July ACX Meetups!
Skyler Crossman
July Meetups!
Once again we have a great number of meetups this month, and so have helpfully collected them right here in one burst! Whether you're new to Boston or have been coming for years, there's a lot going on and I hope to see folks at a meetup.
Also, we have a couple of open Wednesday nights this month if someone wants to pick up the torch- July 15th and July 22nd are both open right now. Running a meetup can be pretty easy; the easiest forms are "how about board games at Aeronaut?" and "how about we talk about the latest ACX essay in Sennott park?" but don't feel like you have to stick to that.
Without further preamble, on to the meetups! Wednesday Board Games at Aeronaut
What: Board Games!
Where: Aeronaut Brewery, 14 Tyler St, Somerville
When: Wednesday July 1st, 6:30pm (Tomorrow!)
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’m going to bring a pile of small, fast games; Tak, Goats and Goblins, Fae Kin, Flash Duel, and a couple chess boards for speed chess. Feel free to bring your own!
Beach Episode at Lynn Beach
What: Sand and Swimming
Where: Lynn Beach, Lynn, MA
When: Friday July 3rd, 1pm
Style: Social
Run By: Skyler
Forecast says it’s going to be blazingly hot, and as I expect many of you are also doing I’m taking this friday off for the 4th of July. Bring a swim suit, extra water, and any beach toys you think would be fun.
Lynn Beach is accessible by commuter rail; take the Rockport/Newbury line and go to Lynn Interim. Alternately, I’ll be leaving from Malden Centre station on the Orange line around noon and have four spare seats; ping me in the Discord if you want to RSVP and claim a car seat. I plan to hang out at the beach until around 6 or 7pm, then drive back to Malden Centre.
Sequences Discussion
What: Sequences reading and mini dojo
Where: 70 5th St, Apartment 2, Cambridge
When: Wednesday July 4th, 2:00pm
Style: Reading Group + Mini Dojo
Run By: Skyler
We’ll have a reading from Rationality: From AI to Zombies, a text that drew many of us into the rationality community. Today we’ll discuss The Lens that Sees Its Flaws, What Do We Mean by “Rationality”? and “Humans Are Not Automatically Strategic.
We’re also going to try a ten minute mini-dojo, getting some repetitions in with calibration, brainstorming, and some value comparisons.
Board Games and Hangouts
What: Board Games!
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Saturday July 4th, 6pm
Style: Social
Run By: Owen
General hangout for LessWrong and Effective Altruism sorts. Please use the partiful to RSVP. Partiful usually goes up the week of.
Wednesday Board Games at Jackie’s
What: Board Games!
Where: Jackie’s place, near Central Square
When: Wednesday July 8th, 6:30pm
Style: Social
Run By: Jackie
Recent popular games have included Codenames, Cross Clues, Bang, Secret Hitler, Crew, Goats and Goblins, and Trial by Trolley. Feel free to bring your own! There will also be snacks and a friendly cat. Please use the Partiful in the discord to RSVP.
Discovery Museum!
What: Museum trip!
When: Friday July 10th, 5:30pm
Where: Discovery Museum, Acton MA
Style: Social
Run by: Derek
The Discovery Museum is a science museum in Acton where I have many fond childhood memories. On Fridays, admission (and train tickets) are free!
We’ll be taking the 5:40 train from Porter station to South Acton, where it’s about a 10 minute walk to the museum. (You can also get on at North Station at 5:30.) Then we’ll have about an hour and a half at the museum, and get back to Boston by 9.
RSVP: https://luma.com/1a1qb8kq
Waterfight??? hold this space
What: Waterfight? Waterfight! Waterfight.
Where: TBD
When: Saturday July 11th, 2pm
Style: Social
Run By: Owen or Jackie
It is hot. There are pools near Owen and Jackie. They will scout out the pools, and update in the discord (and possibly by followup email) where the water fight shall commence.
Board Games and Hangouts
What: Board Games!
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Saturday July 11th, 6pm
Style: Social
Run By: Owen
General hangout for LessWrong and Effective Altruism sorts. Please use the partiful to RSVP. Partiful usually goes up the week of.
Rationalist Fiction Reading Group
What: Discussing the first 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 July 18th, 2pm
Style: Reading Group
Run By: Amin
We will be reading the first book of Worth the Candle. This roughly means.
The first book as it is currently available on Kindle
Chapters 1 through 42.
Chapters "Taking the fall" through "A Pleasant Interlude in Kansas"
This is a "full novels" worth of text - unlike the previous months.
Partiful : https://partiful.com/e/34rhyqNRNgcnU7FwO9D6
AI Safety Workshop
What: Where is AI in 2026 and Where is it Going? A free, beginner-friendly workshop exploring where AI may be in the next 1–5 years and what that means for daily life.
Where: Presentation School Foundation Community Center, New Balance Room, 640 Washington St, Brighton, MA
When: Saturday, July 18th, 4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Style: Workshop
Run By: Pride Jia with the AI Safety Awareness Project
A free, public workshop with no technical background needed
For the last several years, AI systems have advanced at a pace that has stunned the public and even surprised leading experts. These systems are reshaping work, the economy, relationships, and even crime extremely quickly.
This workshop will explore where AI may be in the next 1-5 years and what that means for daily life for all of us. We’ll tackle urgent and important questions like:
Jobs: Could AI lead to mass unemployment or will it help create entirely new kinds of work?
Crime: How might AI supercharge scams, hacking, and even crime?
Companions: Will people form deep emotional bonds or even romantic relationships with AI companions?
Society: How do top researchers think these trends will shape our future?
What you’ll get:
A fast-paced, beginner-friendly overview of today’s most powerful AI systems
Live demos that reveal both the breakthroughs and the risk
Interactive forecasting exercises where you’ll test your predictions about AI’s impact against the broader community
Come ready to explore a future arriving faster than most people realize. A future that could transform not just how we work, but how we trust, connect, and even love.
RSVP: https://luma.com/aisap-avkj
Codex Discussion
What: Sequences reading and mini dojo
Where: Sennott Park, 305 Broadway, Cambridge
When: Sunday, July 19th, 2:00pm
Style: Reading Group + Mini Dojo
Run By: Skyler
We’ll discuss three readings from Scott Alexander’s writings, the author that drew many of us into the rationality community. Today we’ll discuss Cardiologists and Chinese Robbers, Proving Too Much and “Beware Isolated Demands for Rigor.
We’re also going to try a ten minute mini-dojo, getting some repetitions in with calibration, brainstorming, and some common fallacies.
(In an abundance of caution I will note that despite the fact that I work with Scott sometimes and this is a discussion about his writing, he mostly doesn’t pay attention to my rationality dojo ideas.)
Board Games and Hangouts
What: Board Games!
Where: Owen's place, near Davis Square
When: Saturday July 25th, 6pm
Style: Social
Run By: Owen
General hangout for LessWrong and Effective Altruism sorts. Please use the partiful to RSVP. Partiful usually goes up the week of.
Wednesday Board Games at Pressed
What: Board Games!
Where: Pressed cafe, 49 Pier 4 Blvd, Boston
When: Wednesday July 29th, 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. This week I'm going to bring a pile of icebreaker games, things like Askhole or Two Truths and a Prediction Market, that are good for getting to know each other better. I'm also planning to have some cooperative games, so expect Five Minute Dungeon, Hanabi, Moon Adventure, and maybe a few others.
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 be about the twelve virtues of rationality instead of the original list of virtues. 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, and in fact this one’s by application-only so that I can cast people. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfezzHTdbXpxhUyjRnT_9GTnPw7aylDrxSIxQwWi1JJ11U2aA/viewform?usp=dialog
Housekeeping
Here’s a link to the Discord, which has Partiful links to RSVP for some of the above events.
This list of meetups is not exhaustive. Adjacent groups such as Effective Altruism, Fractal, and 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. Jackie has been updating the ACX Boston Google Calendar, but the canonical list of meetups is intended to be the Discord and this mailing list- crossposting anywhere else is a bonus.
Also a reminder: The intended structure of the Boston Rationalist community is a friendly anarchy. There's a lot of organizers, there's a lot of mailing lists and facebook groups and also adjacent groups. So the first rule is the host of the space sets the rules, followed by the organizer of an event. Likewise for mailing lists/discords/etc, the platform gets their rules and then the local admins or mods do. Friendly anarchy means among other things someone might not be welcome at meetups Skyler runs but be welcome at meetups Taymon runs or vice versa. That's totally fine, system working as intended. Organizers are encouraged to curate their events; we all need a reminder sometimes that well-kept gardens die by pacifism.