for a considerate target, three days (March 26th) is fine- that's enough time to be sure I'll see it on the 27th and email you with any questions, a day for you to get back with answers, and we're set for the 29th.
There isn't a set deadline other than before the big post goes up. That's because if someone fills out the form twenty minutes before I hand Scott a big list, I want more meetups and Scott (I assume) wants more meetups and the volunteer wants to do a meetup and it is quick to add one more meetup especially if the form was filled out neatly. Thus, I do add it. I don't want to say there is a rule people must fill out the form before an earlier date, because I'm predictably going to make a bunch of exceptions as people remember to fill it out the day of the big post.
"Be nice to your friendly neighborhood Meetup Czar and please volunteer by the 26th" isn't a rousing battle cry, I know.
If you are organizing an ACX Everywhere meetup in Virginia, want to coordinate so we don't overlap our meetup times (nor with DC's)? I have a meetup.com group that we can advertise the meetups on too if you'd like. Feel free to reply to me here or message me on LessWrong (my username there is 'Willa').
Cheers,
Willa
We can play some https://pinupbd.pro/ games on this meetup as a fun activity to entertain the audience, what do you think?
I'm 9x% sure someone else will host in Seattle, but I'd like to put my name in as a placeholder to avoid the bystander effect on the off-chance the regular folks can't do it. Is there a way to do that without expending the effort (which will very likely be wasted) of picking a location and time in advance?
This is a niche request, but I wish there was a highlighted/bullet-pointed "Relevant Dates" section in these posts (when to submit the form by, when the announcements will be posted, when the meetups should take place).
As a disorganized organizer, this is the only info I actually need, and I feel like I always have to skim the whole post looking for it while worrying that I missed something
That's a great suggestion! Including a "Relevant Dates" section in posts could help organizers stay on track without having to dig through details. https://slopeio.org
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A rendezvous at my residence is not feasible due to its excessive distance from any individual. (I have made an attempt.) I would be delighted to assist an individual who was located north of Los Angeles and had a reasonable expectation that individuals would attend if they were invited.
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It sounds like you're setting up a fantastic opportunity for people to come together, and this detailed guide really helps make it clear and easy for potential meetup organizers to get involved! It's great how you're making it easy for anyone to step up and give it a try. I'm sure many will be excited to join in. I’d love to see how the meetups go!
https://slopeball.org