While I’m learning new things, do you happen to know if there’s any directory of community building projects here or any way to determine if in person meetups in my area exist (other than the obvious tools of Google, Facebook search, and meetup search)?
For rationalist-specific meetups, LessWrong has a map, although I think anyone taking meetups seriously also advertises on Meetup.com. For things that aren’t listed, showing up a local meetup and asking people what else is going on is probably the best option. The ACX meetups tend to be much larger but happen less often. I think going to them is too infrequent to make friends, but they can be a good source of information about more frequent meetups.
Other ways to find communities are:
Jobs or coworking
Volunteering
Sports
Whatever you pick, my advice is to find something that you can do at least once a week. Meeting people who you actually keep hanging out with is really difficult for one-off events.
For rationalist-specific meetups, LessWrong has a map, although I think anyone taking meetups seriously also advertises on Meetup.com. For things that aren’t listed, showing up a local meetup and asking people what else is going on is probably the best option. The ACX meetups tend to be much larger but happen less often. I think going to them is too infrequent to make friends, but they can be a good source of information about more frequent meetups.
Other ways to find communities are:
Jobs or coworking
Volunteering
Sports
Whatever you pick, my advice is to find something that you can do at least once a week. Meeting people who you actually keep hanging out with is really difficult for one-off events.