Silas Barta

There will be no regular cafe meetup this week due to the Petrov Day celebration in the evening. Be sure to see the event page for it and RSVP. And get that potluck/carpooling spreadsheet complete!

Let’s talk about this ahead of the upcoming “ACX Meetups Everywhere” meetup. How should we explain this stuff to people who’ve never heard of it? How can we do so accurately but also briefly? Or, should we not attempt to explain it at all? How do we want it to be perceived by others? (Does

It’s been too long! We’ll practice our coordination-without-communication by playing the Schelling Game. We take turns announcing a category, then everyone else picks a member of that category, trying to pick the same thing as everyone else (Examples: restaurant -> McDonald’s, river -> Colorado). You get a point for every time you pick the most

As our annual tradition, we will be doing a Petrov Day ceremony and Party on Saturday, September 24th. Please see the announcement on LessWrong.

As part of our efforts to become more effective at winning, let’s use this Saturday to publicly commit to goals in our lives. Public pre-commitment is a valuable tool in ensuring that you follow through. So come prepared to share what’s going on in your life and what goals you want to accomplish. We’ll check

Time once again to share your favorite rationality-themed articles or rationality-adjacent media. What are the others missing out on? What would be worth a read or listen? Share your recommendations! *** The meetup is at Central Market, 4001 N. Lamar, in the cafe area. Look for the LW and SSC signs. People start arriving at

Time once again to work on our worldmodel-connectedness skills with Taboo! Taboo is a board game, but also a rationalist exercise that tests your worldmodel’s ability to maintain a deep understanding across domains. You are required to get others to say a target word, while also restricted from using certain related words from a “prohibited”

We’ve put it off for a while, but it’s finally time: We’ll practice the Double Crux technique of disagreement resolution. In this technique, you try to find some fact that, if you could be convinced of it, you’d change your mind (or at least would be a significant blow to you view). To make it

As you might know, I went to retreat this weekend for organizers of LW/ACX/rationality meetups and got to compare notes with our counterparts in cities all over the world. I’ll present what I learned, and we can share our thoughts on what the group is doing right, and what can still improve. *** The meetup

What would a rationalist meetup be without some discussion of the Trolley Problem (where you decide whether to divert a trolley to hit a bystander in order to protect more people on the track)? We’ll use this as a chance to explore its many variants, inspired by the Absurd Trolley Problems site. Note: I won’t