Thank you for writing this retrospective, it is really interesting! Although I never attended a winter solstice, it sounds like amazing work. I sometimes toy with the idea of organizing a rationalist solstice here in Israel, but after reading this I am rather awed and intimidated, since it’s obvious I can’t pull off anything that is even close.
This might be a little off-topic, but are there any ideas / resources about how to organize a rationalist winter solstice if (i) you don’t have a lot of time or resources (ii) you expect at most a small core of people which are well-familiar with the rationalist memeplex and buy into the rationalist ethos, plus some number of people who only partway there or are merely curious. Or, is it not worth trying under these conditions?
Btw, one thing that sounded strange was the remark that some people felt lonely but it’s okay. I understand that winter solstice is supposed to be dark, but isn’t the main point of it to amplify the sense of community? Shouldn’t the message be something along the lines of “things are hard, but we’re in this together”? Which is the antithesis of loneliness?
This might be a little off-topic, but are there any ideas / resources about how to organize a rationalist winter solstice if (i) you don’t have a lot of time or resources (ii) you expect at most a small core of people which are well-familiar with the rationalist memeplex and buy into the rationalist ethos, plus some number of people who only partway there or are merely curious. Or, is it not worth trying under these conditions?
I think it’s actually quite sad/bad that it comes across as “it’s not worth doing a Solstice if you don’t have lots of resources and expect a small turnout.” In fact, this was the original use-case for which Solstice was designed.
(I have a rant about this over here, which I intend to turn into a more polished essay sometime. tl;dr: Big Community Solstices are quite valuable, but they are not the only way to run a Solstice. Over the longterm [i.e. decades] I would measure most of the health of Solstice-as-an-insitution in terms of how many small solstices there are. Small solstices should have pretty different expectations of polish. They also offer the opportunity to have more interpersonal connection)
How to handle ‘some people have bought into the rationalist ethos and some have not’ is a question that depends a lot on the percentages, but I think there are approaches that work pretty fine in that context.
This is the small Solstice I run when I want to just roll out of bed and have a small Solstice without much prep. It does depend a bit on my ability to confidently lead all the songs, which would require some up front work to learn. It relies pretty minimally on the rationalist memeplex. I think there are some (relatively minor) changes you could make that would make it easier on a completely new organizer. (I’m happy to skype or chat with new organizers to help them get oriented, PM me if that’s helpful)
(that version is designed for being outdoors, but mostly works fine if you hold it in a living room and change a couple words)
I do have on my longterm todo list to put together a collection of “off-the-shelf Solstices” that serve a few different use-cases, and better instruction on how to customize them. Meanwhile, here’s the things I’ve written so far.
Shouldn’t the message be something along the lines of “things are hard, but we’re in this together”?
That was definitely the message – it’s just that there are many life situations where the positive aspects of the message aren’t sufficient to overcome the negative ones. (For example, for people who currently feel alienated from the community, or don’t see a path to really help out with the Great Project but nonetheless feel like it is their responsibility to help and feel despair around that. I think this will happen to at least some people even if you work hard to emphasize that they have worth and value even if they don’t contribute to the Great Project, and things like that)
Thank you for writing this retrospective, it is really interesting! Although I never attended a winter solstice, it sounds like amazing work. I sometimes toy with the idea of organizing a rationalist solstice here in Israel, but after reading this I am rather awed and intimidated, since it’s obvious I can’t pull off anything that is even close.
This might be a little off-topic, but are there any ideas / resources about how to organize a rationalist winter solstice if (i) you don’t have a lot of time or resources (ii) you expect at most a small core of people which are well-familiar with the rationalist memeplex and buy into the rationalist ethos, plus some number of people who only partway there or are merely curious. Or, is it not worth trying under these conditions?
Btw, one thing that sounded strange was the remark that some people felt lonely but it’s okay. I understand that winter solstice is supposed to be dark, but isn’t the main point of it to amplify the sense of community? Shouldn’t the message be something along the lines of “things are hard, but we’re in this together”? Which is the antithesis of loneliness?
I think it’s actually quite sad/bad that it comes across as “it’s not worth doing a Solstice if you don’t have lots of resources and expect a small turnout.” In fact, this was the original use-case for which Solstice was designed.
(I have a rant about this over here, which I intend to turn into a more polished essay sometime. tl;dr: Big Community Solstices are quite valuable, but they are not the only way to run a Solstice. Over the longterm [i.e. decades] I would measure most of the health of Solstice-as-an-insitution in terms of how many small solstices there are. Small solstices should have pretty different expectations of polish. They also offer the opportunity to have more interpersonal connection)
How to handle ‘some people have bought into the rationalist ethos and some have not’ is a question that depends a lot on the percentages, but I think there are approaches that work pretty fine in that context.
This is the small Solstice I run when I want to just roll out of bed and have a small Solstice without much prep. It does depend a bit on my ability to confidently lead all the songs, which would require some up front work to learn. It relies pretty minimally on the rationalist memeplex. I think there are some (relatively minor) changes you could make that would make it easier on a completely new organizer. (I’m happy to skype or chat with new organizers to help them get oriented, PM me if that’s helpful)
(that version is designed for being outdoors, but mostly works fine if you hold it in a living room and change a couple words)
I do have on my longterm todo list to put together a collection of “off-the-shelf Solstices” that serve a few different use-cases, and better instruction on how to customize them. Meanwhile, here’s the things I’ve written so far.
That was definitely the message – it’s just that there are many life situations where the positive aspects of the message aren’t sufficient to overcome the negative ones. (For example, for people who currently feel alienated from the community, or don’t see a path to really help out with the Great Project but nonetheless feel like it is their responsibility to help and feel despair around that. I think this will happen to at least some people even if you work hard to emphasize that they have worth and value even if they don’t contribute to the Great Project, and things like that)