Note: this is the same meetup/camp as: http://lesswrong.com/meetups/1bt We just noticed that there were two competing names for it… so now we have both, just in case.
The event is also on facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/739163932864385/
I have successfully gone for a run three times a week all month.
I think this depends strongly on whether the person you’re explaining-to is initially open or closed to your ideas.
An example—if a new-earth creationist approached me to talk about their ideas on the creation of earth—I would not want them to spend time explaining their ideas until they showed me sufficient evidence to warrant my expenditure of time.
By comparison, most people on LessWrong I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt and let them explain the idea, then go look up evidence to confirm whether it has a solid foundation.
Keeping in mind that tendency to auto-accept ideas told to us...
It does (#justonedatapoint)
curious: how would this help?
They were prominent then too (I was there then too) :)
Yes, that is a plausible pathological case. But… some people definitely have specific diet-related triggers (sulfates is a common one) and if you have those… it’s worth finding that out.
If you’re worried about false-positives—then go see a dietician to do it however the proper way is to make sure.
Seafood is only one possibility. If you’re going to try diet-related control, you’d be better off using an elimination diet (google the details) - where you basically cut down to some very bland things, and see if the effect stops… then start adding things back one at a time until one thing triggers it (and then don’t eat that thing)… continue until you know all your triggers.
In your case—if you cut down to the bland diet and stay that way for a week, and you’re still getting migraines—then it wasn’t your diet.
HPMOR wrap-party being a good example of an exception where it worked fairly well… but I’d be curious about your experience with examples that didn’t work.
I recommend splitting your meetups into “mainly social” vs “mainly actually doing exercises towards improving rationality”
As with many things, people split into “actually want to do some work towards this” vs “mainly want to hang with like-minded people and enjoy myself” (neither of which is a problem)… but keeping the activities separate so that those that want to work on each can self-select, worked much better than trying a mixture of the two.
How do Less Wrong meetups differ from other similar gatherings you’ve been involved with? Are there any special needs idiosyncratic to this demographic?
To mention one minor thing. I’ve helped run many self-catered events for a medieval recreation society.. and one for the Less-Wrong crowd, and the biggest difference in terms of catering was the significantly-different ration of vegetarians.
While in the medieval society the proportion tends to be around 5-10% vegetarian (which you can generally help out by providing a few vegetable dishes alongside your main fare), the proportion at the LessWrong group was 30% all-vegan, and required basically making two main meals—one catered to vegans.
Note: this is one datapoint on the LessWrong side of things—it caught me off guard when planning.
Yay, we had quite a successful meetup with wide-ranging conversations—about 15 people, many of which were newbies.
Note, this is the same event as http://lesswrong.com/meetups/1bx But we’ve noticed there are two names for it… so we have it twice