I’ve been working and succeeding on my goal of growing Columbus Rationality. We just underwent a massive change: Previously we most commonly met in a private residence and had discussions, often on pre-set topics. As we grew to about a dozen regulars, discussions were getting unwieldy with that many people.
This month we joined the Humanist Community of Central Ohio (HCCO) as a sub-meetup. They are a very well-run umbrella non-profit organization, and we got some useful benefits from it, such as a nice meeting space, meetup.com postings, and organizational assistance.
Last week we had our first “official” meetup under the HCCO banner that was posted on their meetup page. 12 newbies RSVP’d on the meetup site, but only about half of those actually came (total of about 15 people attending). Having so many new people start at once has been a great Schelling point to switch from discussion-based meetups to more organized teaching meetups. Especially as the new people are actually new, as in they aren’t already “rationalists” or “LessWrongers”, but are just regular humanists who thought the meetup description sounded interesting, so we really get to start at the beginning and work our way through.
Last week we started with an interactive Intro to Rationality talk that covered a lot of the basic principles and sources. Next meetup we are working on setting people’s goals and plans to meet them. Other upcoming meetups include techniques for truth-seeking conversations, and improv games.
In my personal life, I met my goal of finding an “Adult Person” job this month, which is immensely helpful in meeting a bunch of other goals as well.
I’ve been working and succeeding on my goal of growing Columbus Rationality. We just underwent a massive change: Previously we most commonly met in a private residence and had discussions, often on pre-set topics. As we grew to about a dozen regulars, discussions were getting unwieldy with that many people.
This month we joined the Humanist Community of Central Ohio (HCCO) as a sub-meetup. They are a very well-run umbrella non-profit organization, and we got some useful benefits from it, such as a nice meeting space, meetup.com postings, and organizational assistance.
Last week we had our first “official” meetup under the HCCO banner that was posted on their meetup page. 12 newbies RSVP’d on the meetup site, but only about half of those actually came (total of about 15 people attending). Having so many new people start at once has been a great Schelling point to switch from discussion-based meetups to more organized teaching meetups. Especially as the new people are actually new, as in they aren’t already “rationalists” or “LessWrongers”, but are just regular humanists who thought the meetup description sounded interesting, so we really get to start at the beginning and work our way through.
Last week we started with an interactive Intro to Rationality talk that covered a lot of the basic principles and sources. Next meetup we are working on setting people’s goals and plans to meet them. Other upcoming meetups include techniques for truth-seeking conversations, and improv games.
In my personal life, I met my goal of finding an “Adult Person” job this month, which is immensely helpful in meeting a bunch of other goals as well.