Since I will not be able to attend “the rational ritual retreat” I will just post my thoughts on this topic here :)
I already talked about this with some of the people from LessWrong Vienna, but I will write it down for the whole community, too:
What do you think about “rational alternatives” to important conventional events (but of course not exactly on the official dates—because people probably meet their families then) or creating “rational annual events”?
I personally don’t experience big meaning in official celebrations, but I actually enjoy celebrations, even more with smart people who in general share my interests :)
Also all the official celebrations probably had an important purpose in the wheel of the year—for me they all lost their purpose over time (because not believing in it or not taking part in it) so at least the rational alternatives should deliver it.
Some vague ideas I had:
rational alternative to christmas: We could have a talk or invite someone to speak about effective altruism (I personally associate christmas with “giving”) and then reflect about which projects we would love to support monetarily and collect money or something like that (maybe someone of you has better ideas?)
rational alternative to New Year’s Eve/Day (doesn’t have to be exactly on this day) : coming together, celebrating the old/new year with good food (maybe cooking together or something like that) or whatever you like—but instead of just mention some new year’s resolutions making it a huge part of the evening/day → exercises for reflection about the last year and wishes/plans for the next (+ use Alex Vermeer’s guide), defining new goals, sharing background knowledge about goal setting and motivation, publicly announcing goals for social control/pressure (I would offer to have some talks about the topics)
rational alternative to the fasting period: I think fasting is not a stupid idea—there is also research that shows that reducing the daily intake correlates with a longer life in general (yeah, I know, correlation...) and I experienced that eating far less can really help to “free your mind”. However: Also to just reflect about our diet, have some healthy cooking events together, trying soylent collectively or something like that would be an option. Or to do a lot of sport!
rational alternative to Easter: since it’s officially about “Jesus who overcame death” we could make a event about longevity and immortality and share scientific research on the topics
summer/winter solstice: someone who is into this topics could teach the rest more about astronomy/astro physics
Of course I’m aware that there is no need to have any connection/correlation to official christian celebrations (and that some even might think it’s contraindicated) - we can of course invent our own things independently (designed for a special purpose)
I think that connecting the ritual to some specific day—an astronomical event or someone’s birthday—is not really necessary. That’s how it was done historically, because if you want to coordinate masses of people and avoid quarrels among the organizer, you need some rationalization. But these days, we celebrate Xmas on December 25th simply because we have always celebrates Xmas on December 25th. -- Telling people that winter solstice is actually December 21st will not change anyone’s mind. And educated people, religious or not, don’t believe we have good evidence for Jesus being born on December 25th. Still, December 25th is Xmas, because that’s how it has always been. (Unless you are Orthodox, in which case it is January 7th, because it has always been January 7th.)
We are not going to organize the whole country to do something at their homes at the same time. There will be a few dozen people at most, and they will come to the same place. Therefore “It will be on day XYZ, because XYZ is the day we organize it” is good enough. If we announce it soon enough, people will be able to make time.
I started thinking about my vague ideas, but then I realized that what I actually want on the meta level is to expand the range of interaction modes among rationalists. In other words, my reasoning is not “celebrations are inherently better than talking at cafe”, but rather “we already do talk at cafe, but we didn’t have a celebration yet”. Because, you know, if it were the other way round—regular celebrations once in a month, but no talking at cafe—I would probably try to organize some talk at cafe instead. Of course we have more talking at cafe because that is easier to organize. And that’s the thing: unless we are strategic, we will always converge to “what is easier to do” instead of “what would be good”.
Here is a list of interaction modes that quickly come to my mind:
informal talk
moderated debate
lecture / sermon
workshop
games
sport
hiking
dance
singing together
When people are not strategic about this, they usually follow “easier to do” or “what we did recently” algorithm. Informal talk seems like the default choice in most cases. (However, I also had a group of friends I would like to have an informal talk with, but they always decided to play Bang instead.) Some of these modes require strategic preparation: someone must prepare the lecture or the sermon, bring the guitar, find a good place for sport or dancing, plan the hike, etc.
Sometimes it is possible to have two or more of these modes at the same event. Anything can be followed by an informal debate. There are sermons and singing (and dancing) in the church. At a convention, there can be place for many different activities. -- So, we can choose which of these activities will be done at our regular meetups, which will be done at “rationalist rituals”, and we can still create opportunities for the remaining ones.
By the way, if you want to do something emotional together with other rationalists to increase our social bonds, it is not always necessary to organize the whole thing. For a lecture or a sermon, you will need specifically rationalist content. But if you think about e.g. rationalists dancing together, it would be easier to join some already existing activity; just coordinate that all local rationalists interested in “rationalist dancing” will go to the same dancing room. Or ask someone who already does dancing lessons to make one specifically for you.
I’ve ended up specializing in ritual because almost nobody else was (both in Less Wrong and among the wider community of people affiliated with rationality), but that ritual is only really useful in the context of a thriving, varied community.
Since I will not be able to attend “the rational ritual retreat” I will just post my thoughts on this topic here :) I already talked about this with some of the people from LessWrong Vienna, but I will write it down for the whole community, too:
What do you think about “rational alternatives” to important conventional events (but of course not exactly on the official dates—because people probably meet their families then) or creating “rational annual events”? I personally don’t experience big meaning in official celebrations, but I actually enjoy celebrations, even more with smart people who in general share my interests :) Also all the official celebrations probably had an important purpose in the wheel of the year—for me they all lost their purpose over time (because not believing in it or not taking part in it) so at least the rational alternatives should deliver it.
Some vague ideas I had:
rational alternative to christmas: We could have a talk or invite someone to speak about effective altruism (I personally associate christmas with “giving”) and then reflect about which projects we would love to support monetarily and collect money or something like that (maybe someone of you has better ideas?)
rational alternative to New Year’s Eve/Day (doesn’t have to be exactly on this day) : coming together, celebrating the old/new year with good food (maybe cooking together or something like that) or whatever you like—but instead of just mention some new year’s resolutions making it a huge part of the evening/day → exercises for reflection about the last year and wishes/plans for the next (+ use Alex Vermeer’s guide), defining new goals, sharing background knowledge about goal setting and motivation, publicly announcing goals for social control/pressure (I would offer to have some talks about the topics)
rational alternative to the fasting period: I think fasting is not a stupid idea—there is also research that shows that reducing the daily intake correlates with a longer life in general (yeah, I know, correlation...) and I experienced that eating far less can really help to “free your mind”. However: Also to just reflect about our diet, have some healthy cooking events together, trying soylent collectively or something like that would be an option. Or to do a lot of sport!
rational alternative to Easter: since it’s officially about “Jesus who overcame death” we could make a event about longevity and immortality and share scientific research on the topics
summer/winter solstice: someone who is into this topics could teach the rest more about astronomy/astro physics
Of course I’m aware that there is no need to have any connection/correlation to official christian celebrations (and that some even might think it’s contraindicated) - we can of course invent our own things independently (designed for a special purpose)
I think that connecting the ritual to some specific day—an astronomical event or someone’s birthday—is not really necessary. That’s how it was done historically, because if you want to coordinate masses of people and avoid quarrels among the organizer, you need some rationalization. But these days, we celebrate Xmas on December 25th simply because we have always celebrates Xmas on December 25th. -- Telling people that winter solstice is actually December 21st will not change anyone’s mind. And educated people, religious or not, don’t believe we have good evidence for Jesus being born on December 25th. Still, December 25th is Xmas, because that’s how it has always been. (Unless you are Orthodox, in which case it is January 7th, because it has always been January 7th.)
We are not going to organize the whole country to do something at their homes at the same time. There will be a few dozen people at most, and they will come to the same place. Therefore “It will be on day XYZ, because XYZ is the day we organize it” is good enough. If we announce it soon enough, people will be able to make time.
I started thinking about my vague ideas, but then I realized that what I actually want on the meta level is to expand the range of interaction modes among rationalists. In other words, my reasoning is not “celebrations are inherently better than talking at cafe”, but rather “we already do talk at cafe, but we didn’t have a celebration yet”. Because, you know, if it were the other way round—regular celebrations once in a month, but no talking at cafe—I would probably try to organize some talk at cafe instead. Of course we have more talking at cafe because that is easier to organize. And that’s the thing: unless we are strategic, we will always converge to “what is easier to do” instead of “what would be good”.
Here is a list of interaction modes that quickly come to my mind:
informal talk
moderated debate
lecture / sermon
workshop
games
sport
hiking
dance
singing together
When people are not strategic about this, they usually follow “easier to do” or “what we did recently” algorithm. Informal talk seems like the default choice in most cases. (However, I also had a group of friends I would like to have an informal talk with, but they always decided to play Bang instead.) Some of these modes require strategic preparation: someone must prepare the lecture or the sermon, bring the guitar, find a good place for sport or dancing, plan the hike, etc.
Sometimes it is possible to have two or more of these modes at the same event. Anything can be followed by an informal debate. There are sermons and singing (and dancing) in the church. At a convention, there can be place for many different activities. -- So, we can choose which of these activities will be done at our regular meetups, which will be done at “rationalist rituals”, and we can still create opportunities for the remaining ones.
By the way, if you want to do something emotional together with other rationalists to increase our social bonds, it is not always necessary to organize the whole thing. For a lecture or a sermon, you will need specifically rationalist content. But if you think about e.g. rationalists dancing together, it would be easier to join some already existing activity; just coordinate that all local rationalists interested in “rationalist dancing” will go to the same dancing room. Or ask someone who already does dancing lessons to make one specifically for you.
Very much agreed with this.
I’ve ended up specializing in ritual because almost nobody else was (both in Less Wrong and among the wider community of people affiliated with rationality), but that ritual is only really useful in the context of a thriving, varied community.
Thanks for the thoughts Anna!
I actually have a lot to say about this, but I will probably end up writing it up as a blogpost in a little bit.