= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
About half of the images are no longer there
In response to
Drawing Less Wrong: Technical Skill
Sorry, the website I was hosting them on disappeared a while ago (it was hosted on a friend's server, who stopped maintaining it. I won't have time in the foreseeable future to fight new suitable drawings.
In response to
State of the Solstice (NY Event Upcoming)
As someone who can't come to ny on short notice, will this be on youtube as well?
Small pieces of it, but not in as thorough a fashion as the Bay Area's.
In response to
State of the Solstice (NYC Event upcoming)
Please do not comment on this post (it exists only to increase visibility, because a lot of people have mentioned in the past they didn't actually known the Solstice occurred and want to make sure the big End of Year Event for East Coast Rationalists is known about by everyone who wants to.
Instead, comment on the Main article, here:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/n2p/state_of_the_solstice_ny_event_upcoming/
State of the Solstice (NYC Event upcoming)
(For the time being, I'm posting this in both Main and in Discussion, to increase visibility. If it ends up getting promoted I may remove this one if people think I should)
Every year people mock the Rationalist Solstice Ritual. And every year I read the discussions, nod, and then go to New York and have a great time and meet amazing people and have fascinating discussions and get the songs stuck in my head for the next couple of weeks.
(“Stop enjoying yourself! Your enjoyment is wrong!”)
I think the rationalist movement has been especially blessed. Without really meaning to, and without having to deliberately believe cringeworthy things for the heck of it or unfairly attack others, we have managed to develop enough different ways of thinking that we naturally have a very strong in-group distinction – which in turn means a very strong community.
Less Wrong, More Rite, Part II - Slatestarcodex
Yesterday, the Bay Area and Boston each held a Solstice event. This upcoming weekend, the Seattle community will be putting on an event, and in New York City, we'll have a huge, flagship event with professional music throughout. (Details at the end of the post. If you'd like to come meet other rationalists but aren't into singing, there'll be a concurrent party hosted downstairs, turning into an official after party around 9:30pm)
The Bay Area folk were able to put together a streaming video. You can check it out here. It requires a little emotional investment to experience it through a computer monitor, but if you're willing to make that investment, I think it pays off well. I actually found myself singing along despite being alone in a room, and feeling like a part of the crowd. I also found myself clapping when several of the speakers delivered some excellent stories. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)
Watching the Bay Area video was a unique experience for me - quite possibly the proudest moment of my life.
For the first few years, Solstice felt like a thing that would only exist if I willed it into existence. Now, there are multiple communities running it without my help, coming together to create legitimate traditions that feel every bit as real and meaningful as an ancient institutions.
State of the Solstice (NY Event Upcoming)
Every year people mock the Rationalist Solstice Ritual. And every year I read the discussions, nod, and then go to New York and have a great time and meet amazing people and have fascinating discussions and get the songs stuck in my head for the next couple of weeks.
(“Stop enjoying yourself! Your enjoyment is wrong!”)
I think the rationalist movement has been especially blessed. Without really meaning to, and without having to deliberately believe cringeworthy things for the heck of it or unfairly attack others, we have managed to develop enough different ways of thinking that we naturally have a very strong in-group distinction – which in turn means a very strong community.
Less Wrong, More Rite, Part II - Slatestarcodex
Yesterday, the Bay Area and Boston each held a Solstice event. This upcoming weekend, the Seattle community will be putting on an event, and in New York City, we'll have a huge, flagship event with professional music throughout. (Details at the end of the post. If you'd like to come meet other rationalists but aren't into singing, there'll be a concurrent party hosted downstairs, turning into an official after party around 9:30pm)
The Bay Area folk were able to put together a streaming video. You can check it out here. It requires a little emotional investment to experience it through a computer monitor, but if you're willing to make that investment, I think it pays off well. I actually found myself singing along despite being alone in a room, and feeling like a part of the crowd. I also found myself clapping when several of the speakers delivered some excellent stories. (Your mileage may vary, of course.)
Watching the Bay Area video was a unique experience for me - quite possibly the proudest moment of my life.
For the first few years, Solstice felt like a thing that would only exist if I willed it into existence. Now, there are multiple communities running it without my help, coming together to create legitimate traditions that feel every bit as real and meaningful as an ancient institutions.
In response to
comment
by
on
Why effective altruists should do Charity Science’s Christmas fundraiser
Since I sort of danced my around making the point I wanted to make, here's what I'd meant to say more bluntly:
- Are EAs unknowingly offending large swaths of the population when they proselytize too loudly?
- I think that people's social circles are more homogeneous than they might predict, such that EAs tend to be friends with an incredibly large number of potential EAs, and relatively few people incompatible with EA.
- Statement 2) can be the case even if there are very few potential EAs in the world.
Edit to add:
- The fact that people on the EA forums and elsewhere keep posting about how fun and easy running a fundraiser is makes me question if I'm living on the same planet as you all.
In response to
comment
by
on
Why effective altruists should do Charity Science’s Christmas fundraiser
Was your impression that your family was offended that you asked for them to make a donation instead of a gift? Or that it was relating to EA specifically?
I've heard of regular families doing donations instead of gifts. My own family already had members that asked for charity, so last year when I asked for donations to Givewell charities it went pretty fine.
(The previous year, they knew I cared about effective giving and they made a donation to some random "support a child in Africa" charity. I just said "Thank You" politely, and the next year I asked specifically for givewell charities.)
I can definitely see saying "I want everyone to donate to these charities because they're the BEST" to go over poorly with people who already care about a particular charity, and I can see people being upset with "you should give 10% of your income."
But "these particular charities are really important to me, and during the holiday season I'd really rather help people less fortunate that receive a gift myself. Would you consider giving whatever amount you'd have given me to these charities?"
One note (perhaps relevant to Soothsilver above) is that it may feel important to give tangible gifts. What my family does, when giving intangible gifts, is accompany them with a tangible simple of the gift.
In response to
comment
by
on
The Growth of My Pessimism: Transhumanism, Immortalism, Effective Altruism.
Not particularly disagreeing, I just found it odd in comparison to other EA writings. Thanks for the clarification.
In response to
comment
by
on
The Growth of My Pessimism: Transhumanism, Immortalism, Effective Altruism.
It's actually fairly common in EA circles by now to acknowledge AI as an issue. The disagreements tend to be more about whether there are useful things to be done about it, or whether there are specific nonprofits worth supporting. (Givewell has a blogpost in that direction)
Ideally, I am still a transhumanist and an immortalist. But in practice, I have abandoned those noble ideals, and pragmatically only continue to be an EA.
Ok, so some of the things that you value are hard to work towards, but as you say, working towards those things is still worth your while. When I've been in similar situations, pretending to be a new homunculus has helped, and I'm sure that you've figured out other brilliant coping strategies on your own.
I see that you've become less interested in transhumanism, though, and your post doesn't give me a solid feel for why this is, so I'm somewhat curious. Did you shift your focus towards EA and away from transhumanism for utilitarian/cost-benefit reasons? Did you just look back one day and realize that your values had changed? Something else? I'm curious about this partly because there's a part of me that doesn't want my current values to change, and partly because I'm sad that transhumanism no longer interests you as it did. Thanks!
In response to
comment
by
on
The Growth of My Pessimism: Transhumanism, Immortalism, Effective Altruism.
He says at the end he's still a transhumanist. I think the point was that, in practice, it seemed difficult to work directly towards transhumanism/immortalism (and perhaps less likely that such a thing will be achieved in our lifetimes, although I'm less sure about that)
(Diego, curious if my model of you is accurate here)
In response to
Meetup : NYC Solstice
The date on this is wrong. It says it is on November 19, 2016, while the website says it is on December 19, 2015.
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I posted some thoughts about this on Facebook, and there's some discussion here:
https://www.facebook.com/raymond.arnold.5/posts/10207633701854619?comment_id=10207634223027648¬if_t=like
My most important thought is:
We should not be thinking in terms of "how can the current LW community bootstrap itself into creating a platform that'll enable good content." We should be thinking primarily in terms of "can we build something that Eliezer, Scott, etc would be actively excited to use." (Where "Eliezer/Scott" is a stand-in for "anyone who's currently creating good content in a non-centralized place)
I like some of the ideas in this post, but I think they're emphasized a little weirdly. I think the biggest obstacle we're facing is that the Popular Bloggers like to be able to talk about whatever they want, and they want control over their comments.
A lot of this post (and other attempts) seems to be thinking in terms of "how to restore LW to a sort of Platonic version of itself, where an upvote/downvote system and policy attracts and outputs quality content", and I think that approach won't actually solve the core problem.