A lot of individuals' outcome variance comes out of how their particulars (mis)match their situations.

For each college seeker, I'd advise: Seize a school that feels like a good/promising cultural fit. (Which may not even exist, for a lot of us.)

"Do we have questions that are actually better answered with roughly-guessed numbers, rather than data from the nearest source of internet?"

INDEED. Wherever the best data is still data we've great reason to be suspicious of, for starters. (I can spoil whatever I want now that the meetup has occurred!)

I'd love to hear a report of what else y'all brainstormed for that question.

Then one day a salesman came along to the camp. He had a steam-powered drill and claimed it could out-drill any man. Well, they set up a contest then and there between John Henry and that there drill. The foreman ran that newfangled steam-drill. John Henry, he just pulled out two 20-pound hammers, one in each hand. They drilled and drilled, dust rising everywhere. The men were howling and cheering. At the end of 35 minutes, John Henry had drilled two seven foot holes - a total of fourteen feet, while the steam drill had only drilled one nine-foot hole.

fiddlemath held up his hammers in triumph!

6:30AM? Awesome if true!!

A++ venue selection!

I can bring a copy of The Virtue of Selfishness if anyone wants.

Great!

If somebody has quiet office conference space, that might be year-round optimal. (Like I did, but at the moment do not.) I trust LessWrongers can bring our own consumables & leave no trace.

Big vacant hotel lobby areas are also worth considering.

Anecdotally, it seems to me that across tribes and families, people are less likely to try to occupy a niche that already looks filled. (Which of course would be a matter of individual advantage, not tribal advantage!) Some of the people around me may have failed to enter their area of greatest comparative advantage, because even though they were smarter than average, I looked smarter.

Example anecdote: A close childhood friend who wanted to be a lawyer was told by his parents that he might not be smart enough because "he's not Eliezer Yudkowsky". I heard this, hooted, and told my friend to tell his parents that I said he was plenty smart enough. He became a lawyer.

Valuable -- likely vital -- cooperative know-how for hugely changing the world has been LOST to the sands of time. (94%) Likely examples include the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program, genuinely uplifting colonialism, building the pyramids without epic hardships or complaints.

Much of this know-how was even widely applied during the lifetimes of some now living. Our simple loss of such important knowledge flies in the face of deep assumptions in the water we all grew up in: progressivism, that knowledge is always increasing, that at least the best First World cultures since the Renaissance have always moved forward.

There are world-changing status-move tricks seen in recent history that no one of consequence uses today, and not because they wouldn't work. (88%) Top-of-the-First-World moderns should unearth, update & reapply lost status moves for managing much of the world. (74%) Wealthy, powerful rationalists should WIN! Just as other First Worlders should not retard FAI, so the developing world should not fester, struggle, agitate in ways that seriously increase existential risks.

Awesome. I expect to make it.

Would definitely consider. Although if there are 3 of us in/around Madison, perhaps the center of gravity for this event might consider shifting a bit N/NW? ;)