Meetup Announcement Thread

[Ham Nox]

Announce official and unofficial meetups here. Announcements only please: Meetup ideas and rsvps should go on another topic or directly to the planner.

Is the regular meetup going on at a time or place that doesn't work for you? Did you want to do something different than the usual library and coffee? Don't want to wait a whole month to hang out with your fellow rationalists again?

Don't be shy--Post a little get-together of your own! Get another friend to come with, or be daring and precommit to sit down someplace with a book and wait out the hour whether or not anyone shows.

[Christina Smithers]

Coffee is still cool. We could maybe try a bbq or something on a nice
evening for something different if that sounds okay to everyone. It
would be awesome to try it during something such as International
Space Station flyovers so we can all know we are capable of thinking
of awesome things.

Bye the way, sorry to have had to miss the last meetup. How was it?

> --
>
>

[Ham Nox]

BTW, the next meetup:

September 15, 3pm-5pm
Calvin S. Smith Library

810 East 3300 South, Salt Lake City, UT

We'll be in the small conference room at the back.

3:00 Greetings, Introduction and Catchup
3:10 Minicamp Brain Dump (Kevin V.)
3:30 discuss
3:40 Willpower (Dan N.)
4:00 discuss
4:10 SLOT OPEN
4:30 discuss
4:40 Wrap up and Final Thoughts, Sign up for next meetup
Free Discussion

I'd suggest bringing a notebook and pen.

[Carrie Joy]

I'm going into Manhattan tomorrow for the NYC Less Wrong meetup. (I believe it's the Overcoming Bias group.) If you have any basic questions about rationality you want me to ask (or non-basic, but I have to be able to understand it enough to repeat the question!), let me know before noon tomorrow!

[Ham Nox]

Carrie has invited the group to her house on Sunday the 23rd to have a half-day review of minicamp from Kevin and/or Ham.

Email her for the address and to RSVP.

[Ham Nox]

Upcoming plans:

October 20th, 3pm-5pm
Calvin S. Smith Library

810 East 3300 South, Salt Lake City, UT

We'll be in the small conference room at the back.

3:00 Greetings, Introduction and Catchup
3:10 Minicamp Brain Dump (Kevin V.)
3:30 discuss

3:40 Free Will (Kip W.)
4:00 discuss
4:10 Group Goals (Mel H.)

4:30 discuss
4:40 Wrap up and Final Thoughts, Sign up for next meetup
Free Discussion

Bring a friend! RSVP if you can, if we get too many people we may need to change venues to the Holladay Library

Also, check out the upcoming Atheists of Utah event:

Please join us for the Atheists of Utah - End of Summer Picnic at Fairmont Park! Our ‘Ice Cream Social’ was a huge success and we’re looking forward to seeing everyone again. We’ve reserved a pavilion, so no need to bring a blanket and sit in the grass (unless you want to). Please bring toys, games, Frisbees, etc. and join in on the fun!

Atheists of Utah will be supplying hotdogs and hamburgers!

We’re asking that everyone attending please bring a side dish or drink or dessert to share with the group.

We’ve created a sign-up to help with the coordination of who’s bringing what. Check it out and sign up early:
http://www.perfectpotluck.com/

 

Coordinator last name = aou
Password = 0923

When:
Sunday, September 23rd from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM

Where:
Fairmont Park - 1040 E Sugarmont Dr. (2225 S)
Grove Pavilion (see map)
Fairmont Park info:
http://www.slcclassic.com/publicservices/parks/parkspages/Fairmont.htm

 

Park map - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/32426429/Fairmont.jpg

 

Parking will be most convenient at the southwest corner of the park, off of 900 East.

[Jeremy Frandsen]

Hello, I was just wondering if there is any way to have these on a Sunday?  I really want to come, but Saturdays are really hard for me.  I've missed a couple because if it and I'd really like to come!

On Sunday, August 26, 2012 9:52:49 PM UTC-6, Ham Nox wrote:

[Melanie Heisey]

Of course!

The "Every Third Saturday of the Month" deal isn't some official pronouncement, I'm just doing that to keep us somewhat predictable for new people. Anyone can set up meetups, anytime. In fact, I'd heartily encourage it. Just post when you'd like to meetup, probably at a coffee shop or library would be best, and I'll be sure to drag at least a few of us there to meet you!

--
 
 

--
Melanie Heisey

Mobile: 801.897.8273
AIM: MHeiseyNox
Hotmail: MHeis...@hotmail.com
Meebo: HamNox

[Ham Nox]

Since Google apparently ate the post that already announced today's meetup, I'll remind you now that it's still on.

Nov. 17th 3pm, at the Smith Library. For future reference, it's always going to be that time, that place, on the third Saturday of the month unless specifically mentioned otherwise.

[Jeremy Frandsen]

Okay, so that means that the next one is Dec. 15th 3PM, at the Smith Library, right?  I'm putting it on the calendar so I can finally make it!

[Jeremy Frandsen]

Is the meeting happening today?

On Saturday, November 17, 2012 9:18:25 AM UTC-7, Ham Nox wrote:

[Carrie Joy]

Yes! I'm here anyway.

--
 
 

[Ham Nox]

Sex and Love in the SLC

Sunday 2-16-13, 1pm
1558 Palo Verde Way QE #12
Cottonwood Heights, UT 84121

It's February, the arbitrarily themed month of love and sex! Naturally, we're having a themed meetup to match a certain much-abused, chocolatey holiday in the same month.

As it happens, we're departing from the usual schedule and doing it on a Sunday so we can finally meet the mysterious can't-come-on-saturday crowd! The Saturday meetup might still happen--I'll still show up, at least--but it'll mostly be for coffee and chit-chat if it does.

Any snacks you might want to bring would be dully appreciated, as well as any books you'd like to bring for reference... or diagram *wink wink*

PS. Join us on Facebook!

On Sunday, August 26, 2012 9:52:49 PM UTC-6, Ham Nox wrote:

[Carrie Joy]

Any snacks you might want to bring would be dully appreciated

Even Melanie's typos are witty.

 

[Melanie Heisey]

Saturday, March 16, 2013 @ 3pm
Beans and Brews, 791 E 3300 S

This is an exercise-focused meetup, concentrating on the ideas behind the amusing little story here:

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/the-simple-truth

The essay above is meant to restore "a naive view of truth", and that's a goal of this meeting as well. There will be some talk on the nature of truth, but let's be honest--you could start a long and involved argument about it over any internet forum any day of the week. Save your grandstanding for those venues. This meetup is going to be primarily about the purpose and practice of pursuing truth, not the philosophy of truth itself.

General meetup rules:
* Honor intellectual honesty. Be truthful with others, and even more so with yourself.
* Respect others’ right to think things through on their own time and terms.
* Speak specifically and concretely. Use examples, identify observable effects, taboo words that invite baggage or confusion, and ask clarifying questions frequently.
* Argue charitably on your opponents behalf, and presume the least convenient possible world for your own arguments.
* Leave your politics, or other ideas that you identify with or are emotionally invested in, at the door.

If you have any questions or if there is anything at all bothering you, please don't hesitate to message me. And please err on the side of asking; it costs little to address your concerns if they're trivial and costs a lot to ignore them if they're not.

[Kevin Van Horn]

Shouldn't this be on the Facebook page?

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[Carrie Joy]

groan. I suppose it should but have I said lately how much I hate Facebook? 

I mean, why is Facebook the place we're using; because lots of other people do too, right? But surely there must be other venues that can do the job...<gazes wishfully into space>

[Melanie Heisey]

There's meetup too, with the possibility of making the group private.

Their organizer fees are off-putting, though.

On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Carrie Joy <tunin...@gmail.com> wrote:

groan. I suppose it should but have I said lately how much I hate Facebook? 

I mean, why is Facebook the place we're using; because lots of other people do too, right? But surely there must be other venues that can do the job...<gazes wishfully into space>

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[Carrie Joy]

Hm, meetup is not my favorite, though I wasn't aware they had a private option. The fees are only one part of what I don't like. But...there are so many options to do this job, I think it would be worthwhile to just keep it as an open question. I'm sure at some point one of us will say, "Hey, have you heard of this new website?" Then we can see. 

[Melanie Heisey]

Dinner and Talk Meetup
No pressure here, just food and conversation.
To keep things interesting, entrance to the table requires that you bring one random item. Telling the story of why you picked that item is optional.

Denny's

7051 S 1300 E, Cottonwood Heights, Utah 84047
March 20th
6:30pm

General Meetup Rules:

* Honor intellectual honesty. Be truthful with others, and even more so with yourself.
* Respect others’ right to think things through on their own time and terms.

[Ham Nox]

This is an ignorable post sent for coordination purposes.

On Sunday, August 26, 2012 9:52:49 PM UTC-6, Ham Nox wrote:

[Melanie Heisey]

Less Wrong Meetup

Discovering and practicing the skills to believing true things and winning at life. Never forget to ask: Are we signal, have we shared true and valuable insights and created meaningful changes in ourselves and each other, or are we just noise?

Beans and Brews

791 E 3300 S

Saturday, April 6
3:00pm

General meetup rules:

* Honor intellectual honesty. Be truthful with others, and even more so with yourself.
* Respect others’ right to think things through on their own time and terms.
* Speak specifically and concretely. Use examples, identify observable effects, taboo words that invite baggage or confusion, and ask clarifying questions frequently.
* Argue charitably on your opponents behalf, and presume the least convenient possible world for your own arguments.
* Leave your politics, or other ideas that you identify with or are emotionally invested in, at the door.

This is an focused meetup, inspired by these blog posts:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/31/what_do_we_mean_by_rationality/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/13n/deciding_on_our_rationality_focus/

If you ask someone off the street what it means to be "rational", you'll probably get a different answer than the one this group is about. LW's concept of rationality has definite roots in the scientific enlightenment and skeptic movement, but there are meaningful differences. And both are miles apart from the common stereotype of being "rational" by becoming an emotionless robot and trying to force everything into basic math equations and propositional logic.

Less Wrong is about discovering and practicing the skills of rationality. That makes the question "What do we mean by rationality?" pretty important. The short answer is, "believing true things and winning at life". But that's just a soundbyte; it's something we'll be expounding upon.

Speaking of practicing the skills of rationality, I'm not planning for this to be all talk. There are some exercises to try out while we're at it.

Four ways this could go:
Identify a belief or strategy that you want to examine the benefit of. Imagine four different worlds -
* You use the strategy, or believe rightly, and this turns out to be to your benefit.
* You don't use the strategy, or believe wrongly, and this turns out to be to your benefit.
* You use the strategy, or believe rightly, and this turns out to be to your detriment.
* You don't use the strategy, or believe wrongly, and this turns out to be to your detriment.
How likely are each of the worlds? Does visualizing this help you decide on the best course of action?

Rationalist Taboo:
When an argument begins to revolve around a single word or idea, "taboo" that word and its synonyms from the conversation and describe the thing itself when you need to refer to it.

Optimize That:
One person suggests a problem or scenario, preferably a real life problem they actually care to hear the answer to rather than a hypothetical or fictional one.
5 minutes are allotted to discussing the problem while proposing no solutions, after which any and all ideas are fair game.

Also at this meetup, we're looking forward to a presentation from Kevin on The Willpower Instinct!

PS. If you have any questions or if there is anything at all bothering you, please don't hesitate to message me. And please err on the side of asking; it costs little to address your concerns if they're trivial and costs a lot to ignore them if they're not.

[Dan Nuffer]

The next meetup will be at:

Beans and Brews

791 E 3300 S

Saturday, April 20
3:00pm

Melanie asked me to organize this meetup. I am planning on a discussion about Behavior Economics since I have been doing Dan Ariely's Coursera online course. I would like to have a discussion about the irrational behavior we have when dealing with money.

[Dan Nuffer]

And if you want to RSVP on facebook, here's the url: https://www.facebook.com/events/317657158362056/

[Carrie Joy]

There's a star party tonight in Stansbury Park. Anyone interested? AofU event: Salt Lake Astronomical Society Star Party 

The starting time is posted at 7:30pm.

[Ham Nox]

Sat. May 18, 3pm

Beans and Brews

791 E 3300 S

This Month's topic is "Why Truth?"
Based loosely on the ideas found in this post:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/go/why_truth_and/

Valuing truth seems to go hand in hand with being a rationalist. It's basically in there as part of the definition. The various reasons there are for valuing truth make for fascinating philosophy talk, and I heartily encourage everyone to read up on it if they've got the time.

But for this meetup, we're already among people who think the truth is something worth striving towards, whether for terminal or instrumental reasons. There's not much value to be gained from hashing over the general reasoning behind "Why Truth?".

I'm interested in your stories. Your concrete examples of why it matters, and why you care. Humans do better with narratives. It's too easy to get caught up in the maths and biases, the "should"s and "thou must not"s, and lose sight of how and why you, personally, came to be on this path in the first place. 

If you can, bring an interesting object to the meetup. We'll be making good use of it.

Observation Game:
Pass around a sufficiently complex object, and take turns naming one property of the object that hasn't been named yet. It's great for exercising curiosity.

[Ham Nox]

Solstice 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013 1:00pm
Carrie Jay's house, message me or her for the address. Call me at 801.897.8273 if you need help finding your way.

This is an event to bring the whole family to. There will be singing, food, friends, and most of all, an opportunity to bring the best of yourself.

There is one rule: that everyone who comes brings a gift. Everyone. Not just any gift; it must be something of your own make and one for all to enjoy.

What do you have to share?

A few words from the heart

A song to sing

A story to tell

A lesson to give

A moment of entertainment

A craft or creation

Whatever else you can think of.

But please, don't stress yourself over it. This is not a talent contest. Showboating is highly discouraged. You can make a contribution as small or grand as you like. Whether you spend 4 days or 4 seconds on it what we really want to see is something that is *yours*.

There will be baskets for donations to CFAR and Givewell's top effective charity.

[Ham Nox]

Fall Equinox: Festival of Heroes

• • 

    Saturday, September 21, 2013
  • 

    3:00pm

Sugar House Park: Sego Lily Pavillion

1400 East 2100 South, Salt Lake City, Utah 84106

 · Get Directions

This event is about Heroes. The ones who inspire and uplift us. 

The ones who stand tall as they carry goodness in their hearts and our hopes on their backs. The ones who break the mold of mediocrity to accomplish great things. The game-changers, who are discontent to be mere NPCs.

This event is about becoming one of those people, by whatever name you call them.

Potluck or other contributions appreciated. Please RSVP to mheis...@gmail.com or 801.897.8273 if you can as I'm aiming to have a personalized element. Not a big deal if you don't, but it would up the coolness factor.

~*~

3:00 pm Tournaments and Games
4:00 pm A Toast to Heroes, and The Three Prescripts:
..Do something, rather than nothing (initiative)
..Take action first on what matters (priorities)
..Do what makes a difference (effectiveness)
6:00 pm Dinner and Talk
7:00 pm Hero’s Challenge
10:00 pm After Party

[Ham Nox]

March Less Wrong Meetup

"Why should I come to this meetup?" you may ask.

Well, maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't. It all depends. Do you want to:

• Learn and try the classic exercise of thinking on your feet in a casual, low-risk environment.
• Have a blast keeping an interesting story going with off-the-wall ideas.
• Explore the possible connection between the skills you can pick up with improv and the skills useful for meta-success, e.g. Accepting the situation at hand, Being Specific, Building on opportunities.

And as always, Do you feel like:

• Getting specific feedback and positive reinforcement on valuable habits of good thinking and success.
• Receiving empathy and support for struggles with akrasia and intellectual integrity.. and maybe brag a little after you've won the battle.
• Hanging out with just generally awesome people? (We certainly do. Which is why you should definitely come!)

Any of that interest you? All you have to do is:

• Show up at Kafeneios Coffeehouse on March 8th @ 3pm
• • (258 W 3300 S, Salt Lake City)
• Find us near the center of the first big room. I'll be the one with the whiteboard.
• Bring your observations on what you've been up to since last meetup, if you've got any to share.

• Leave your politics, or other ideas that you identify with or are emotionally invested in, at the door. 

If you're the kind of person that likes to be ahead of the game, check out these links:

http://www.dangoldstein.com/howtoimprovise.html

http://improvencyclopedia.org/references//David_Alger%60s_First_10_Rules_of_Improv.html

Thank you for your time, and thank you for being part of the most fun, engaging, and all-around rewarding social group I know.