I'd like to convey a message to anyone who has been considering attending a meetup but hasn't actually come.

I first considered coming to a Melbourne meetup 18 months ago, but ended up putting it off for almost 6 months, having read HPMOR and only one of the sequences. At the time I remember feeling a little like attending my first meetup had a pretty poor expected cost/benefit ratio: I didn't know where the venue was, know any of the people, felt like I wouldn't fit in, and it was on a Friday night! My range of uncertainty for the expected awesomeness of the event ranged from 'not very awesome at all' to 'okay'.

When I finally did decide to attend, it turned out to be on of the best decisions I've made. The people were incredibly friendly and intelligent, the games were much more challenging and enjoyable than the board games I had played before, and I came away at the end of the night with a long list of interesting things to research.

In the year since I first came I've had an incredible journey thanks to these people, and I admit that putting off attending for six months was a mistake. The best way to narrow down your uncertainty on how good an idea it is to do something is to just try it. If it turns out good, you start reaping the rewards immediately, and if it turns out not so good, then you now have information to that effect.

Feel free to send me a private message if you are still sceptical or want more information. Or make a post here so we have more data on where everyone is coming from. If you are interested, but the time/location/event type doesn't work for you, let us know, so we can update accordingly in the future.

Brayden

I'll be there for sure, and have also invited a friend.

"And simply being able to notice your emotional state is rarer and more valuable than most people realize. For example, if you're in fight-or-flight mode, you're going to feel more compelled to reject arguments that feel like a challenge to your identity."

Can I have some specific examples that might help illustrate this point?

Excellent work, Reuven, and good work on identifying the failure modes to avoid for next time.

It is absolutely more important to go out and try something, even at the expense of an imperfect lecture, and it was correct to treat this as an experiment. Because you expect to learn the most from the first event, and you went out planned and delivered three presentations in only 5 weeks, you now have significant evidence and experience which will help make whatever happens next more targeted and likely to succeed.

And in case you were too modest to share the lecture itself, the video recording can be found here: http://youtu.be/RumkLgp3Ug0

Not only will I attend, but I precommit to making it more likely that an awesome game of Zendo will happen. This was the first game I played at a LW social meetup and I hope our new attendees enjoy it.

Please RSVP for this event on our meetup.com group: http://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Less-Wrong/

I'm reposting an edit made by Matt as it didn't propagate back to this post.

The plan for this month has changed slightly. See http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/i2p/meetup_melbourne_practical_rationality/

More info to come this weekend.

And nope. So close. Made it to Leicester street, chickened out before ringing the bell. Next time...

You can count on it!

Bonus incentive: I give an upvote to every comment that includes a positive expectation of attendance!