I am amused.

(Yes, yes, useless comment, which I totally endorse the downvoting of, but felt the need to make anyway)

Yeah, that's why I thought it was distasteful. But I'm a sucker for puns, and I find myself being more tickled by the cleverness than offended or worried.

Future_me may not be as amused.

Downvoted simply because I think we have way too many posts on this subject (ignoring any particular merits of this one). We can't afford to keep having posts discussing creepiness here.

I'm in the "glad there is a space for those conversations but that it is not here" camp. I'd have been worried that the self-selection of people who participate in the blog would distort in a different way than the posts here get, but that's alleviated somewhat by the closed-to-comments thing.

Ah, that does make sense.

I am torn between finding the naming schema slightly distasteful and so clever that I have to give it a pass.

Took me a second.

There is actually always something going on LW-wise in New York, but we don't publicize most of our events (there are weekly Tuesday meetups, and bi-weekly self-improvement meetups on Sundays). Most of the time we're pretty close to room capacity (around 10-15 people showing up in a smallish apartment), and for the past few months we didn't have many high quality presentations that seemed worth advertising. (There is a private mailing list where we announce most of our weekly discussions)

Historically, the Open Mic tends to have around 15 attendees. We've actually been on hiatus for a few months, and this is our relaunch at a new location. I've been doing a lot of promotion this month at new venues and expect to pick up a few more people. Many of the people (about 2/3rds of the regular attendees) are not actually LW-folk. Part of my goal is to expand rationality into the sister-spheres of skepticism, humanism, etc.

I manage the rational ritual mailing list where artistically and ritually inclined LW-folk (and some non-LW folk) collaborate, both on individual works and on larger events. You're welcome to join there, and I'd be up for skyping individually if you'd like.

There's two very different reasons to say phrases, and your suggestions here are for something different than the circumstances you say "Good luck" in.

Sort of similar to the phrase "What's up?" or "How are you doing?" - the purpose is not to respond with a detailed (or even short but accurate) explanation of how you're doing. You're supposed to say "fine, you?"

You're not exchanging information, you are engaging in a short social bonding ritual in which you acknowledge each other's presence and familiarity before either moving on (either to a real conversation, small talk, getting down to some particular task, or parting ways). On special occasions, when it's the right time, you might actually inquire "Hey, how have you been doing lately? Haven't seen you a while?" and then one would respond with a serious, informative answer.

Similarly, "Good luck" is not (usually) a heartfelt thing you say to earnestly convey how you wish someone to do, it's a reflexive thing you say in the midst of a complex social situation. When you do want to earnestly convey a heartfelt wellwishing, you probably want to take the time to come up with something customized to the situation rather than a short, memorizable catchphrase.

The issue (as I understand it, anyway), is that one might want to build up a repertoire of short social-glue catchphrases that collectively build up certain ideas, or don't promote ideas you don't like. For example, "God Bless", even by earnest believers, is mostly an empty phrase you use as social-glue, not an earnest expression of the desire for God to bless someone, but it still over time builds up a normalcy of "God is important."

I think "Good luck" is reasonable (rationalists should believe in luck), but if we do want to promoting skill, specifically, then it may be good to find something easy to say, short, which emphasizes that.