Background: I run a lesswrong group—we are not on meetup. I have run other groups in the past and attend several groups as well.
From another LW group; and something I take to be true; (from the inside of a group) meetup seems to cross promote your group to many many people; whether they are relevant people or not; is not up to meetup to deal with. They then show up; and realise that they are not quite the target; then leave. In the mean-time your group gets diluted while the meetup-style deluge of people appear and disperse.
happen less often than I have expected. From personal experience; trying out a group once does not equal permanent commitment; its worth trying once; if only to see who the are in your town and decide it is in fact worth avoiding them.
From a cost/benefit or utilons perspective; you are burning a few hours for a range of opportunities including meeting new people; finding new good things and learning new things.
How do you know meetups all meetups attract “losers”? What is—to you—the defining characteristic of such “losers”? How certain are you that your personal experience with one kind of meetup generalizes well to all meetups? How do you know there are fewer or no losers elsewhere, e.g. on the internet?
The word get’s used by different people for different purposes. One person might say “loser” to mean nerdy people with low social skills. Another might say “loser” to mean people who don’t have well paying jobs or the prospect of getting them after finishing university.
It’s hard to know what someone else means with the term.
I’m not expecting you to be clear on that either, just to accept it. I could make it clear, it would just be more effort than I can forsee a worthwhile return on.
meta: I neutralised the downvote here but in future you can probably find a way to be more delicate than the use of the word “loser”. I understand the sentiment; but maybe there are better words.
Socially inept (genuinely socially inept)
Also there is probably a specific branch of loser that you are avoiding more than others; I for one can tolerate some loser-ish behaviours for limited periods of time. i.e. addictive personalities, a trait I avoid surrounding myself with; but can live with if thats an orthogonal trait to a group I am visiting.
this was an unhelpful comment, removed and replaced by this comment
In kinda answer to your question;
Background: I run a lesswrong group—we are not on meetup. I have run other groups in the past and attend several groups as well.
From another LW group; and something I take to be true; (from the inside of a group) meetup seems to cross promote your group to many many people; whether they are relevant people or not; is not up to meetup to deal with. They then show up; and realise that they are not quite the target; then leave. In the mean-time your group gets diluted while the meetup-style deluge of people appear and disperse.
happen less often than I have expected. From personal experience; trying out a group once does not equal permanent commitment; its worth trying once; if only to see who the are in your town and decide it is in fact worth avoiding them.
From a cost/benefit or utilons perspective; you are burning a few hours for a range of opportunities including meeting new people; finding new good things and learning new things.
How do you know meetups all meetups attract “losers”? What is—to you—the defining characteristic of such “losers”? How certain are you that your personal experience with one kind of meetup generalizes well to all meetups? How do you know there are fewer or no losers elsewhere, e.g. on the internet?
You seem to have problems with the concept of “losers” in general :-/
The word get’s used by different people for different purposes. One person might say “loser” to mean nerdy people with low social skills. Another might say “loser” to mean people who don’t have well paying jobs or the prospect of getting them after finishing university.
It’s hard to know what someone else means with the term.
I think it usually means “people lower status than me” :-)
Exactly—the term’s quite loosely defined.
this was an unhelpful comment, removed and replaced by this comment
Mind reading over the internet doesn’t work well. It’s not clear what kind of people do you consider to belong to negative classes.
I’m not expecting you to be clear on that either, just to accept it. I could make it clear, it would just be more effort than I can forsee a worthwhile return on.
meta: I neutralised the downvote here but in future you can probably find a way to be more delicate than the use of the word “loser”. I understand the sentiment; but maybe there are better words.
Socially inept (genuinely socially inept)
Also there is probably a specific branch of loser that you are avoiding more than others; I for one can tolerate some loser-ish behaviours for limited periods of time. i.e. addictive personalities, a trait I avoid surrounding myself with; but can live with if thats an orthogonal trait to a group I am visiting.