SSC Meetups Everywhere: Times And Places

114 Responses to SSC Meetups Everywhere: Times And Places

1. elizhy says:

   April 3, 2017 at 11:00 pm

   Hey! I’m the contact point for the New Haven meetup — Elizah.stein@gmail.com
   • Scott Alexander says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:23 am

     Thanks, fixed.
   • elizhy says:

     April 8, 2017 at 1:54 pm

     Adding a note for New Haven folks: we’re in the outside garden at BookTrader since it’s full inside
2. euclidiantorus says:

   April 3, 2017 at 11:32 pm

   Baltimore contact here! lw noblejury.com
   • Scott Alexander says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:23 am

     Thanks, fixed.
3. The Pachyderminator says:

   April 3, 2017 at 11:46 pm

   Email for the St. Louis meetup should say brerwolf, not brerwold.
   • Scott Alexander says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:24 am

     Thanks, fixed.
4. TK-421 says:

   April 4, 2017 at 12:21 am

   How did I not find out about reciprocity.io until now? A community site I was on back in the late 90s-early 2000s had a similar system called Crush, and it always seemed like an elegant solution. Now if only I knew other people who also used it…
   • Salentino says:

     April 4, 2017 at 4:28 am

     Same here. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to be working for me (the Submit Selections button not doing anything when clicked).

     Edit: if I’ve understood it correctly (based on some conversation here), it only shows you people that you’re already Facebook friends with. Maybe for some people that is useful, but I already know all my Facebook friends. Oh well.
5. metacelsus says:

   April 4, 2017 at 12:27 am

   Contact email for Minneapolis meetup:
   piers199[at]umn.edu

   Also, I need to check out this Reciprocity thing, it seems.

   Edit: Upon checking out Reciprocity.io, I see it requires a Facebook account, which I don’t have and have no desire to make.
   • Scott Alexander says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:24 am

     Thanks, fixed.
6. sickofpalantirs says:

   April 4, 2017 at 12:40 am

   Not the contact in Denver – but Darcy’s is at 4955 South Ulster, not 34955 South Ulster
   Google Results for Darcy’s
   • Scott Alexander says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:24 am

     Thanks, fixed.
7. Alex Zavoluk says:

   April 4, 2017 at 12:53 am

   I’m the organizer of the Austin meetup. Please sign up for the google group, or at least check it closer to the meetup, as I’ll be sending out a reminder e-mail with any additional information around the end of the week.

   edit–I just realized the Chicago meetup is where I went. /waves to anyone going there
   • Scott says:

     April 4, 2017 at 12:58 pm

     I’ll be at the Austin meetup. Thanks so much for organizing it, Alex! –“Other Scott” (Aaronson)
     • Alex Zavoluk says:

       April 4, 2017 at 5:20 pm

       I look forward to seeing you!
8. ashlael says:

   April 4, 2017 at 12:59 am

   …what’s a stim toy? I’m sure it’s not actually sexual, but boy does it sound like it is.
   • Alex Zavoluk says:

     April 4, 2017 at 1:04 am

     Googling indicates they’re for people with Autism.
   • caryatis says:

     April 4, 2017 at 7:50 am

     Something to play with. Good for the sort of person who always wants to have something in his hands.
9. dazuck says:

   April 4, 2017 at 1:20 am

   Contact for online should be dazuck@gmail.com
10. georgeclooneyoui says:

    April 4, 2017 at 1:21 am

    Scott are you still planning on coming to Melbourne? If so, I can host.
    • Scott Alexander says:

      April 4, 2017 at 1:25 am

      I’m confused. I don’t think I ever planned to go to Melbourne.
      • georgeclooneyoui says:

        April 4, 2017 at 10:57 pm

        I thought it saw it on a short list last week and assumed it was a maybe. No worries. If you change plans it would be great to have you here.
11. Evan Þ says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:07 am

    Is the second Seattle meetup in May still planned? Because unfortunately, it looks like I still won’t be able to make April 30th.

    (Though it does seem like my schedule will be clearing up and I’ll be able to come back to the local EA group pretty soon.)
12. Password says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:10 am

    To make it easier to find local cities with meetups I plotted them on a map.
13. rationaldebt says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:53 am

    I mentioned it in the other thread: the Philadelphia host intends to ask people *as an icebreaker* why most attendees are white men (and views it as a failure if white men are a majority). Would you be able to give some guidelines? He views it as his job to set the tone unless/until you advise.

    I personally dislike meetups where this is considered appropriate.
    • Stationary Feast says:

      April 4, 2017 at 5:00 am

      If I were in Phily I’d definitely show up and think of a response that would maximally discomfit the host.
      • Aapje says:

        April 4, 2017 at 6:12 am

        “Isn’t this the neo-reactionary meeting?”
    • rationaldebt says:

      April 4, 2017 at 6:46 am

      https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/27/ssc-meetup-everywhere/#comment-481921

      Has some relevant comments
      • Stationary Feast says:

        April 4, 2017 at 4:21 pm

        Including, most importantly, one where the organizer changes his mind and realizes it’s a bad idea.
        • Error says:

          April 5, 2017 at 11:22 am

          Every time this happens it reminds me of why I still like this community.
    • caryatis says:

      April 4, 2017 at 7:52 am

      I don’t like the question either, but I wouldn’t want Scott to start policing everything that meeting organizers say.
    • keranih says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:20 am

      It’s a free country, people are allowed to have wrong opinions.

      I myself am leary of anything that reeks of SJW as much as this…but I’ve been wrong before. And it might be a problem that rationality is less “accessible” to women and African Americans/blacks. If there’s a way to change that, without changing what rationality is, then I would think the fellow worth hearing out.

      I don’t know if “as an icebreaker” is an excellent idea. But, hey.

      It’s a free country. People are allowed to have, and speak, and try out, wrong ideas.
      • PedroS says:

        April 4, 2017 at 12:35 pm

        I think that asking any group of people about why some other people are absent is unlikely to yield actionable information: the ones who really know why they are absent are not there to state their reasons, after all.
    • mingyuan says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:27 am

      As the asian female organizer of a meetup where every single other attendee ever has been a white male I totally fail to see how this is in any way a good idea.
      • Majuscule says:

        April 4, 2017 at 10:57 am

        I’m female and looking forward to the meetup, though I am bringing a white male partner with me. For balance!

        I wouldn’t think this was a great opener for mixed (or unmixed?) company, but it is the sort of question I’d enjoy discussing in general from a historical/philosophical perspective. And an SSC meetup is one of the few places I can imagine that conversation remaining intelligent and civil for more than five minutes. But yeah- it would probably not be the *first* thing I wanted to talk about.
    • Mark says:

      April 4, 2017 at 9:07 am

      Do you think it’s possible, just for once, to step away from the tired old assumption that whatever the white males are choosing to do must be the best thing for the rest of the world?

      [It’s not a bad question, but the only socially correct answer is: “They must have more sense than us!”]
      • Aapje says:

        April 4, 2017 at 10:28 am

        @Mark

        Who is assuming that? I’m confused by your statement.
        • J Mann says:

          April 4, 2017 at 10:50 am

          Sorry if i got you wrong, Mark, but based on Mark’s parenthetical, I think the argument (or maybe joke?) is:

          1) If groups other than white men aren’t going to rationality meetups, maybe it’s because rationality meetups are a dumb idea either generally or specifically for non-white-men.

          2) In any event, asking a group of white men why their project isn’t more appealing to non-white men is a little silly.

          3) I’m not sure what’s going on with the limitation to “socially correct” answers in the parenthetical.
        • Mark says:

          April 4, 2017 at 11:03 am

          Question: Why don’t other people have the same interests as us?

          Modest answer: Perhaps they are wiser than us.
          ————————
          Question: Why are certain groups (yours) overrepresented in our interest?

          Modest Answer: Perhaps other groups have more wise people than my group.

          ————————–

          The first statement (above) is how I’d present this sentiment if I was talking to a dyed-in-the-wool SJW.
          Why should we (as men) assume that it’s problematic if women don’t share our interests?

          If I was talking to normal people I’d just smile, shrug, and say “Maybe they’ve got better things to do?”

          I mean, there is a question there, it’s an interesting question, but as a social ice-breaker I think it’s going to cause potential problems.
          Basically, it’s very unlikely anyone really has a good idea, so it’s going to be one of those confirmation-bias jobbies and everyone is going to come riding out on their preferred offensive little hobby-horse.
          • Hyzenthlay says:

            April 4, 2017 at 3:14 pm

            Question: Why don’t other people have the same interests as us?

            Modest answer: Different people like different things.

            Why does it have to contain a value-judgment at all?
          • Mark says:

            April 4, 2017 at 3:22 pm

            Because then we get into why they like different things. It’s better to settle that argument before it starts.

            They like different things because they are better than us. The end.

            ——
            There is an interesting post on the subreddit at the minute about rational discussion – to what extent is the stuff that goes on in an internet comment section (even the world’s highest IQ comment section) productive intellectual work.
            OP concludes not at all – I think that’s probably a little harsh, but there is certainly something to what they are saying.
            Where I come from, hobbies are somewhat gendered – rightly or wrongly – but if group (a) likes doing pointless activity (1) and group (b) likes doing pointless activity (2) does it matter?
            Men are more likely to enjoy talking shit about politics and setting the world to rights. I think that’s just an aspect of the general culture – women should of course be welcome to join in the fun, but if they don’t, should anyone really care?
            Perhaps they prefer to spend their time doing something more productive.

            This probably sounds terribly retrograde, but while I’m here enjoying tapping away, my wife is cooking.
            Perhaps I’d be better off if I was cooking.

            —

            Ideally I guess you’d want to do an experiment to see which aspects of the content appeal to men more than women.
            I think it’d be possible to work out if the community or content were in some way toxic to certain groups, if it was a matter of the presentation, or just caused by the makeup of adjacent networks.
            So, maybe someone should do that.
          • Hyzenthlay says:

            April 4, 2017 at 5:31 pm

            There is an interesting post on the subreddit at the minute about rational discussion – to what extent is the stuff that goes on in an internet comment section (even the world’s highest IQ comment section) productive intellectual work.

            Probably depends on how you define productive intellectual work. I think internet discussions probably do have some tangible impact on the real world, because they sometimes (or at least occasionally) change people’s minds and people will act on that. Whether internet discussions are a net positive or a net negative in terms of wasted time vs. tangible impact, I don’t know. Probably negative, if you’re looking at internet conversations as a whole, but there are so many variables that it’s hard to make a judgment call like that. (And also, if those interactions give people pleasure I think that counts for something even if it’s not “productive.”)

            But regardless, I don’t think “frittering away time on the internet” is a particularly gendered (or particularly race-based) activity. There are large online communities that are female-majority. Tumblr, fanfiction, Deviantart (maybe?) etc. It’s just a matter of what communities people gravitate towards.

            Talking politics/social issues is not particularly gendered either. It’s just a matter of where people go to do it.
      • J Mann says:

        April 4, 2017 at 10:52 am

        Thanks Mark – you’ve kind of convinced me that it’s a good question. If rationality has an evangelical component, then discussing why you’re not reaching out farther is a good question.

        And sometimes you have to ask the choir why people aren’t coming to church because that’s who’s there. Yes, it’s better to go ask the people who aren’t coming, but you never know – the choir might have some ideas.

        That said, using it as an icebreaker seems like an invitation to culture war. Maybe the host is some kind of prankster?
      • mwigdahl says:

        April 4, 2017 at 10:58 am

        Sounds fine as long as it’s not replaced with the tired new assumption that whatever the white males are choosing to do must be the worst thing for the rest of the world.
    • Deiseach says:

      April 4, 2017 at 10:54 am

      “Well, this is the City of Brotherly Love”

      That’s presupposing that out of everyone who shows up for the Philly meetup, the majority will be white and/or male. If they want to know why most of the survey respondents were white males – who can say? As something to discuss, it may break the ice, but I can’t see much of a conclusion coming out of it apart from “I guess white guys are the kind of people who most like reading rationality-inclined blogs”.

      Oh well, if punches get thrown, give us a full and detailed report!
      • Barely matters says:

        April 5, 2017 at 10:49 pm

        If at some point we need to organize an SSC fight club, I’d volunteer.
14. jimrandomh says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:00 am

    At the Cambridge, MA/Boston meetup, we will be auctioning a Moloch t-shirt. As an all-pay auction. Proceeds will be literally set on fire. (Proceeds which survive the fire, such as coins, will be donated to charity.)
    • Soeren E says:

      April 4, 2017 at 3:20 am

      This might not be legal:
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_burning#United_States
      • Trevor Adcock says:

        April 4, 2017 at 3:26 am

        That wikipedia article is pretty silly. sure it costs the government 5 cents to replace a bill, but they get a whole dollar, or more for larger denomination notes, in exchange.
        • Mark says:

          April 4, 2017 at 4:07 am

          I don’t see how that works.

          Given government debt, I would imagine that deflation would actually make them worse off.
          (Leaving aside the fact that they can produce more money, at whichever real value, so their savings or debt isn’t really relevant.)

          Anyway, presumably the government decides the amount of money in circulation based upon the needs of the economy, not in order to make a profit.
          • Protagoras says:

            April 4, 2017 at 8:52 am

            Yes, exactly, they print money based on targets for the amount of money in circulation. Destroy some money, and they’ll print the same amount extra to continue to match the targets.
      • Nornagest says:

        April 4, 2017 at 3:09 pm

        Chances of prosecution are roughly zero.
    • scherzando says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:32 pm

      I hope it’s in the spirit of the thing to devise strategies to coordinate so as to minimize sacrifices to Moloch. In any case, I’ll be interested to see how this goes.
15. Trevor Adcock says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:14 am

    Contact for Sacramento is trevoradf@gmail.com.
16. Alkatyn says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:34 am

    Anyone else in China?

    I work in Beijing but would be happy to travel
    • Kevin_P says:

      April 4, 2017 at 6:43 am

      At least one other in Beijing.

      I’m away this weekend but could probably do the weekend after that, or even an evening during the week if you’re anywhere near the East 3rd Ring. If you’re on Reddit, PM me (same username) for my contact information.

      [EDIT: Or if you’re not, please let me know another way I can contact you]
17. philh says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:38 am

    Did you miss the London announcement? (I posted it in a subthread quite late, so it would be easy to miss.) Here are the details:

    Sunday 30th April, 2pm
    Shakespeare’s Head, Holborn
    (On Kingsway, just south of the tube station – NOT the Shakespeare’s Head in Soho.)
    Contact – facebook group for preference, alternatively philip.hazelden@gmail.com.

    (We’re going with April 30th because the 16th is Easter Monday, and a few people have said they wouldn’t be able to make it.)
    • Scott Alexander says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:00 am

      Sorry, I must’ve. It’s added now.
18. robirahman says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:42 am

    I don’t suppose you could edit my phone number out of this blog post? I’ve already emailed it to the participants, I just don’t want it all over the internet.
    • Scott Alexander says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:00 am

      Sorry, done.
19. DreamFlasher says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:44 am

    Apparently somebody from Berlin was faster than we, I’ll nevertheless post our planned SCC Meetup:
    Berlin
    Time: Sunday April 23, 7 PM
    Location: Gaststätte Walhalla, Krefelderstr.6, 10555 Berlin, Germany
    Contact: Marcel Ackermann, https://www.meetup.com/de-DE/LessWrong-Rationality-WaitButWhy-SlateStarCodex-Berlin/events/238948198/

    Maybe the other person could get in contact with me, so that we can consolidate 🙂
20. liskantope says:

    April 4, 2017 at 4:07 am

    Once again I look forward to a time that I’m geographically back “on the grid” (probably back in America, or at least near one of the big European cities listed above) so I can come to one of these things, but that’s probably not going to happen for a few more years. That said, I’m still looking into summer traveling plans, especially in mid-August, which is considered vacation time for my job and most others in my area. If I knew long enough in advance (like 2 months) that something’s going on in a relatively nearby European city (preferably one in a nearby country I’ve been hoping to visit, like Germany or Spain), I’d definitely look into it.
21. Marian Andrecki says:

    April 4, 2017 at 4:54 am

    Update for Edinburgh!

    The event was moved one day forward.

    Date: Sunday, 23 April
    Time: 18:00
    Place: The Brass Monkey, 14 Drummond Street, Edinburgh, UK
    Contact: marian.andrecki[at]gmail.com
    Facebook event: First SSC Meetup Edinburgh!
22. C Withers says:

    April 4, 2017 at 5:41 am

    Time for Wellington is 6pm 🙂
23. egoburnswell says:

    April 4, 2017 at 6:19 am

    The Dublin event will go ahead as planned despite exclusion from the official list. We persist!

    Dublin
    Additional search keywords: Ireland
    Time: Wednesday, April 12, 6 PM
    Location: O’Neills, Pearse Street, Dublin 2.
    Contact: egoburnswell[at]gmail.com
    • Scott Alexander says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:02 am

      Added!
24. Tiberius says:

    April 4, 2017 at 6:43 am

    Thanks to Scott for posting this.
    I opened the Berlin meetup.
    You can reach me via: tiberius101@protonmail.com
    • tenoke says:

      April 4, 2017 at 4:56 pm

      Hey,

      Why did you ended up making a separate from the established group meetup?

      Can you contact the google group, meetup group or the organizer here or do you dislike them, or what’s the story?

      At any rate, it makes me genuinely sad that there are 2 meetups in a city with very very few rationalists, and the officially promoted meetup (by Scott) is not even the established one.
      • Tiberius says:

        April 11, 2017 at 9:31 am

        As you can see in the comments, I registered my meetup before the “established” one. I was not aware that there is an established SSC meetup in Berlin, and as far as I can tell there is only an established LW meetup.

        Anyway, I spoke to the organiser of the second meetup and we consolidated on the meetup on Sunday.
        The meetup officially promoted by Scott is simply the one that was registered first. Why would Scott know about any different “established” meetup?

        He explicitly said to rather err on the side of registering a meetup instead of thinking there will be someone else who does, so that was what I did, and I don’t really see why I should have known better.

        I hope this makes you less sad 🙂
25. neciampater says:

    April 4, 2017 at 7:17 am

    Charlotte contact: James at limetribe.com
26. mathieuroy37 says:

    April 4, 2017 at 10:32 am

    @Scott Alexander: The event in Montreal is organized by the existing LessWrong group. 🙂 See: https://m.facebook.com/profile.php?id=309511245902133
27. Mammon says:

    April 4, 2017 at 10:45 am

    I (gently) object to the Montreal location being labelled “private residence”! While that’s technically true, the Macroscope is a share house/share space, not just someone’s apartment.
28. J Mann says:

    April 4, 2017 at 10:59 am

    Scott, the Columbus meetup is at Stauf’s Coffee at 1277 Grandview – somebody mentioned on the previous thread that the name must have gotten spellchecked.

    P.s. – It’s a drive for me, but I’ll go time permitting.
29. JohnNV says:

    April 4, 2017 at 11:08 am

    I didn’t see anyone else in the survey from Las Vegas, but if so, I’d be interested in a meetup. We do have 2 million people in the area, 20 times the size of Ann Arbor.
30. gww says:

    April 4, 2017 at 11:28 am

    Hey, I’m the contact for the Birmingham UK meetup: email
31. Matthew Marks says:

    April 4, 2017 at 11:53 am

    Hello to all Pittsburghers. Hope you come to the meeting on April 8 at 2PM. Do email me at matthewfmarks[at]gmail.com to RSVP or ask questions. Or post something here.
    • neciampater says:

      April 5, 2017 at 10:05 am

      There are a lot of Pittsburghers down here in the South, and none of them have told me the demonym.

      Thanks!
32. rlms says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:12 pm

    More details regarding Cambridge UK meetup:
    Firstly, we’ve vastly exceeded the estimate of ~25% of people expressing interest on the survey actually being interested, with 15 people filling out the form or emailing me. Hopefully we can all fit in CB2; I’d be grateful if someone who’s been there before could confirm either way!

    Secondly, although no-one’s said they absolutely can’t do the given date/time, a few people have said they’d prefer different ones. There’s an equal split between earlier/later time, so I’m inclined to leave it the same. There seems to be a mild overall preference for a later day, but I think the possibility of people either not being able to do another day or not noticing the new date outweighs the benefit of changing it. If you were one of the people who answered “maybe” on the form and indicated they’d prefer a later day, and I’ve misread the magnitude of your preference (e.g. you would have a 10% chance of coming on Monday, but 80% on Tuesday), let me know and I’ll reconsider. Someone’s said they’d prefer a venue with its own car park, if anyone has any suggestions about that let me know.

    Thirdly, quite a few people have answered “yes” to general Cambridge meetup and “maybe” to the specific date/time/location without mentioning any desired changes. I’m assuming these “maybes” mean “I’ll come if I feel like it/am not busy” or similar, but if they actually mean “I’ll come if [x] other people come/there are(n’t) plans to do [something]/whatever”, tell me and I’ll try to sort something out. In general, I’m assuming people are happy for the plan to be unstructured talking, but if anyone has opinions otherwise then let me know.
33. biblicalsausage says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:28 pm

    Hey, Scott. The Cleveland meet-up is in the wrong alphabetical place. I briefly thought it had been cancelled because I didn’t find it right away on the list.
34. Soeren E says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:46 pm

    Scott,

    Could you also add “Additional search keywords: Denmark” to the Copenhagen meetup?
    There is a tiny typo in the address: Vesterbrodgade -> Vesterbrogade.
    • Soeren E says:

      April 5, 2017 at 7:09 am

      Thanks 🙂
35. pacha says:

    April 4, 2017 at 2:59 pm

    New York City (NYC) organizer here. My contact info is @pacha on the SlateStarCodex Discord channel.

    Please download the Discord client (available on iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and Linux) or use the web client to contact me. Private messages are welcome.
    • Said Achmiz says:

      April 5, 2017 at 1:56 pm

      How do I join the channel? The invite URL in the SSC site banner doesn’t work.
36. Edmund Nelson says:

    April 4, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    San francisco meetup is actually also a less wrong meetup.
37. nothingnessbird says:

    April 4, 2017 at 5:07 pm

    Y’all wanna be in The House Where It Happens
    The House Where It Happens
    The House Where It Happens
    The House Where It Happens
    Y’all wanna be in The House Where It Happens
    ‘Cause that’s where the dankest meetup happens

    By which I mean; come to the Seattle meetup if you are anywhere nearby, we are very friendly and will have lots of food and conversations and good stuff, and a whole shelf full of fidget toys. It’ll be great!
    • meh says:

      April 13, 2017 at 2:06 pm

      Is facebook rsvp required? I don’t have a facebook account.
38. WaltFen says:

    April 4, 2017 at 6:41 pm

    Searchable words for South Bay Area folks: Santa Clara, Campbell, Los Gatos, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Milpitas, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Stanford
    Join us in San Jose!

    Time: Sunday April 9, 2 PM
    Location: 3806 Williams Rd
    Contact: ddfr[at]daviddfriedman.com, (408) 244-3330
    • Rebecca Friedman says:

      April 6, 2017 at 11:31 pm

      Come join us indeed! There will be dinner – Mom’s making two kinds of soup, one vegetarian and one not, and there will be fresh homemade bread, made by one or both of my parents. At the moment they both think they’re doing it, so… >.> And I’m doing lemonade. Not sure what else there’ll be, depends on whether anyone gets inspired, but we should at least be making sure that no one starves to death!
      • DavidFriedman says:

        April 8, 2017 at 1:04 pm

        I was also thinking of making some hummus.

        The main problem is guessing if there will be ten guests or a hundred. But we have a freezer, and freezing bread works pretty well.
39. ratireli says:

    April 4, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    My comment has nothing to do with SSC meet-ups–sorry for getting off-topic here. I have a book recommendation for the blog’s author. I tried writing him an e-mail in the past when I first found this site (maybe a couple years ago?) but got no response. So I’m not sure that will be a suitable communication vector. Can anyone recommend a good way of relaying to this blogger my book recommendation? Thanks
    • scherzando says:

      April 4, 2017 at 8:27 pm

      If you get a top-level comment in relatively early in an open thread – new ones are posted at the “Open Thread” link at the top of the page on Sundays and Wednesdays, usually in the (Eastern North American) evening – it is fairly likely that he will see it [citation needed, but I think he has said somewhere that he skims most comments], but I wouldn’t count on him responding. At any rate that’s a good way to share the recommendation with other people who might be interested.

      For what it’s worth, the open threads are also probably the best venue for comments like this that don’t relate to a specific post.
40. personwhoreads says:

    April 4, 2017 at 9:25 pm

    Anybody in Honolulu or anywhere on Oahu?
41. Marko says:

    April 5, 2017 at 1:48 am

    Zurich organizer here. There’s a facebook group and my email is thiel.marko[at]cantab.net.
42. gusbicalho says:

    April 5, 2017 at 7:34 am

    I think I posted the comment too late, but can you please add the São Paulo meetup?

    I help run a monthly rationalist meetup in São Paulo/Brasil, we would be glad to have any reader of this blog with us.

    Next meeting:
    Time: 2017-05-06, Saturday, 2PM (Local time, i.e. GMT-0300)
    Place: Vanilla Cafe – R. Antônio Carlos, 452 (near Metro Consolação)
    Contact: gusbicalho@gmail.com
    You can also join us at the Racionalidade-LW-SP mail list https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/racionalidade
    • Scott Alexander says:

      April 7, 2017 at 3:14 am

      Thanks, I’ve added. I don’t know how Brazilians do the date (ie month-day or day-month) so I’ve just copy-pasted how you put it. If you’re thinking any non-Brazilian expats might come, consider clarifying whether you mean May 6 or June 5.
      • gusbicalho says:

        April 17, 2017 at 9:26 am

        It’s May 6th
43. andrewflicker says:

    April 5, 2017 at 3:23 pm

    I see the person “organizing” the Phoenix meetup hasn’t posted anything, or even left a contact method. I’m still planning on showing up at noon at the park, but I’ll probably head out after half-an-hour if I don’t see anyone meeting up.

    If there are any other Phoenicians who will be dropping by, maybe mention it here? If we get a few confirmed “yes” comments, that’d be cool. (If anyone wants to contact me directly, you can hit me up at drewflicker@gmail.com)
    • spinystellate says:

      April 6, 2017 at 1:38 pm

      Ah, sorry. My email is spinystellate1@gmail.com. I’ll be there with the sign. To be even more specific about location, let’s say the big grassy area of Granada park that is just west of the playground, i.e. https://www.google.com/maps/place/33°32'01.1“N+112°02’11.6″W. There were 3 unique replies on the original thread, plus a friend of mine IRL who reads the blog is coming. For anyone planning to come, maybe RSVP? I’ll be there either way.
      • spinystellate says:

        April 6, 2017 at 3:29 pm

        Scott, if you check this, please update my contact email address as well in the main post (currently listed as ???).
      • andrewflicker says:

        April 6, 2017 at 4:44 pm

        Appreciate the response, Spiny! I’ll see you Saturday.
    • spinystellate says:

      April 8, 2017 at 8:33 pm

      The meeting was a success. We now have a Google Group here.
44. Taymon A. Beal says:

    April 5, 2017 at 8:46 pm

    The Boston meetup now has a Facebook event. Scott, would you mind linking to it? Thanks.
    • Taymon A. Beal says:

      April 7, 2017 at 8:51 am

      The above link is wrong. The Facebook event is this one. Scott, would you be able to update the link? Sorry about this…
45. rocurley says:

    April 6, 2017 at 1:51 am

    San Francisco meetup has a facebook event.. Please RSVP so if 100 people are coming we can get scared.
46. mingyuan says:

    April 9, 2017 at 7:46 pm

    It may be too late to point this out, but you left off the alternate Chicago meetup. From the original post:

    Monday, May 1st
    12:45PM – 2:00PM
    Ogilvie Food Court @ 500 W. Madison
    Contact @ Gmail: MC.Hospice
47. deluks917 says:

    April 10, 2017 at 1:38 am

    I think it would be useful to collect actual data about the SSC meetups. I sent the meetup organizers of the pre-April-13th meetups an email asking for a report. The questions I requested they answer were:
    1) A brief description of what happened
    2) What went well
    3) Advice for later meetups
    4) Are there plans for more meetings
    5) How many people attended
    6) Anything else you find useful to include

    Another person in the email thread made a google group for the SSC meetup organizers. I think this should be useful for sharing information. The organizers of the later groups have now also been invited to join this group. We are going to try to get a report from every meetup. The SSC meetups are extremely exciting and the community might want to know how they are going.

    A few reports have alread come in and I am including them below. Its unclear how to best share these when more data comes in.

    ===Canberra

    Canberra meeting report:

    Turnout was surprisingly high, 10 or 11 people. There were also a couple of people who contacted me by email ahead of the event to say they might come who did not turn up. These people may yet show up to a future meeting.

    We talked about politics, the pros and cons of arranged marriage vs choice marriage, our shared incredulity at the volume of Scott’s textual output, and myriad other topics.

    Demographically the group was mostly male although we did have 2 women which was honestly more than I expected. 

    However the demographic split was even more pronounced in terms of ideology with myself as the only right winger present (we took a poll). I didn’t feel at all uncomfortable though as everyone was extremely reasonable. I really appreciated being in a group where it felt safe to talk about contentious ideas without feeling the need to be defensive.

    A next meet up was arranged for the 6th of May at the Canberra Centre (near Zambreros) as this was a more central location for most people.

    === Copenhagen

    1. Tonight, we held the first SSC-Copenhagen meetup. It was a minimal meetup at a cafe, with 2 people present – another 2 expressed interest but had other commitments. 
    2. We talked about SSC-related subjects for 2 hours – that was fun.
    3. –
    4. I’ve sent a mail to the other 3, we shall see. 
    5. 2 people
    6. The number of SSC-readers in Copenhagen was inflated: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/27/ssc-meetup-everywhere/#comment-480796 

    === Raleigh NC

    1. We met at a local bar and chatted freely for about an hour and a half.
    2. Conversation went pretty organically, although we didn’t end up focusing too much on discussing SSC articles.
    3. Make sure the environment is not too loud.
    4. We are working on starting up a monthly meeting.  There was discussion about trying a different format (social, book club, rationality topic, etc.) for different meetings to see what happens.
    5. 9
    6. I think I’ve covered the interesting stuff already!

    === Austin

    1. We met at our regular LW meetup time and place (a grocery store with cafe and outdoor seating). No special activities; we socialized and talked about random things (some rationality-related, some not). I left after 4.5 hours, with 10 or so people still there. 

    2. Nametags! Also play-doh.

    3. Have nametags. If you have a large group, force people to move around once or twice to increase variety. We’ve found that a good introduction question is, “how did you find out about LW/SSC?” 

    4. We will continue having the regular Saturday meetup; I think at least some of the people from here will continue to come to our meetups. 

    5. Apparently, 32. At least 20 of them were new faces. 

    === Berkeley

    1) We met in a cafe and there was no real agenda; people just naturally engaged in conversation, and I didn’t try to steer the conversation at all (to the point where those that I didn’t get a chance to talk to wouldn’t have even known I was the organizer).  For most of the time people naturally split themselves into subgroups of 3-4 people, but there was also movement of people between subgroups.  Everybody was engaged pretty much the entire time, and at the time I left (6:30PM), there were still ~8 people there going strong.

    2) Even though most people didn’t seem to know anyone else beforehand, there didn’t need to be any prodding into conversation!

    3) If you are going to have a large-ish group and you’re going to be in a location where you can’t reserve seating, make sure you get there early to nab a spot.

    4) Yeah, everybody seemed to like it, and those I talked to about setting up another meeting wanted me to, although I didn’t pose the question to the group or anything.

    5) About 20 people showed up.

    === Ann Arbor

    1. People started arriving at 16:00.  I started out having people introduce themselves and say one thing about themselves that nobody else there already knew (mostly as a way to put the people who had come before on a level footing with the new people.) When conversation flagged I asked people their opinion on Peter Singer’s recent proposal of a climate-change related boycott of US made goods. I also handed out cheap diffraction glasses because I had 49 pairs of them I didn’t need. This got into someone with a physics background giving a nice explanation of diffraction and how it works which then lead to a long, interesting lightning talk by an astronomer on measuring the atmospheres of exoplanets. We also learned quite a bit about redistricting, gerrymandering, and local politics and the machinery that makes it work. We also discussed the recent critiques of and response to “rationalism”. advantages and disadvantages of tech businesses being in various locations, continental philosophy and how to get into a better mindspace to evaluate it, virtue ethics in its modern forms, and quite a bit of other stuff but I can’t remember all the topics at the moment. A couple members brought snacks, and one cooked up vegetarian pasta with optional sausage for addition by those so inclined.

    2. The conversation went quite well. Having two subject matter experts explain their expertise was wonderful. Things flagged into awkwardness a bit but seemed interesting to everyone.

    3. Buy a magnadoodle. People are always wanting to make diagrams for each other and having a zero cost reusable drawing tablet lets them do so with no friction.

    4. There will be another meetup in two weeks.

    5. I think twelve, fourteen, something like that.

    6. I’m not sure what to do about quiet/shy people. I can try and ask if they’re all right or make a point of saying/asking them something now and then, but if they’re happy listening I don’t want to badger them into unhappiness. With people I know somewhat it’s easier to gauge them. Does anyone have advice for reading/drawing out (as appropriate) newly met people who are quiet?

    === Salt Lake City

    Met at a restaurant, 8 people showed up.
    Lasted ~1.5 hours. No problems.
    Another meetup is planned in a month.

    topics included:
    – first SSC post read / how people found SSC
    – programming
    – HPMOR and other fiction
    – SSC vs LessWrong
    – AI safety
    – local restaurants
48. Tiberius says:

    April 10, 2017 at 1:20 pm

    Hello Scot,

    I talked with the organiser of the second (LW) Berlin SSC-meetup and we coordinated to only have one meetup. You can thus delete the meetup I registered for Saturday and there will only be the meetup on Sunday.
    I hope everyone who already replied in the comment section that he would come checks this again.

    My contact is: tiberius101@protonmail.com

    I hope this doesn’t cause too much confusion.
49. aqs says:

    April 11, 2017 at 6:11 am

    I posted this already on the recent OT, but reposting here for visibility.

    A short report on Helsinki meetup. Turnout was far better than anticipated: I was expecting ~5, we had 20 persons present at the peak. Discussion topics included: common characteristics of LW community, the quality of Finnish dubs of children’s cartoons, the usefulness of ICT education, and much, much more.

    To gather feedback and comments on future meetup plans I’m now publicly distributing this Google form: https://goo.gl/forms/PELx8wYtCfG0MSz93. A tentative / suggested date for the next meetup: Saturday, May 13.
50. Harri says:

    April 12, 2017 at 2:35 pm

    Oxford Meetup

    The meetup was poorly signed, sorry! We’re at the Swan and Castle now, immediately on your right when you walk in the main entrance, there are about 12 of us.

    If you couldn’t find us but want to be kept up to date with future stuff – email me at hbesceli[at]gmail.com
51. rlms says:

    April 17, 2017 at 10:51 am

    People/person (if there are more than one of you, you all have the same first name) who filled out the Cambridge UK meetup form without giving an email address: the meetup is definitely going ahead at the proposed date and time (Monday 24th April, 6pm). The venue (CB2 bistro) may change if someone knows of a bigger one, as so many people are interested (17 yeses, 10 maybes). If it does, I’ll post the new details in the most recent open thread and the list of meetups here. Otherwise, I’ll hopefully see you in the upstairs of CB2 (I’ll have an SSC sign).
52. meh says:

    April 17, 2017 at 1:10 pm

    Are RSVPs required?
53. rlms says:

    April 26, 2017 at 5:04 pm

    The first Cambridge UK meetup was a success! If you’re interested in future ones, please fill out this form.
54. Donnie Clapp says:

    April 26, 2017 at 5:06 pm

    Announcement:

    All those who had RSVP’d for the Houston meetup have been in contact and have decided to postpone until next Friday, May 5 at 7pm. Still at 300 Main St, Honeymoon Cafe & Bar.

    Sorry for the late notice.

    Link to add it to your calendar: https://www.dropbox.com/s/wb4ror85ui0kbl2/Slate%20Star%20Codex%20Houston%20Meetup%20v2.ics?dl=1