August ACX Meetups!
Skyler Crossman
Taking AI Timelines Personally
What: Discussion on Scott’s AI Timelines
Where: Time Out Boston, 401 Park Dr, Boston, MA 02215
When: Wednesday August 5th, 7pm
Style: Reading Group and Discussion
Run By: Yotam
The world is changing rapidly, and likely to change even more dramatically pretty soon! What does that mean for our own lives and decisions? Let’s discuss Scott’s “modal timeline” in his AI Opinions post and talk about what it would be like to live through that. (Let’s avoid debating the timeline, except to acknowledge the uncertainty about the future will remain throughout the future).
Yotam will be sitting outside wearing a rainbow hat.
Nonfiction Reading Group
What: Reading group
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Thursday, August 6th, 6:30-9pm
Style: Reading group
Run By: Owen
A reading/discussion group for nonfiction articles/papers. Content for the week (and partiful) will be announced in the LessWrong discord prior to the event. Please read beforehand.
Into the Void, a LARP
What: Live action roleplaying game
Where: Owen’s place
When: Saturday August 8th, 6:00pm
Style: Social
Run By: Skyler
I rewrote a LARP about demons to instead be about the twelve virtues of rationality. I cannot convincingly argue that this was an important thing for me to do, but I can at least argue it was neglected.
Into The Void is a game about humans trading off everything in pursuit of one overriding concern as they bargain with ancient beasts, with the humans offering their soul and control of their body in exchange for saving themselves and their civilization. Players play either a human hours away from eradication from an invading army bargaining with these ancient beings as you try to understand what they want, or play one of these ancient beasts, bound by the ideal "virtue" you embody and exemplify.
(This larp is based on another LARP, Into the Abyss, by Mike Vonkorff and DancesThroughLife )
RSVPs required, aaaaaaaand we’re basically full up. Feel free to poke me on Discord if you want to be waitlisted (that is, I'll message if someone drops out and isn't going to make it) or just to express interest- if there's a bunch of folks interested I could probably be persuaded to run it again sometime, depending on how the first one goes.
Stargazing Trip
What: Watching a meteor shower
Where: Meet at Malden Centre
When: Meet at Wednesday August 12th, 8:30pm. Getting back after midnight.
Style: Social
Run By: Skyler
The Perseid meteor shower is one of the most reliable and consistent meteor showers in the northern hemisphere, and it peaks August 12/13. August 12 also happens to be a new moon, which means there’s no moonlight to spoil to view.
I plan to take a car out into Western Mass to go look for a good open field, and stay to watch until a bit after midnight. If I had to pick a destination I’d say Barre Falls Dam, but if I see a good spot along the way I might detour. My car will have 3, maybe 4 extra seats. This is going to be pretty inconvenient for anyone with an early morning on Thursday, especially since I’ll wind up getting back to town after the T closes, and we don’t know what the weather will be like two weeks out. If you go, you’ll want a good jacket.
If you do want to come, RSVPs are important so I know how many people are trying to fit in the car. Also happy to coordinate if someone else has a car.
Nonfiction Reading Group
What: Reading group
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Thursday, August 13th, 6:30-9pm
Style: Reading group
Run By: Owen
A reading/discussion group for nonfiction articles/papers. Content for the week (and partiful) will be announced in the LessWrong discord prior to the event. Please read beforehand.
Boston Ballot Meetup #1
What: Researching politics
Where: 70 5th St, Apartment 2, Cambridge
When: Sunday August 16th, 2:00pm
Style: Other
Run By: Taymon & Skyler
Scott Alexander sometimes publishes a review of the California ballot, and will even sometimes publish local reviews of other state/city ballots. There are many like it, but this one is ours.
You’ll want to bring a laptop for this one. Show up, do some research on the options for this year’s ballot, compare your opinions everyone else’s via moderated discussion.
Procedures are here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fnDiObykGvgbkXN3ldJBjsMMJQW3co4hK6xa8gSAdbM) though we may update them a bit. The template we’ll be writing from is here ( https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KITTsjEg4vU8LhFtoIGKbQwwTE2cqmAbpKMp_UJ5Xek/edit )
Wednesday Board Games at Jackie’s
What: Board Games!
Where: Jackie’s place, near Central Square
When: Wednesday August 19th, 6:30pm
Style: Social
Run By: Jackie
Tonight I’d like to introduce some new large group games: extreme bucket of nouns, silent football, and/or adversarial taboo. Other suggestions welcome! There will also be snacks and a friendly cat. Please use the Partiful in the discord to RSVP.
Nonfiction Reading Group
What: Reading group
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Thursday, August 20th, 6:30-9pm
Style: Reading group
Run By: Owen
A reading/discussion group for nonfiction articles/papers. Content for the week (and partiful) will be announced in the LessWrong discord prior to the event. Please read beforehand.
Book Swap
What: Bring a book, pitch the book, leave with a different book
Where: Sennott Park, 305 Broadway, Cambridge
When: Saturday August 23rd, 2:00pm
Style: Other
Run By: Skyler
The rules are simple. Bring a book to give away. By the end of the night, leave with a book that isn't the one you brought.
Advice on choosing your book: The only two hard restrictions on your choice of book is that 1. it must be a physical book, the kind you could put into someone else's hand, and 2. it must be for an English speaking audience.
Each person will give a two minute pitch for their book. Then the swapping will begin in earnest! Please feel free to ask people questions about their books, talk about what kinds of books you like, or just hang out and socialize.
I am also planning to have a ten minute rationality dojo, with a bit of calibration training and a bit of bayes and a few other bits and bobs.
Rationalist Fiction Reading Group
What: Discussing the second book of "Worth the Candle"
Where: 325 Main St, Cambridge, MA 02142 - Google's "Urban Park"
Directions: Up the staircase in the plaza surrounding the outbound Kendall/MIT Red Line head house.
When: Saturday August 29th, 2pm
Style: Reading Group
Run By: Amin
We will be reading the second book of Worth the Candle. This roughly means.
The second book as it is currently available on Kindle
Chapters 43 through 74.
Chapters "In Search of a Quest" through "The Mouth of a Long River"
This is a "full novels" worth of text - unlike the previous months.
Partiful : https://partiful.com/e/mQOJIKzqudvcIzdjVAUG
Wednesday Board Games at Aeronaut
What: Board Games!
Where: Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler St, Somerville
When: Wednesday August 26th, 6:30pm
Style: Social
Run By: Skyler
Board games! Bring your favourites if you like, I'll plan to bring some of mine. Look for the guy in the bright bandana.
Tonight I plan to bring back a newer, faster version of Chaos Investments. Is it finished yet? No! But I will set myself a deadline because this next version has spent far too long on the metaphorical workbench. I will also bring a medley of the usual hits; Trial by Trolley, Deep Sea Adventure, Fae Kin, and Goats and Goblins.
I am also planning to bring a ten minute rationality dojo, with a bit of calibration training and a bit of bayes and a few other bits and bobs.
Nonfiction Reading Group
What: Reading group
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Thursday, August 27th, 6:30-9pm
Style: Reading group
Run By: Owen
A reading/discussion group for nonfiction articles/papers. Content for the week (and partiful) will be announced in the LessWrong discord prior to the event. Please read beforehand.
Housekeeping
There’s a lot of places people announce Boston rationalist meetups. The two primary ones are this mailing list and the Boston LW Discord. Here’s a link to the Discord. https://discord.gg/2N2ADpACkw
This list of meetups is not exhaustive. Adjacent groups such as Effective Altruism, Fractal, and Boston This Part of Twitter all have meetups around Boston, and you can check out their pages for their event announcements. It’s also not exhaustive because you can add things yourself! If you’re stuck for what to run, a board game meetup at a pub is pretty easy, as is a discussion group for an Astral Codex Ten article in a park. Aeronaut Brewery and Sennott Park are both great spots, as neither needs any reservations or any particular setup.
I've also been working on a rationalist dojo, one that's hopefully both easy to run and teaches some helpful skills of the sort The Sequences praise. I'm running mini versions in some of my meetups this month, but I want to make them easy for other folks to run too- please reach out if you want to test drive the setup I'm using!
Looking forward to seeing you,
Skyler
Yotam Schachter
Sent: Tuesday, August 4, 2026 11:12 PM
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Subject: [ssc-boston] August ACX Meetups!
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