It might be good to brainstorm a few topics of conversation; ones that won't alienate people who are relatively new, but will also engage OB/LW veterans. The Singularity can be a bad call because it usually boils down to inside view / outside view considerations that are hard to navigate real-time: conversations dissolve into debate instead of truth seeking. That said, with the right atmosphere it can be a great topic. Cryonics can be interesting but often isn't. If people have expertises they'd like to share that's often interesting if groups are smallish (less than 10). Conversations about group epistemology (the Bayesian Conspiracy, the Cooperative Conspiracy) can be fun if they lead to real insights or action. Of course, meandering conversation can be great too.
"What is your super origin / how did you become a rationalist?" is a question that seemed to spark a lot of interesting conversation.
The second LessWrong meetup for Southern California will happen on Saturday September 25th, 2010! The meetup will start at 1PM and probably run for 4 or 5 hours in the Platt Campus Center of Harvey Mudd College. Thanks are due to the Harvey Mudd Future Tech Club for the location.
We will be meeting in a conference room with tables, chairs, whiteboards, and a projector. Based on the July SoCal LW Meetup we discovered that the most interesting thing was to have small group conversations but that turned out to be tricky in a pub. This time we're optimizing for conversation, but pizza will almost assuredly be ordered and there will be free cookies and soda!
Last time several people brought interested friends. Also some people who had been reading a long time but had never commented before showed up (only about 60% of us had LW logins) and this seemed to work pretty well. It was a very friendly group :-)
For travel planning purposes, you should probably be aware that the time and location was specifically planned to be ~10 blocks north of the Claremont Metrolink Station, 15 minutes after a train arrives there from the hub at LA Union Station. Train schedules can be searched here. Walking directions from the Metrolink Station:
For those arriving via car there is a parking lot directly behind the building (it's covered with trees on the Google maps aerial view). There should be plenty of spots open on a Saturday. Also, look for carpooling comment threads, here for Santa Barbara, here for Orange County, here for San Diego, and here for Pasadena/Glendale.