Since you mention that you had the same reaction last year, I assume that you've read the discussion that took place then that covers this issue, yes?
Uh... maybe? I don't remember, honestly. Link?
You are talking as if a required ritual was sprung on unsuspecting meetup participants. This is obviously not true. Both Raemon's and my rituals were advertised specifically as such. If you don't want to participate in a ritual don't go to one.
Well, yes, obviously. I didn't mean to imply that anything was sprung on anyone, just saying that yes, I wouldn't go to such a thing. The issue for me is that this (for any value of "this"; the NYC LW group, for instance) is a group that does this sort of thing.
Again, this is a good route towards consensual group/self-hacking.
How can something be consensual if you enshrine it as a ritual? Once it's ritualized, it stops being consensual, except insofar as you can choose whether to go along with it or leave the group. Not participating is inherently alienating.
The ideas they [the litanies of Tarski and Gendlin] represent ... are ideas that I very much WANT to be put as deep into my psyche as I can get them.
Really? I rather think I want these things as deep in my psyche as is warranted by how true/useful I judge them to be, and absolutely no deeper than that.
In any case, it... doesn't seem like this is the only purpose of these rituals — and quite unlikely that it's the only effect.
we were specifically looking for ways to hack ourselves into feeling closer to the people we want to feel closer to.
I... don't understand this sentiment at all. That is, I don't understand what you mean by this (and consequently don't understand why it's something you'd want). Clarification would be much appreciated.
I know Raemon even made the solstice event a two-day event. One day was ritual, and the other was just a regular get-together. So if you wanted to meet everyone without taking part in the ritual you could just go to the second day.
From a comment on Yvain's review:
One thing I wish I had known was that if you skip the ritual and just come to the "general meetup" the next day -- as seemed like a perfectly good option on paper -- not only do you miss out on the fun described in the post, but you look and feel totally lame. Well, okay, maybe that's a slight exaggeration, since you still do get to meet (and re-meet) great LW (and LWish[*]) people; but those people will have just spent the previous day in, you know, a bonding ritual which, strangely enough, has this weird effect of bonding them together more closely to each other than to you who weren't there. (Also, they will have gotten most of their general meetup-socializing done the previous day, before the ritual, so as not to be strangers to each other during the latter.)
Seems like about what I would expect.
It makes sense that some people might be turned off by ritual. I hope those people went to one of the several other New York Less Wrong megameetups, or to the designated ritual-free day Sunday, or even on Saturday for the two hours before the ritual started. If they come to an event that has "RITUAL" in big letters all over it on the day when the ritual is scheduled to occur then I don't think you can fairly accuse it of being inflicted on them without such a sweeping redefinition of "consent" that it becomes impossible to ever do anyth...
One winter ago, twenty aspiring rationalists gathered in a room, ate some food, sang some songs, and lit some candles. We told some stories about why the universe is the way it is, and what kind of people we want to be.
I wrote some things about the experience. But here's a fairly succinct description:
Last year, we had fun. A few people reported being emotionally affected. By and large, though, the dominant conclusion was “This was good first effort, but much, much more is possible.” In truth, I considered it a dress rehearsal, more a proof-of-concept than a finished product. I spent the last year working to do something better, but worried that I wouldn’t be able to. That maybe people don’t create holidays from scratch that actually latch on because it’s just damn hard to do and I wouldn’t be up to it.
And I was worried that either I wouldn’t be able to make the experience as grim and intense as I wanted, or that I’d succeed, but then not be able to lift people back out of it. This was a problem for some people last year, and last year I didn’t push things nearly as dark as I was planning to this time.
I worried that even if I succeeded at creating the experience for other people, I wouldn’t be able to experience it myself. A year ago, I didn’t feel like a participant. I felt like an anthropologist - clinically detached from the bonding ritual I had created.
But six months ago, four friends and I acquired a large, three story house named “Winterfell.” And one week ago, fifty people squeezed into that house to celebrate humanity. The house seems a lot smaller once you crammed fifty people into the living room. But we managed to fit.
And then... I feel a desire to maintain some kind of modesty here, but honestly, I spent a year stressing about this and I think I’m just going to say that it went beautifully.
Not perfectly - nothing is ever perfect, and now more than ever it is clear how much more is possible with this endeavor. Yvain wrote a pretty good review of which parts went well and which parts needed work. But I got emphatic gratitude from people who had been merely lukewarm about it last year.
In the darkest section of the evening, people cried, and held each other, and I was one of them. And I was one of them as we watched time lapse footage of the stars from the international space station, and sang about a tomorrow that could be brighter than today.
This will be the first post of another short mini-sequence (either one or two additional posts elaborating on the design process, what comes next and what I’m concerned about). For now, I'll just note the one biggest flaw with this years was that it was too long. (Last years was too short, and I decided to err on the side of "test a bunch of ideas at once" so that future Solstices could settle into an ideal, traditional state faster).
I would like to note that I want to strongly encourage people who are weirded out by this to speak out (if for no other reason than to be counted as people who are turned off by it). If you have specific negative consequences beyond a vague dislike of the idea, I'd like you to articulate them, after looking through my post from last year - The Value and Danger of Ritual.
Below is a link to the 2012 Ritual Book, and a collection of links to online media for the songs and videos that we listened to and watched during the event, which you can follow along with as you read to get something (vaguely) resembling the actual experience. (Plus side - you’ll get to experience higher quality of music performance. Downside - you miss on the warm experience of singing with a group of people).
I couldn’t find links for all the songs, but there should be enough to give you the idea.