Meetup : Helsinki LW meetup
Discussion article for the meetup : Helsinki LW meetup
We’re having a meetup! Thanks to Kaj and Cat for organizing the previous meetup, where we had more than a dozen people. This time we’ll have a less formal meetup to get to know each other better, and to plan future meetups. We’ll also have a good chance to practice applied rationality, as one LWer has volunteered to let us help in deciding the direction of his studies.
To find us, look for someone wearing a pink elephant hat. We’ll be sitting in the park between the Opera house and Finlandia hall. If it rains, we’ll meet in Kaisla. You can also join our Facebook group.
Eventually 14 people attended. After some time spent in the park (with birds yelling at the ground), we moved on to Helsinki Music Centre. Whole meetup lasted a little under five hours.
Topics discussed included at least the intended studying, as well as Quantified Self, meditation, online habits and anonymity, and Friendly AI. Some were also interested in starting a local study group.
Many had studied Mathematics, Physics or Computer Science, which might have played part in them being recommended for people interested in learning transferable general problem-solving skills. For width, many agreed that textbooks are awesome; for depth, Mathematics and Physics were considered good starting points for the more polymathically-minded. As ‘fields that teach you meta-skills’ were promoted also at least Psychology and Economics. Generally, Physics and Programming were considered to be quite practical and good-to-know, training thinking that transfers also to other areas.
Had pleasure of meeting morrel in Zagreb today—such a great guy! Hope this one will be successful, bro :)
Don’t forget the mailing list, too.
I hate mailing lists. Are there many people on it that are not on e.g. fb? Language subreddits or [lang] tagged threads here if wanted?
The mailing list has 32 members, the FB group 26.
Not sure what you’re asking.
I think a language/country subreddit or language-tagged threads might better solve the objective of a country/language specific mailing list.
One of the main benefits of a mailing list is that people get informed about new events and happenings even if they don’t remember or have the time to check the main site regularly. You don’t get that with subreddits or site threads.
We do have RSS.
That’s true. Still, I think that more people use e-mail than use RSS readers.