http://existentialcomics.com/comic/47

I just discovered that this is happening. I intend to attend. DiamondSoul, if you come too we can be n00bs together :) .

On the Slate Star Codex announcement Scott (Yvain) said, "If you're reading this, you're invited", so all are welcome. There are usually one or more lurkers/people who don't really know anyone. No sign-up necessary.

There is no hard time limit, but it seems like previous ones have often lasted like three hours or more if I remember correctly. But you can leave (or arrive) at any time.

I hope to see you (and blumsha) there!

I live about 2 hours away and was thinking I might like to come, but I'm not real familiar with how LW meetups work. Are they open to pretty much anyone (i.e. is it a problem that I'm just a lurker and don't really know anyone)? Anything in particular I have to do to sign up? How long do the meetups usually last?

As Eliezer says, on short time scales (days, weeks, months) we change our minds less often than we expect to. However, it's worth noting that, on larger time scales (years, decades) the opposite seems to be true. Also, our emotional state changes more frequently than we expect it to, even on short time scales. I can't seem to recall my exact source on this second point at the moment (I think it was some video we watched in my high school psychology class), though, anecdotally, I've observed it to be true in my own life. Like, when I'm feeling good, I may think thoughts like "I'm a generally happy person", or "my current lifestyle is working very well, and I should not change it", which are falsifiable claims/predictions that are based on the highly questionable assumption that my current emotional state will persist into both the near and distant future. Similarly, I may think the negations of such thoughts when I'm feeling bad. As a result, I have to remind myself to be extra skeptical/critical of falsifiable claims/predictions that agree too strongly my current emotional state.

Fascinating, thanks!

A project that's been kicking around in the back of my head for a while is emotional engineering through algorithmic music; it would be great to have a way to generate somewhat novel happy high-energy music during coding that won't sap any attention (I'm sort of reluctant to talk to musicians about it, though, because it feels like telling a chef you'd like a way to replace them with a machine that dispenses a constant stream of sugar :P).

Welcome, fellow new person! You've got some wonderful music. Any particular things that interest you in the "confusing question" genre?

Welcome!

I'm a college student studying music composition and computer science.

Have you done any algorithmic composition?

I'm a college student studying music composition and computer science. You can hear some of my compositions on my SoundCloud page (it's only a small subset of my music, but I made sure to put a few that I consider my best at the top of the page). In the computer science realm, I'm into game development, so I'm participating in this thing called One Game A Month whose name should be fairly self-explanatory (my February submission is the one that's most worth checking out - the other 2 are kind of lame...).

For pretty much as long as I can remember, I've enjoyed pondering difficult/philosophical/confusing questions and not running away from them, which, along with having parents well-versed in math and science, led me to gradually hone my rationality skills over a long period of time without really having a particular moment of "Aha, now I'm a rationalist!". I suppose the closest thing to such a moment would be about a year ago when I discovered HPMoR (and, shortly thereafter, this site). I've found LW to be pretty much the only place where I am consistently less confused after reading articles about difficult/philosophical/confusing questions than I am before.

We're only allowed to talk about the fact that we are almost universally demonstrably evil by the standards of our own professed moral systems in a joking context.