Hello, all! CFAR is gearing up for a workshop this weekend, and I've been advised that they're holding free rationality training sessions Wednesday night in order to test their pedagogy. Since this overlaps our usual Less Wrong meetup, it's going to be the main activity of the evening: You're encouraged to attend the beta-testing sessions in the couch room; but if you don't want to or if there's too many of us, you can hang out with other Less Wrongers in the CFAR/MIRI common area.

The test session (and the meetup) run from 7pm-9pm at the CFAR office which is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Hello all, next week's meetup will be about implementation intentions:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implementation_intention

It sounds boring but in fact it's a technique for changing your behavior that produces half a standard deviation of change in studies with a minimal intervention. Basically, there's a good chance that coming to this meetup will change your behavior in a significant and positive way :)

This is a thing they teach at CFAR.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday. At 7:30pm as usual we'll review our weekly goals and record goals for the coming week; it should take less than 15 minutes. Afterward I will give a short presentation on implementation intentions, and then we will help each other create implementation intentions

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event. The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Hello all, tonight's meetup will feature the discussion topic of Ask Culture and Guess Culture, which is summarized in the first couple paragraphs of this Less Wrong post:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/jis/tell_culture/

A friend of mine has remarked that this is a topic that causes even professed rationalists to engage in motivated cognition. Are you up to the challenge!?

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm tonight. At 7:30pm we'll review our weekly goals and record goals for the coming week. The discussion of Ask vs. Guess Culture will follow.

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event. The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Tonight's meetup will feature a critical discussion of the Twelve Virtues of Rationality, an essay that is cited in the Less Wrong Sequences:

http://yudkowsky.net/rational/virtues/

In particular, I'd like to see discussion of:

What exactly are these virtues, and what are good examples of them?

Which virtues are overemphasized?

What virtues are underemphasized or absent?

Comparison with other lists of virtues (Catholicism, Benjamin Franklin, etc.)

Whether the idea of "virtue" is useful at all.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm tonight. At 7:30pm we'll review our weekly goals and record goals for the coming week. Then we'll discuss the twelve virtues as long as people are interested.

The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event.

Next week's meetup will feature a presentation by M. about communication, with a computer science / cognitive science approach.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday. At 7:30pm we'll review our weekly goals and record goals for the coming week. That should take about 15 minutes, and immediately after Mike will give his talk. You're welcome to stay after and discuss.

The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event.

Hello all, at today's meetup I'd like to start experimenting with an accountability practice other meetup groups have tried: Keeping a list of personal goals for the next week. If you're up for it, you'll describe your goal and how you plan to achieve it, and we'll enter it into the list this week. Next week, we'll report whether we achieved our goals, what worked, and what didn't.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm today. The exercise will begin at 7:30pm. It won't take very long, and we will hang out afterward. The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event.

At today's meetup, I want to try a kind of exercise I learned / shamelessly stole from User:apophenia . The idea is to try a rationality / cognition exercise that's as valuable as can be while only taking 5 minutes. See this example:

http://lesswrong.com/lw/irr/the_best_15_words/

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm today. The exercise will begin at 7:30pm. It won't take very long, and we will hang out afterward. The CFAR office is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Even though this takes place at CFAR, it's not a CFAR-sponsored event.

Due to popular demand, the Berkeley meetups will be held at the CFAR office from now on. This week, Romeo_Stevens will be showcasing their nutritionally complete bread. (Like Soylent, but better.) Romeo will answer your questions about nutrition, longevity, the bread business, and effective altruism. Also, you will get to taste their bread.

Please arrive between 7pm and 7:30pm on Wednesday. Romeo's presentation will begin at 7:30pm. It won't take long, and we will hang out afterward. CFAR is at 2030 Addison, 3rd floor, Berkeley, near the Downtown Berkeley BART. If you find yourself locked out, text me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Dear all, there will be a meetup at Zendo tonight. I'd like to try an exercise called Hypothetical Apostasy that was devised by Nick Bostrom:

Imagine, if you will, that the world's destruction is at stake and the only way to save it is for you to write a one-pager that convinces a jury that your old cherished view is mistaken or at least seriously incomplete. The more inadequate the jury thinks your old cherished view is, the greater the chances that the world is saved. The catch is that the jury consists of earlier stages of yourself (such as yourself such as you were one year ago). Moreover, the jury believes that you have been bribed to write your apostasy; so any assurances of the form "trust me, I am older and know better" will be ineffective. Your only hope of saving the world is by writing an apostasy that will make the jury recognize how flawed / partial / shallow / juvenile / crude / irresponsible / incomplete and generally inadequate your old cherished view is.

The meetup will begin on Wednesday at 7:30pm. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong

or call me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png

Dear all, this week's Berkeley meetup will be a board games night. Zendo's games library includes:

• Dominion (two basic sets, Prosperity, Intrigue, Seaside)
• Scotland Yard
• Puerto Rico
• Thrun and Taxis
• Settlers of Catan (6 players)
• Ticket to Ride Europe
• Smallworld
• Robo Rally
• San Juan
• Zendo
• Two Go sets
• 1 Chess set
• Poker
• Citadels
• Pandemic
• Race for the Galaxy
• Set
• Illuminati
• Carcasonne

And many things besides. Feel free to bring your favorite game if we don't have it! The meetup will begin on Wednesday at 7:30pm. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list:

http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong

or call me at:

http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png