Female Compatriots, Stay For a Week in Berkeley!
There is a thriving rationalist community in Berkeley, but unfortunately it is terribly gender imbalanced. Being a counselor in the extended community, I’ve talked to a lot of people who are very isolated of both genders around the world, who are dying to meet other people who think like they do. My goal is to help everyone, but for now, I’m starting with cases that are easy where there are obvious supply and demand curves to balance.
Since I'd really like to get more rationalist women out here, both for my own sanity and that of the community at large, and there happens to be a room free in my home for July and August, my housemates and I are offering a free stay in this room in downtown Berkeley for a week each to the two women who send me the most compelling questionnaires.
The sorts of things that I am likely to find compelling are:
- Caring about progress for humanity in the areas of living longer, healthier, and happier
- Caring about FAI
- Being agenty
- Having interests in the sort of geeky things that a lot of the community is interested in (math/sciences/psychology)
While you’re here, you can meet our many awesome people, plus we’ll introduce you around to a bunch of the people you've been reading from such as - Anna, Eliezer, etc. While you're here we'll try to help you make a lot of connections, and hopefully you will make friends that you will keep for a very long time.
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Comments (37)
What does it mean "being agenty" ?
Taking personal responsibility for making things happen. Observing opportunities and going for them. Taking risks. The act of filling out the form I posted would be a form of being an agent.
Also see: The Power of Agency.
FYI, I'm female and visiting for the month of July anyway, staying with Anna etc.
Awesome! I look forward to meeting you :)
And I you :)
The whole of July?
Yes. June 30-Aug 1.
Remind me of your dietary requirements and I shall tuck you into a dinner party.
Will you be around for the Rationality Minicamp?
I know very little about the times or places of specific minicamps, nor am I an official participant. If there's one nearby in July I might drop by, if that is acceptable behavior.
Ooh, interesting idea. I'm throwing dinner parties once a week. I'll throw in an invite for these visitors while they're here provided I'm notified of their contact info and dietary needs and the date of the stay in advance.
That would be fabulous, I'll definitely put you in touch.
Shannon is a connector and will help introduce you to other interesting people! I'd advocate that people stay at her place even if they already have other crash space in Berkeley - as this way you are likely to meet new people that you otherwise would not have met.
I recently (June 10-18th) stayed at Shannon's place in Berkeley - additional advantages include it being within walking distance of public transportation! :)
Anything for a female rationalist already planning on moving to Berkeley in August? :)
Absolutely. What are your needs and requests? Feel free to email me about yourself or fill out the form or we can just talk in person once you're here. In general I'm on a mission to try to help the community be outputting awesome as much as possible, which for my specialties means helping people out with networking, resources, strategy, becoming aware of and dealing with big irrationalities/blocks, seeing opportunities, and a few other things like that.
Shannon is a network hub. I spent some time at her previous house and made a lot of connections, including my current partners.
Darn! If only I were a female androphile, rather than a male one... I eagerly await the day this post reads "large group of female rationalists now requires gay-best-friend figure for company, dialogue about hair and SAVING the WORLD".
This is a really neat idea, yay for propagating relationships that wouldn't otherwise have occurred.
Thanks for the acknowledgment :) I have quite a few friends of "its complicated" gender, I think it kind of gives you all superpowers in the sense that you are so much more aware of a very large and frequently used set of assumptions most people are making, and exceptions to them - you are forced to see more of the structure of the matrix just by virtue of being who you are. Please let me know if you ever make it to out to California.
You're welcome :) yes, in that sense it does confer (by confer I mean involuntarily foist upon you) a handful of learning opportunities, especially as you grow up with a wider view of gender-stuff. I'm not certain I'd go back in time and choose the norm, for the variety having an extra order of weirdness.
Though fitting in with weirdness never seemed like it'd be a huge problem with Less Wrong.
I totally will, thank you.
s/acceptions/exceptions/
Thanks!
I'd love to meet more rationalist women, but sadly there's no way I could visit the US this summer. If any of you are ever in the UK, it would be great to meet you.
I imagine I would need to provide my own transportation, yes?
I will help find/sell plane tickets to friends (and those in my extended friend network, such as LW) at a discount :)
Yes, sadly, for the flight and whatnot.
It shouldn't be too hard to coordinate rides from the airport (I'll do it if I can) and there are tons of people around who would be happy to give you rides to events locally and whatnot.
Hrm. I doubt I would be ready for a cross country trip in the next few months. Maybe I can do it later. Yep. :)
Cool, keep me posted. I doubt I'll still have access to a room, but I can poke around and see who has couch space available.
This does sound like a good idea, and it's a very generous invitation. Unfortunately, I am neither a woman, nor will I be traveling to Berkeley anytime soon. I do have one concern though.
The second item on this list strikes me as perhaps not very well thought out. In the last LW survey, 16.5% of respondents identified uFAI as the most likely existential risk, well below two other responses, despite the fact that it is the only one that gets a significant amount of discussion here. In fact, I don't think I've seen any discussion of whether, if uFAI is not the most likely existential risk, that FAI is the risk that rationalists should be focusing primarily on. So part of the point I want to make is that I'm concerned with how much we have equated in our minds the concepts of "rationalist" and "supporter of the Singularity Institute".
The other, more specific point I wanted to make is that it seems to me to be a bad idea to try to recruit members, for a group based around one topic (learning to think better), exclusively from a sample of people who are interested in a different topic (FAI). I would predict that there are a large number of female aspiring rationalists who don't really get the concept of CEV, or are all that interested. If you filter for that, I think you're going to miss out on an awful lot of people that we would like to become part of the community.
Hi There,
Thanks for the feedback and the opportunity to clarify. That list was meant as the sorts of things I would find intriguing/be interested in as examples, not requirements or filters. Any sort of wanting to improve the world in a way that creates value is of interest to me. And I'm not even asking for success, just some amount of desire. Just having it as part of their mental model and having an eye out for opportunities would be something I would value.
I'm not applying for this because I'm not quite in the right circumstances for it--but I'm female and moving to the peninsula in mid-August for work, and would be interested in being part of social events. (I've been to 2 or 3 Berkeley meetups in the past when on other trips in fact.)
Send me dates and dietary requirements and I will attempt to tuck you into a party.
Cool! Drop me a line when you get here and I'll be happy to hook you up with social events and introductions.
Haha! Very curious to know how this turns out!
Really great! Our first guest, Evelyn (http://lesswrong.com/lw/dm4/berkely_visit_report/), is amazing, as is her friend Copt who came with her. The second of three women who have booked flights to visit is here right now along with her brother, she's a physics major from Vienna, Austria. The third is someone who is into math, japanese literature, meditation, and programming! I also have had several contacts with people via the post either tangential or who would like to visit at later dates.
If this opportunity ever comes around again, I want to do this! Female-mathy-transhumanist-educator sums up a lot of me. I organize the still-fledgling Atlanta LessWrong meetups, and I want to bring them back some memes from a highly concentrated rationalist community!