It's time to gather together and remember the true Reasons for the Season: axial tilt, orbital mechanics and other vast-yet-comprehensible forces have converged together to bring another year to a close, and as the days grow shorter and colder we remember how profoundly lucky we are to have been forged by blind, impersonal forces into beings that can understand, and wonder, and appreciate ourselves and each other. This year's East Bay Rationalist Winter Solstice will be held in the center of Berkeley, bringing 300 rationalists together in a theatre hall for food, songs, speeches, and conversations. We encourage other Bay denizens who can't make our solstice to put on their own show. Or even if you do come, we encourage people to try out their own ideas. The East Bay Solstice celebration will be on Saturday, December 17th, in the Anna Head Alumnae Hall in Berkeley. Acquire tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/2016-bay-area-winter-solstice-tickets-27853776395 We are coordinating with the Bayesian Choir and will be coordinating with various speakers, as in previous years. An MC and schedule will be posted as details solidify. Kids are welcome. Vegetarian food will be available. Let us know if you have specific accomadation requests or have questions.

We're having another all-Texas party in Austin. We'll be welcoming Scott Aaronson, who's moved here to teach at UT Austin.

(Previously, we were worried that the time might work, but now it's been confirmed.)

We'll be meeting to tell each other stories! Ideally, come with a story from your life (doesn't have to be about anything in particular) that you want to tell other people.

For help getting into the building, please call (or text, with a likely-somewhat-slower response rate): 301-458-0764.

Format:

We meet and start hanging out at 6:15, but don’t officially start doing the meetup topic until 6:45-7 to accommodate stragglers. Usually there is a food order that goes out before we start the meetup topic.

About these meetups:

The mission of the SF LessWrong meetup is to provide a fun, low-key social space with some structured interaction, where new and non-new community members can mingle and have interesting conversations. Everyone is welcome.

We explicitly encourage people to split off from the main conversation or diverge from the topic if that would be more fun for them (moving side conversations into a separate part of the space if appropriate). Meetup topics are here as a tool to facilitate fun interaction, and we certainly don’t want them to inhibit it.

We will be meeting in the courtyard to chat about tools people use to get information from one place to another, both in the past and in the present.

Upcoming meetups:

• Oct. 30: Halloween Party
• Nov. 6: Fun & Games

Hello all,

new month, new LW meeting. After the nice meeting last month we had an idea of discussing cognitive biases in conspiracy texts. As always everyone is encouraged to suggest own topics or articles.

Welcome to Moscow LW community makeshift games! In that games, some rationality skills are involved, so you can practise while you playing!

• FallacyMania: it is a game where you guess logical fallacies in arguments, or practise using logical fallacies yourself (depending on team in which you will be).

Details about the game: http://goo.gl/BtRVhB

• Tower of Chaos: funny game with guessing the rules of human placement on a Twister mat.

Game rules: https://goo.gl/u9qgc3

• Scientific Discovery: challenging table game with guessing the rules about items placement on the table.

Come to antikafe "Kocherga", ul.B.Dorogomilovskaya, 5-2. The map is here: http://kocherga-club.ru/#contacts . Nearest metro station is Kievskaya. If you are lost, call Sasha at +7-905-527-30-82.

Games begin at 19:40, the length is 3.5 hours.

Last week, we had only enough time for an intro to TAPs. This week, we will dive into mental contrasting, in a workshop held by David_Kristoffersson.

Ever had a valuable goal that you knew you could do, yet you somehow didn’t feel motivated to follow through with it?

Enter mental contrasting. Mental contrasting “translates cerebral thoughts of success into concrete emotions of motivation”. It combines naturally with TAPs (implementation intentions).

Bring a bugs list, or a goal you want to achieve -- a goal you haven’t had consistent motivation for.

The meetup is at a KTH academic building and the room is on the 5th floor, two stairs up. If you want to influence future meetup times, fill out this poll.

Every winter, people across the US East Coast (and beyond!) travel to New York City, to celebrate humanity's triumph against the darkness. Come to sing songs, to connect with people from the rationality and secular communities, and (this particular year), to hear the complete story of smallpox, from its earliest appearances to its eventual eradication, and more. (Note: To pay for the venue, tickets are available at www.secularsolstice.com)

There seem to be quite a few new Rationality interested people in Zürich now. Come and meet us! No program.