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hankx7787 comments on Young Cryonicist Gathering Warning - Less Wrong
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I, too, attended the 2012 Young Cryonicists Gathering. This is an important enough topic that I'm upvoting this post, despite it being pretty badly written. I'm going to try rewriting the OP's post for them.
The Young Cryonicists Gathering is a networking event for people under 30 years of age to meet other young cryonicists, and to meet older cryonicists who are leaders in the community. Eliezer has written about this event before. They offer scholarships which cover airfare, food, and lodging. To get a scholarship, you must hand copy a contract that you'll attend, and they claimed this was because previous people have used it as a way of getting a free vacation to Florida.
On Saturday evening, we were encouraged to attend an open bar event that started somewhere between 10:30 and 11:00 PM at the hotel's bar. This apparently went on for quite some time; I wouldn't know for sure since I cut out slightly after midnight, and only had a single alcoholic drink. I arrived at 8:50 the next morning and had a very quick breakfast. Main proceedings were scheduled to start at 9:00, and at 9:10, a staffer walked around the main table asking us our names, and writing them down.
I later learned that this list of names were the people who didn't have their scholarships revoked.
Let's temporarily ignore fairness complaints: this action was not instrumental to the organizer's goals, which were to have us meet and talk about ourselves to other people. A very large share of conversation that morning was about people's scholarships being partially revoked. More total time was wasted with discussion and worry about this (and not getting to know each other) than actual sum time wasted by the handful of people who showed up late. Several people who were on time were worried and freaking out because they couldn't afford having their scholarships revoked, even partially. One woman there told how she was instructed by her lawyer parents that there was no way in hell that she should hand write and sign the contract that had been presented to us. The event turned into a rumor mill about what exactly was going on because people were in the dark.
Moving back to the fairness issues, this was done with no warning after a late night drinking event that we were encouraged to attend. And the saddest part is that that open bar was probably the most worthwhile part of the trip. I found most of the conference to otherwise be overly regimented without enough unstructured time.
I actually agree with this completely. That was my main piece of constructive advice for the conference: more unstructured time. The best conversations were around the hot tub. Funny how that works.
Hank,
That is not your call to make. If you don't like how the conference is run, don't go. Encourage others not to go by telling them how the event is organized, not by throwing around wild, entitled accusations of mental illness. There is no evidence that the conference organizer is mentally ill. Writing "lol" is the functional equivalent of pointing and laughing - what gave you the right to point and laugh? You shouldn't be surprised that appearing and being petty is not rewarded in this forum.
If you had written what iceman wrote, you wouldn't have been downvoted. NPOV writing enhances credibility, and you are going out of your way to avoid NPOV. In fact, you seem surprised that your wisecracking is not being appreciated.
I'm sympathetic to the people hurt by the conference organizer. I have suspicions about behind the scenes issues that the conference organizer has not revealed because the issues would make the organizer look bad - even if they aren't illegal or immoral or even the organizer's fault.
By contrast, your original post seems uninterested in their problems or in the quality of the conference, except as a bloody shirt for you to wield to support your ad hominem attacks.
You have made this reply to Hank in response to (perhaps) the only comment by Hank in this thread to which it isn't a valid response.
The grandparent (in particular and perhaps to the exclusion of the other rants) is an entirely legitimate position. Giving an evaluation on which component is most valuable is his call. You don't need to agree with it and the organizers do not need to comply with the advice but he is not "out of his place" to make it.
Given the rest of the context, (particularly hankx7787's other response to iceman's post), I'm not confident that he understands the distinction between appropriate criticism and the organizer being required to follow his advice.
But I agree with you that the distinction is valid, and criticism without the necessity to comply is completely appropriate in this context.