This sounds pretty awesome. Sadly nothing LW seemed to be going on in NY when I visited earlier in the month (sadly no-one married me so I'm back in the UK), but I'm excited to hear about an active musical-participatory branch of Less Wrongers.
I'm a pianist/performer currently undergoing a painful transition to composer/lyricist. I'd like to write musicals to broadcast various rationalist, effective altruist, existential crisis and pro-open borders messages, probably delineated to some degree. I'd like to get in touch with people who do similar things!
Is this open mic night popular? What are people's experience of the intersection between music and rationality?
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.
Discussion article for the meetup : NewYork - Humanist Culture Open Mic
WHEN: 01 May 2013 07:15:00PM (-0400)
WHERE: 2 West 64th Street (At Central Park West) New York, NY
God probably doesn't exist, but that's not the point.
The point is that we live in a ridiculously amazing world, full of ridiculously amazing people who started with sticks and stones and rudimentary social structure and somehow built skyscrapers, went to the moon, destroyed smallpox, invented new crops that could feed billions of people, connected the entire planet into a global internet hive-mind and we're not even done yet.
This is more awesome than you are currently thinking. Nope, more awesome than that. Keep going. More. More!
Fortunately we also invented stories and songs, to tell our children and each other how awesome we are, and to inspire people to go even further.
I started a open mic last year, to help create a musical and creative culture that promotes science, rationality, ethics and human progress. After a few months of hiatus we're relaunching, co-sponsored now by Center for Inquiry - NYC and the NY Society for Ethical Culture. Among my goals is to start steering the more mainstream skeptic/atheist/humanist movements towards harder, unanswered questions. This year, we're building towards a larger end of the year concert event.
The open mic is at the Ethical Culture building, on the 5th floor in room 514. Whether you do performance art (songs, stories, comedy or otherwise) or just want to listen, you are welcome to attend!
Meetup.com announcement is here, if you'd like to RSVP there:
http://cfinewyork.net/events/112756672/
Discussion article for the meetup : NewYork - Humanist Culture Open Mic