If anyone reading this feel like they missed out, or this sparked their curiosity, or they are bummed that they might have to wait 11 months for a chance at something similar, or they feel like that so many cool things happen in North America and so few things in Europe, (all preceding “or”s are inclusive) then I can heartily recommend you to come to LessWrong Community Weekend 2024 [Applications Open] in Berlin in about 2 months over the weekend of 13 September. Applications are open as of now.
I’ve attended it a couple of times so far, and I quite liked it. Reading this article, it seemed very similar and I begun to wonder if LWCW was a big inspiration for LessOnline, or if they had a common source of inspiration. So I do mean to emphasize what I wrote in the first paragraph: if you think you might like something as described here then I strongly encourage you to come!
(If someone attended both then maybe they can weigh in even more authoritatively whether my impression is accurate or if more nuance would be beneficial.)
I attended two LWCW weekends all the way back in 2013 and 2014!
Despite that, I don’t actually think they were that big of an inspiration for at least my input into LessOnline. Other conferences and events that Lightcone organized were bigger influences, in particular two private events we ran in 2021 and 2022 (Sanity and Survival Summit and Palmcone).
I am pretty sure the common source was the CFAR workshops, that have unfortunately been discontinued. There was an experimental run in Europe as well (in Prague), but due to the Sam Bankman Fried fiasco, most of the funding has been pulled.
FWIW CFAR workshops were not AIUI funded by Sam Bankman-Fried and are not officially discontinued—though CFAR hasn’t done mainline workshops for a while it’s done various other less-public workshops and projects, and I think there’s a good chance that there will be at least something similar to the old mainline CFAR workshops in the future...
I was refering specifically to the CFAR workshop in Prague. The remote event location was bought with SBF funds and without any income, doing further renovations / paying staff etc. was impossible. I think its still in limbo, since I haven’t heard any news in the past few months.
CFAR has run European workshops in Czechia for many years, I think starting in… 2017 maybe, though with a break for the pandemic.
The venue used for workshops in 2022 was bought/is run by separate organizations from CFAR and holds a bunch of stuff besides CFAR workshops; I’m not totally up on what’s going on over there or the financial situation with the venue but I believe at least some events are still being held there.
Before that venue was acquired CFAR ran a bunch of European CFAR workshops in other venues; insofar as that venue does end up having to close down or whatever it would not in principle prevent CFAR from doing workshops elsewhere, potentially going back to some of the sites it used in the past, etc.
If anyone reading this feel like they missed out, or this sparked their curiosity, or they are bummed that they might have to wait 11 months for a chance at something similar, or they feel like that so many cool things happen in North America and so few things in Europe, (all preceding “or”s are inclusive) then I can heartily recommend you to come to LessWrong Community Weekend 2024 [Applications Open] in Berlin in about 2 months over the weekend of 13 September. Applications are open as of now.
I’ve attended it a couple of times so far, and I quite liked it. Reading this article, it seemed very similar and I begun to wonder if LWCW was a big inspiration for LessOnline, or if they had a common source of inspiration. So I do mean to emphasize what I wrote in the first paragraph: if you think you might like something as described here then I strongly encourage you to come!
(If someone attended both then maybe they can weigh in even more authoritatively whether my impression is accurate or if more nuance would be beneficial.)
I attended two LWCW weekends all the way back in 2013 and 2014!
Despite that, I don’t actually think they were that big of an inspiration for at least my input into LessOnline. Other conferences and events that Lightcone organized were bigger influences, in particular two private events we ran in 2021 and 2022 (Sanity and Survival Summit and Palmcone).
I am pretty sure the common source was the CFAR workshops, that have unfortunately been discontinued. There was an experimental run in Europe as well (in Prague), but due to the Sam Bankman Fried fiasco, most of the funding has been pulled.
FWIW CFAR workshops were not AIUI funded by Sam Bankman-Fried and are not officially discontinued—though CFAR hasn’t done mainline workshops for a while it’s done various other less-public workshops and projects, and I think there’s a good chance that there will be at least something similar to the old mainline CFAR workshops in the future...
(source: work for CFAR sometimes)
I was refering specifically to the CFAR workshop in Prague. The remote event location was bought with SBF funds and without any income, doing further renovations / paying staff etc. was impossible. I think its still in limbo, since I haven’t heard any news in the past few months.
CFAR has run European workshops in Czechia for many years, I think starting in… 2017 maybe, though with a break for the pandemic.
The venue used for workshops in 2022 was bought/is run by separate organizations from CFAR and holds a bunch of stuff besides CFAR workshops; I’m not totally up on what’s going on over there or the financial situation with the venue but I believe at least some events are still being held there.
Before that venue was acquired CFAR ran a bunch of European CFAR workshops in other venues; insofar as that venue does end up having to close down or whatever it would not in principle prevent CFAR from doing workshops elsewhere, potentially going back to some of the sites it used in the past, etc.
I can add to that that there are still (quite some) spots available due to them renting out the whole youth hostel. I highly encourage applying.