You're welcome! Some of the credit should trickle back to Tom McCabe too. He noticed that the event that we're piggy backing on was in SoCal and contacted me in case I was interested.
Hopefully we'll figure out some way to organize these more often. The title of this purposefully starts with "July 2010" because I was hoping there would be more in the future with other dates.
I think the trick will be finding a good center of mass. I live in San Diego and would prefer something in Orange county or maybe even south of Camp Pendleton, but I don't know what our density or center of mass is yet. For all I know there will be people coming down from Santa Barbara. (And again, if there is anyone reading this in San Diego, let me know and I can deal with the driving.)
If it turns out that we have enough density, perhaps we could do something monthly on local levels (within each county) and then have a quarterly meetups for the whole region? Honestly, I think we'll just have to play it by ear and see what happens.
I'm in Santa Barbara and will definitely make it to future meetups. Quarterly would be fantastic!
There will be a meetup for people from lesswrong in Los Angeles, on Friday July 9th, 2010 at 3PM. Roundtrip carpooling from San Diego is definitely available and other carpooling options may develop. The time and location are designed to make it possible for people from lesswrong to get together and talk. Later, anyone interested should be able to walk to the first meeting of the LA Chapter of the SENS Foundation where Aubrey de Grey will be attending. It should be a good time if you can make it! See below the cut for more details.
The exact location of the meetup is no longer in flux. We will meet at the same place as the SENS Meeting but two hours earlier. That will be Friday 3PM at:
Westwood Brewing Company1097 Glendon AveLos Angeles, CA 90024The format will be very free form - mostly talking, eating, and/or drinking. Topics are especially likely to include cryonics and life extension given the proximity of the SENS Meeting, but saving the world and "rationality itself" will probably be on the menu as well :-)
See you there!