Topic: Altruism ========================== When: Saturday, February 21 at 3:00pm Where: Clubhouse at Legends at River Oaks in Sandy, Utah - https://goo.gl/maps/TPH3h (9425 Riverside Dr, Sandy, UT 84070) Meetup is in Sandy this time, at 3pm, at the Legends clubhouse. There will be an opportunity for anyone to give a neat 5-minute presentation or two on whatever subject they like before we get talking. If the date and time doesn't work for you, you can just reply to this thread, or you can contact hamnox directly.

Inform yourself of how your own brain approaches problems as we delve deeper into Khaneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and try out some skills based off of the work of the Center for Applied Rationality.

What our meetup does in general: * Give specific feedback and positive reinforcement on valuable habits of good thinking and success. * Empathize and assist with akrasia troubles and struggles of intellectual integrity.. and celebrate every achievement along the way! * Spread general awesomeness to all.

If that's the sort of group you want, all you have to do is show up. To get the best experience, bring your observations on what you've been up to since last meetup, and leave behind your politics, or other ideas built directly into your identity or emotional wellbeing, at the door.

If you have any questions or if there is anything at all bothering you, please don't hesitate to message me here, or at mheisey.nox@gmail.com Please err on the side of asking; it costs little to address your concerns if they're trivial and costs a lot to ignore them if they aren't.

Make friends, learn skills, and build solutions!

Meetup is in the main building, you can just walk in. Agenda: Quick Definitions - What is Life Debugging? Brainstorm Bugs to work on

Skill 1: Surprise-o-Meter How surprised would you be if everything actually worked out perfectly? How surprised would you be if obstacle X derailed you?

Skill 2: Urge Propagation Half the battle is won If you can get your system-1 on board with your carefully-laid plans.

Strongly suspect Carrie, who leads our Thinking Fast and Slow book club, won't make this one, so that's on hiatus.

Idea for meetup shamelessly stolen from Katja

The irony of hosting a rationalist meetup by a witch's store amuses me. This actually takes place right around the tail end of a polyamory meetup, if you'd like to attend that as well.

This is an open subject night. Everyone who wants to gets 10 minutes to lead a topic, called a "Lightning talk".

My topic of interest is: What kind of everyday assumptions does each philosophy/religion encourage people to implicitly act on? What meta-heuristics are being used? Is there a significant difference between being a pastafarian and a subgenii?

This sort of thing is easiest to notice when there are comparative clashes, such as the difference in the values of individualism vs. collectivism in America vs. Japan.

Summer Solstice 2014 Sunday June 22, 2014 2pm 9771 S. 170 E. Sandy

This is an event to bring all the friends and family to. There will be singing, food, friends, and most of all, an opportunity to bring the best of yourself. There is one rule: that everyone who comes brings a gift. Everyone. Not just any gift; it must be something of your own make and one for all to enjoy. What do you have to share?

• A few words from the heart
• A song to sing
• A story to tell
• A lesson to give
• A moment of entertainment
• A craft or creation
• Whatever else you can think of.

But please, don't stress yourself over it. This is not a talent contest. Showboating is highly discouraged. You can make a contribution as small or grand as you like. Whether you spend 4 days or 4 seconds on it what we really want to see is something that is yours.

The specific aims of this ritual are to invoke:

• A sense of unity and connection within the community * Pride in teamwork and contribution as part of achievement
• Appreciation for the contributions of others, and for the unique set of circumstances that brought about Us.
• Determination to go on succeeding at life

The plan is to do a practice run first on Saturday 2pm, anyone who wants to come and be part of the decisive effort to figure out what works is welcome to that. Come an hour before the real one if you'd like some time and materials to make a last minute project :P

Every person reading this (ESPECIALLY YOU!) is challenged to leave ONE piece of feedback regarding what you think about this event. Before, during, or after. One sentence. Doable?

Why should I care?

• There will be dinner! Eat food!
• Hang out with and befriend generally awesome people!
• Have friends or family you want to introduce to rationality? This makes a great appeal for emotional thinkers!
• Generate hedons and warm fuzzies!
• Generate fond memories to be nostalgic about!
• Receive empathy for what's going on in your life!
• Gain arbitrary Kudo points for having come!

I like hanging out with just generally awesome people. It's why I joined this group in the first place!

Spending time with people is fun. But getting to know people—really, truly getting to know people—is hard. Rewarding, but hard.

Sharing your fondest hopes and deepest fears is a powerful way to make connections, but exposing your soul like that terrifying. Worse, it’s awkward. There are few socially appropriate times to bring up stuff like that. Even when everything works out beautifully, getting it started feels stressful and not-fun.

As soon as people are in a context where everyone agrees that sharing is normal (e.g. an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or a conversation with a therapist, or Truth or Dare), the stigma and self-consciousness don’t hold people back nearly as much.

This is our version of Truth or Dare: optimized for more plausible deniability, more warm fuzzy feelings, less debasement†, and more genuine connection with other people.

• Five different flavors of Truth: Struggles, Joys, Confessions, Hopes, and Miscellaneous.
• To provide plausible deniability, everyone rolls a die before speaking. A one means you cannot speak your turn, a 6 means you MUST. The result is not shared.
• What happens in the Schelling Game stays in the Schelling Game.

This game is traditionally meant to played every April 14th, the birthday of Thomas Schelling, for the obvious reason‡, followed by dinner and socializing. I moved it around a bit to get it on the weekend instead of a Monday.

Any of that interest you? All you have to do is:

• RSVP now. I won't hold it against you if you back out later.
• Show up at 9771 S 170 E, Sandy UT
  2:45pm on April 20th. If you come in after we start the game at 3:00, please wait for the lull between speakers to announce yourself.
• Find us near the Trax station on 9800, just north of Dewey Bluth Park. There will be a small boat in the driveway.
• Bring your observations on what you've been up to since last meetup, if you've got any to share.
• Children are welcome, provided they are mature enough to either handle the adult themes in the game, or entertain themselves mostly unsupervised while we play.
• Anyone who brings Potluck contributions will get Two Rationality Points. If you'd like to show some non-food support for this and other events, I have a PayItSquare set up: http://www.payitsquare.com/collect-page/edit/24123

Thank you for your time, and thank you for being part of the most fun, engaging, and all-around rewarding social group I know.

(†) Don't worry about missing the discomfort and humiliation of dares. That will be the focus of a different game, later in the year >:-D Muahahahahahaha! (‡) A Schelling point is is a solution that people will tend to use in the absence of communication, because it seems natural, special or relevant to them. This is an arbitrary consensus point for changing social rules. It fits.

PS: Be warned--fuzzy feelings are fun, but they do run a risk of skewing your view of people. It is up to you to find the appropriate benefit/cost balance. PPS: This is plagiarized heavily from the original Schelling Day post. Don't sue me.

Less Wrong Meetup

"Why should I come to this meetup?" you may ask.

Well, maybe you should and maybe you shouldn't. It all depends. Do you want to:

• Learn and try the classic exercise of thinking on your feet in a casual, low-risk environment.
• Have a blast keeping an interesting story going with off-the-wall ideas.
• Explore the possible connection between the skills you can pick up with improv and the skills useful for meta-success, e.g. Accepting the situation at hand, Being Specific, Building on opportunities.

And as always, Do you feel like:

• Getting specific feedback and positive reinforcement on valuable habits of good thinking and success.
• Receiving empathy and support for struggles with akrasia and intellectual integrity.. and maybe brag a little after you've won the battle.
• Hanging out with just generally awesome people? (We certainly do. Which is why you should definitely come!)

Any of that interest you? All you have to do is:

• Show up at Kafeneios Coffeehouse on March 8th @ 3pm * (258 W 3300 S, Salt Lake City)
• Find us near the center of the first big room. I'll be the one with the whiteboard.
• Bring your observations on what you've been up to since last meetup, if you've got any to share.
• Leave your politics, or other ideas that you identify with or are emotionally invested in, at the door.

If you're the kind of person that likes to be ahead of the game, check out these links: http://www.dangoldstein.com/howtoimprovise.html http://improvencyclopedia.org/references//David_Alger%60s_First_10_Rules_of_Improv.html

Thank you for your time, and thank you for being part of the most fun, engaging, and all-around rewarding social group I know.

If you have any questions or if there is anything at all bothering you, please don't hesitate to message me. And please err on the side of asking; it costs little to address your concerns if they're trivial and costs a lot to ignore them if they're not.

This event is about becoming agenty. Any LW concepts and exercises will be heavily simplified as it is meant to include friends and family, as well as to be a celebration of values to reinforce rather than be a study in hard-core instrumental rationality.

3:00 pm Tournaments and Games

4:00 pm A Toast to Heroes, and The Three Prescripts: (initiative, priorities, effectiveness)

6:00 pm Dinner and Talk

7:00 pm Hero’s Challenge

10:00 pm After Party, if there is critical mass.

Please RSVP to mheisey.nox@gmail.com if you can as I'm aiming to have a personalized element. Not a big deal if you don't, but it would up the coolness factor.

It's February, the arbitrarily themed month of love and sex! Naturally, we're having a themed discussion to reflect this fact. We're also departing from the usual schedule and doing it on a Sunday so we can finally meet the mysterious can't-come-on-saturday crowd! Any snacks you might want to bring would be dully appreciated.

We'll be in the small conference room at the back, and might go out for coffee or whatnot afterwards. There's Karaoke going on later too.

Agenda: 3:00 Greetings, Introduction and Catchup 3:10 Thinking Fast & Slow 3:30 discuss 3:40 Expected Value of Information 4:00 discuss 4:10 Group Goals 4:30 discuss 4:40 Wrap up and Final Thoughts, Sign up for next meetup Free Discussion

For anyone who can't make this one, know that there's one scheduled every third Saturday of the month, tentatively the same time and place, for most of the conceivable future. Our google group is here: https://groups.google.com/group/lesswrongslc/