Cryonics donation fund for Kim Suozzi established by Society for Venturism
Following the news that Kim Suozzi has terminal brain cancer and wants to be cryopreserved, many of us have donated to help her out, while others, including me, planned to donate when CI set up a fund to receive donations on her behalf. Now the Society for Venturism has set up a fund, and it is time for us to follow through on those plans. (Unless you are really insisting that the fund be managed by CI specifically.)
(ETA: Kim has posted on this herself.)
How to get cryocrastinators to actually sign up for cryonics
At the end of CFAR's July Rationality Minicamp, we had a party with people from the LW/SIAI/CFAR community in the San Francisco Bay area. During this party, I had a conversation with the girlfriend of a participant in a previous minicamp, who was not signed up for cryonics (her boyfriend was). The conversation went like this:
me: So, you know what cryonics is?
her: Yes
me: And you think it's a good idea?
her: Yes
me: And you are not signed up yet?
her: Yes
me: And you would like to be?
her: Yes
me: Wait a minute while I get my laptop.
And I got my laptop, pointed my browser at Rudi Hoffman's quote request form1, and said, "Here, fill out this form". And she did.
Let's be friendly to our allies
Less Wrong was created to produce rationalists, so that many causes could benefit from the efforts of those rationalists. The point is not just to have nice place to talk about rationality, but to really make ourselves stronger, to apply the lessons that we learn here to improve our own lives, and to improve the world.
80,000 Hours is an organization created to provide direct domain specific help to people who want to support charitable causes, the same causes Less Wrong is supposed to produce rationalists to support. 80,000 Hours has goals clearly aligned with ours. Provided we think they are pursuing their aligned goals effectively, we should be excited about this. We should be happy when they reach out to us, to see how we can work together.
So, I am very disappointed to see the negative reception of a Less Wrong post by 80,000 Hours member Benjamin Todd, asking us what questions we would like 80,000 Hours to answer for us. They are basically offering to do free research for us on things that we care about, because our goals are aligned. And yet, as of this writing, that post has a score of -7, and it has received comments complaining that it is an ad. To be clear, ads of the sort that we want to avoid do not offer free services relevant to a core purpose of our community. I won't argue whether or not the post was an ad, but I will say that it belongs on Less Wrong and we should give it a good reception.
I would like to thank Benjamin Todd and others at 80,000 hours for their work in helping people be more effective philanthropists and otherwise support important causes, and for engaging Less Wrong in this project. I also thank everyone who responded to post with their actual questions about making a difference.
And, please, can we be nice to people who help us?
Meetup : Canberra Meetup Saturday November 5th
Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra Meetup Saturday November 5th
(Posted on behalf of Nikita Samoylov)
This is a new meetup. We'll be mostly introducing each other. We'll also play games on cognitive biases. We'll also talk what we want to do in the future meetups. I'll bring tea and some snacks. You can also bring snacks. I hope to see you there!
Discussion article for the meetup : Canberra Meetup Saturday November 5th
Meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Thursday September 8
Discussion article for the meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Thursday September 8
Once again we are going adjust the weekly Irvine meetup to join the Orange County Atheists for their September Meetup. The main event starts at 7:30 at the upstairs table at the IHOP. Some members also show up for drinks and appetizers at the El Torito across the street at 6:30. They would appreciate if you RSVP in the comments of the linked announcement.
Discussion article for the meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Thursday September 8
Meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 31
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 31
This continues the weekly meetups in Irvine. As always the meetup at the outdoor food court in the University Center near UCI, from 6:00 to 8:00 (or whenever we actually decide to leave). Look for the sign with naive neural classifiers for bleggs and rubes. See also the email group and calendar for the Southern California Meetup Group
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 31
Meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 24
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 24
This continues the weekly meetups in Irvine. As always the meetup at the outdoor food court in the University Center near UCI, from 6:00 to 8:00 (or whenever we actually decide to leave). Look for the sign with naive neural classifiers for bleggs and rubes. See also the email group and calendar for the Southern California Meetup Group
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 24
Meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 17
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 17
This continues the weekly meetups in Irvine. As always the meetup at the outdoor food court in the University Center near UCI, from 6:00 to 8:00 (or whenever we actually decide to leave). Look for the sign with naive neural classifiers for bleggs and rubes. See also the email group and calendar for the Southern California Meetup Group
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 17
Meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Wednesday August 10
Discussion article for the meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Wednesday August 10
This week we are going to do something a little different for the weekly Irvine meetup. There is an atheist group in Orange County that has monthly meetups, so let's join them for their August Meetup. I attended the meetup last month, and found that several of the people there were interested in such topics as probability theory, heuristics and biases, and Singularity issues.
The main event starts at 7:30 at the upstairs table at the IHOP. Some members also show up for drinks and appetizers at the El Torito across the street at 6:30. They would appreciate if you RSVP in the comments of the linked announcement.
Discussion article for the meetup : Orange County Atheist Meetup Wednesday August 10
Meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 3
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 3
This continues the weekly meetups in Irvine. As always the meetup at the outdoor food court in the University Center near UCI, from 6:00 to 8:00 (or whenever we actually decide to leave). Look for the sign with naive neural classifiers for bleggs and rubes.
See also the email group and calendar for the Southern California Meetup Group
Discussion article for the meetup : Irvine Meetup Wednesday August 3
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