I’ll discuss this in more detail later, but this question is worth answering now (in particular because there IS still time for other people to put together such an event this year, if they want to. I think using it as a New Years party would work well. A week and a half is enough time to do this IF you commit to a lot of work in that time)
1) The party was absolutely worth doing, even if it were just for general warmth, fun and togetherness
2) I did not personally achieve the profound feeling I was hoping for at the event in particular. But I did achieve it several times over while I was planning it, and I think I burned out on profundity before I actually got to the night in question. It was also warped somewhat by performance anxiety. I didn’t actually feel like a participant in the event—I felt like a performer, and to some extent a scientist observing a phenomenon. I think that was mostly unique to me, although it will probably apply to anyone putting the event together for the first time.
3) So far I’ve spoken to a few other participants after the fact. Reactions seem to range based on how susceptible you are in general to warm fuzzies (more importantly, what I’ve come to call “warm shivers”). Everyone[1] seems enthusiastic about doing it again, and most people seemed to have at least one moment that touched them, but different people reacted strongly to different parts of the evening.
4) A fairly common reaction was “this was a great idea and a good execution, but I have a strong sense that MUCH more is possible.” (This was my reaction as well)
There are certain obvious things to improve which became apparent after seeing the ideas in action. Some of them I can fix in the next few days. Others I consider “open problems” which I’ll be soliciting help with.
If you (that’s a collective ‘you’) DO want to have a similar event in the immediate future, I can link you to the google docs now with some pointers on which sections need work. If you’re interested in planning for next year, I’ll have some more detailed notes and evaluations in another week or so.
[1] No one’s explicitly said “no we shouldn’t do it again” but obviously that doesn’t count for much—in the face of conformity and having just put time and effort into it, we’d be looking for reasons to not admit that we didn’t just waste time. But my tentative reaction, observing the people who I expected to be on the lower end of the “actually want to have a profound pseudo-spiritual experience” scale, my sense is that those people still at least enjoyed it as a themed event.
I actually think a good heuristic is “if this Less Wrong article sounded really awesome to you, then you will probably be the sort of person who’d get something meaningful out of the event.”
No one’s explicitly said “no we shouldn’t do it again” but obviously that doesn’t count for much—in the face of conformity and having just put time and effort into it, we’d be looking for reasons to not admit that we didn’t just waste time.
In case you haven’t thought about it, you might want to send an anonymous poll/feedback form to everyone who attended. It’s not going to take care of some of the effects (consistency bias, not wanting to make you sad, etc,), but might increase your chances of getting good feedback by reducing conformity pressures.
I’ll discuss this in more detail later, but this question is worth answering now (in particular because there IS still time for other people to put together such an event this year, if they want to. I think using it as a New Years party would work well. A week and a half is enough time to do this IF you commit to a lot of work in that time)
1) The party was absolutely worth doing, even if it were just for general warmth, fun and togetherness
2) I did not personally achieve the profound feeling I was hoping for at the event in particular. But I did achieve it several times over while I was planning it, and I think I burned out on profundity before I actually got to the night in question. It was also warped somewhat by performance anxiety. I didn’t actually feel like a participant in the event—I felt like a performer, and to some extent a scientist observing a phenomenon. I think that was mostly unique to me, although it will probably apply to anyone putting the event together for the first time.
3) So far I’ve spoken to a few other participants after the fact. Reactions seem to range based on how susceptible you are in general to warm fuzzies (more importantly, what I’ve come to call “warm shivers”). Everyone[1] seems enthusiastic about doing it again, and most people seemed to have at least one moment that touched them, but different people reacted strongly to different parts of the evening.
4) A fairly common reaction was “this was a great idea and a good execution, but I have a strong sense that MUCH more is possible.” (This was my reaction as well)
There are certain obvious things to improve which became apparent after seeing the ideas in action. Some of them I can fix in the next few days. Others I consider “open problems” which I’ll be soliciting help with.
If you (that’s a collective ‘you’) DO want to have a similar event in the immediate future, I can link you to the google docs now with some pointers on which sections need work. If you’re interested in planning for next year, I’ll have some more detailed notes and evaluations in another week or so.
[1] No one’s explicitly said “no we shouldn’t do it again” but obviously that doesn’t count for much—in the face of conformity and having just put time and effort into it, we’d be looking for reasons to not admit that we didn’t just waste time. But my tentative reaction, observing the people who I expected to be on the lower end of the “actually want to have a profound pseudo-spiritual experience” scale, my sense is that those people still at least enjoyed it as a themed event.
I actually think a good heuristic is “if this Less Wrong article sounded really awesome to you, then you will probably be the sort of person who’d get something meaningful out of the event.”
In case you haven’t thought about it, you might want to send an anonymous poll/feedback form to everyone who attended. It’s not going to take care of some of the effects (consistency bias, not wanting to make you sad, etc,), but might increase your chances of getting good feedback by reducing conformity pressures.
Good call.
Alternatively, ask someone to post something negative?
Also a good call.