Lighthaven Sequences Reading Group #6 (Tuesday 10/​15)

Come get old-fashioned with us, and let’s read the sequences at Lighthaven! We’ll show up, mingle, do intros, and then split off into randomized groups for some sequences discussion. Please do the reading beforehand—it should be no more than 20 minutes of reading.

This group is aimed for people who are new to the sequences and would enjoy a group experience, but also for people who’ve been around LessWrong and LessWrong meetups for a while and would like a refresher.

This meetup will also have dinner provided! We’ll be ordering pizza-of-the-day from Sliver (including 2 vegan pizzas). Please RSVP to this event so we know how many people to have food for.

We’re roughly working through the sequences highlights. The mandatory readings this week are

1. How An Algorithm Feels From The Inside

2. Cluster Structure of Thing Space

3. Superexponential Conceptspace, And Simple Words

4. Optional: The Categories Were Made For Man, Not Man For The Categories

The posts should take around 15-20 minutes to read. Our optional post has also been pretty influential on the rationalistsphere, and somewhat disagrees with the others.

Doors open 6pm (yes okay we’ll let you in early if you get here). The event starts at 6:15 when we’ll welcome people, give a few announcements, and then split into groups. Dinner will be served at about 7:30pm, after which point we’ll hangout around the fireside as late as we feel like.

You can come without having read the essays from the sequences, we do want you to get to join, but then you will have to do a punishment. (And then you still have to catch up on reading the essays during the meetup.)

Some questions to ask yourself about the essays as you read them

• What’s the most important point in the essay?

• What’s the weakest point in the essay? Or what is the essay wrong about?

• Can you think of a way to apply the ideas in this essay to your own life?

For the future

This is a weekly meetup! If you’d like to get notified of future events, you can subscribe to our meetup below to get an email whenever we add another one.

[Ben Pace]

Thanks for coming all!

If you’d like to chip in to cover pizza costs, here’s the donate link.

I recommend standard donation of $10 per person, though it costs $200 and I don’t think I expect 20 ppl to chip in. If any kind and wealthier people would like to donate more that would be much appreciated. Next week we will make a donation link more prominent during the pizza-eating portion of the night so I’m more optimistic about it being covered then.

[Sodium]

I think there’s something wrong with the link :/​ It was working fine earlier but seems to be down now

[Ben Pace]

How annoying. Something about the link must expire. Anyhow, you can just go to lesswrong.com/​donate and click through there to pay.

[Duncan Haldane]

If I set up a monthly donation through that link, does it go into the right pool of money to support the reading group and other things like it?

[Ben Pace]

If you’re waiting to get in, you can call me at

five one oh – nine nine eight — four seven seven one

[markInSF]

I’m driving from SF and have room for 2 more if anyone wants a ride