Nick, I understand you’re joking, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t discouraging people from coming. Please understand just how scary it is to go meet other people, especially people who have very large amounts of those character traits you value the most.
On a side note, are you in contact with Bay Area people on KW? I know Ashley’s in SF and I think Jomun Dogu is too. Could you advertise this over there?
ETA: The main way I see this sort of joke reducing attendance is by making the scenario in which a person goes to the meet up only to be mocked for ignorance or lack of in group fashion much more available. There are quite a few people who feel that they either intrinsically fail to meet the standards of LW or would only meet them after having read the sequences/graduated college (high school)/read all the fashionable literature/whatever. Even with me specifically renouncing this point of view, people are still being intimidated. I don’t want someone to either think harder about possible negative receptions or think that the official line (as espoused by me) will not be held to by everyone.
I can agree with this. I was really hesitant when I went to the last one of these, and I’m still not sure if I’m going to go again. It’s not that I had a bad time, it’s just that everyone there seems far more competent than me.
I’m glad that you’re looking out for people, I just don’t know who these particular people are! You must have mental models of people which I don’t have; send me a PM about what sort of person would be less likely to attend after reading both your post and my comments.
Personally, the big relief for me when I came to a meetup was not that I knew too little, though that was the fear of which I was aware. Instead, the big relief was that people were allowed to have fun, that Seriousness was optional. That made my sense of relative ignorance seem less important as well. Humor seemed like a good way to communicate this aspect of the meetups, I thought.
As for KW, I haven’t been around there much, but I’ll see what I can do :-)
Nick, I understand you’re joking, but that doesn’t mean that you aren’t discouraging people from coming. Please understand just how scary it is to go meet other people, especially people who have very large amounts of those character traits you value the most.
On a side note, are you in contact with Bay Area people on KW? I know Ashley’s in SF and I think Jomun Dogu is too. Could you advertise this over there?
ETA: The main way I see this sort of joke reducing attendance is by making the scenario in which a person goes to the meet up only to be mocked for ignorance or lack of in group fashion much more available. There are quite a few people who feel that they either intrinsically fail to meet the standards of LW or would only meet them after having read the sequences/graduated college (high school)/read all the fashionable literature/whatever. Even with me specifically renouncing this point of view, people are still being intimidated. I don’t want someone to either think harder about possible negative receptions or think that the official line (as espoused by me) will not be held to by everyone.
I can agree with this. I was really hesitant when I went to the last one of these, and I’m still not sure if I’m going to go again. It’s not that I had a bad time, it’s just that everyone there seems far more competent than me.
Edit—please disregard this post
I’m glad that you’re looking out for people, I just don’t know who these particular people are! You must have mental models of people which I don’t have; send me a PM about what sort of person would be less likely to attend after reading both your post and my comments.
Personally, the big relief for me when I came to a meetup was not that I knew too little, though that was the fear of which I was aware. Instead, the big relief was that people were allowed to have fun, that Seriousness was optional. That made my sense of relative ignorance seem less important as well. Humor seemed like a good way to communicate this aspect of the meetups, I thought.
As for KW, I haven’t been around there much, but I’ll see what I can do :-)