What: SSC meetup
When: Friday 11/4, at 7 PM
Where: 3806 Williams Road, San Jose, CA
Why: Physicist/intelligence researcher Steve Hsu of Information Processing will be in the Bay Area and wants to get to meet some of you.
How: David Friedman is very nice and lets us use his house for things
I will unfortunately not be able to attend.
Beeminder's an evidence-based willpower augmention tool that collects quantifiable data about your life, then helps you organize it into commitment mechanisms so you can keep resolutions. They've also got a blog about what they're doing here
Support this blog by donating through Patreon.
MealSquares is a "nutritionally complete" food that contains a balanced diet worth of nutrients in a few tasty easily measurable units. Think Soylent, except zero preparation, made with natural ingredients, and looks/tastes a lot like an ordinary scone.
Hi-Phi Nation is the first story-driven podcast about contemporary philosophy, where we bring philosophy out of stories of ordinary and extraordinary human experiences. Season 1 is airing now.
Giving What We Can is a charitable movement promoting giving some of your money to the developing world or other worthy causes. If you're interested in this, consider taking their Pledge as a formal and public declaration of intent.
Qualia builds software for the title and escrow industry, which we chose to maximize our comparative advantage and capitalize on information inefficiency. We're growing fast and are looking for full-stack engineers and quantitative operations hires. Email jobs@qualia.com for more information.
Triplebyte is building an objective and empirically validated software engineering recruitment process. We don’t look at resumes, we just look at whether you can code. We’ve had great success helping Slate Star Codex readers get jobs in the past. We invite you to test your skills and try our process!
The Center for Applied Rationality conducts workshops which use cognitive science to teach people to achieve their goals more effectively. You can find a self-assessment of some of their results here.
The Effective Altruism newsletter provides monthly updates on the highest-impact ways to do good and help others.
80,000 Hours researches different problems and professions to help you figure out how to do as much good as possible. Their free career guide show you how to choose a career that's fulfilling and maximises your contribution to solving the world's most pressing problems.
When is this expected to end?
Either until people get bored and go home, or until David gets tired and kicks you out of his house. Past meetups have lasted long enough that I’ve gotten bored and gone home after a few hours; I don’t know what happened after that.
David is too nice a guy to kick people out, last time a few of us stayed till 1, which was inexcusable. Don’t be like us !
To be fair, some of us keep late hours! Though only so late.
That’s ok I have to take public transit home so I won’t stay that late
We have a couch.
Does your couch work as public transportation?
That would be the carpet, but I think I’ve forgotten the spell.
I expect I’ll be there, though possibly not right when it starts.
Steve Hsu is coming! Aww, man, that sounds really exciting. I’m here on the east coast, but I’m trying to get my friend Alex to go. He just moved to San Jose, so this is perfect.
Alex is being a scaredy cat because he only recently started reading SSC and learning about the rationalist community. I’m really trying to convince him to go and meet people and learn from all the cool/chill/geeky folks. We’ll see if I can convince him.
My friend Oliver from the east coast has been helping me get involved with the Bay Area’s Rationalist community as I am new here and looking for cool people. I’ll be there tomorrow but I hope Oliver’s right that most of you aren’t axe murderers.
Hardly any of us are axe murderers.
Very selectively phrased, from the man who prefers swords for his recreational violence. Unfortunately I will probably not be able to attend.
Well, this is America after all. I understand pistols are customary. Axes are more a Viking thing and thus more likely to be found in the Scandinavian enclaves. /facetious
Not that I stand much on custom, or indeed that I’m anywhere near the west coast myself. Have fun over there?
SSC meetups are pretty low on the rationalist community weirdness level scale.
Tell your friend Alex, I can vouch that the rationalists are all very nice people (she said from the safe distance of five thousand miles away) 🙂
If someone needs a ride from vaguely University and 101, I can go and abuse HOV lanes.
Otherwise, I can’t get there at a decent hour without leaving work intolerably early. (And I’m not thrilled about driving to work in the first place).
Aww, I’m in school in SoCal and was thinking of driving up afte my test cycle ended today. Thanks for reminding me I have no sense of travel time in California. I thought it was six hours away, now Maps says 11?
Have fun!
Maps says 5 hrs 27 minutes from Los Angeles to here. You don’t say where you are, but eleven can’t be right unless, perhaps, you are calculating in rush hour.
ill be coming, im a long time lurker so first time commenting.
Anyone heading up from Stanford? Can you give me ride?
So how did this go?
The house is still standing.
At a rough guess, 35-40 guests. Much bread consumed.
I had a great time & stayed til about midnight.
The main things I heard people talking about were genetics, science fiction, economics, and incentives. There was nearly no political talk as far as I could hear. I met a bunch of people who read the same blogs and science fiction authors as me, which has never happened before!
My personal best moment was that people were positive about celebrating Iain (M) Banks’ birthday this February 16th, similar to the way Robert Burns is commemorated at Burns Suppers.