Practice your skills at thinking clearly and acting effectively, as both individuals and in groups, with a grab bag of short exercises and structured discussion. The specific exercises will be posted to the event.
Principles:
The zeroth skill is being able to notice evidence at all
Set 2 minute timer to think about “What’s your working understanding of the skills you can train here?” and “What is the most important outcome you could accomplish with this time?”. If you have a hard time coming up with anything, draw from the “role” cards in the center of the table.
With a short thinking timer, consider
what is your intent coming into this meetup?
what is the most important thing you could accomplish in this time
In the center of the table there should be a number of “role” cards. If you aren’t getting useful ideas from the previous prompt, take one: it should present an objective for the meetup you could try to achieve.
With another thinking timer, consider what immediate actions you can take to accomplish the goal or increase the likelihood of the best outcome, and choose one.
Set a timer for 5 minutes for everyone to try their action.
To make it absolutely clear: if you realized in the previous steps that the most important thing you can do with your time is something other than stick around for the meetup, now is the time to go do that instead.
Some examples of actions: Get a drink or snack. Rearrange some pillows to get comfortable. Get a task you’re anxious about out of the way. Send an email. Put your phone on do-not-disturb. Ask around for advice. Do a brainstorm. Grab a ukelele out of the car. Look up an article.
Go around the circle, let anyone who wants to share their intentions and/or how the 5 minutes went.
Then proceed with a grab-bag of discussion prompts and short activities. Participation is always at-will, anyone is free to jump in or out for whatever reason.
Check-in form
Wrap up
Roles
- Scribe: Write down the important stuff.
- Strategist: Steer the court towards real problems, and making specific, concrete commitments.
- Social Butterfly: Get to know people and catch up on the latest happenings.
- Contrarian: Forge your own path instead of following the crowd.
- Leader: Be the first to volunteer, and encourage others to join in.
- Guru: Seek the spirit of the exercise. Help others when they struggle.
- Clown: Make 'em smile and laugh.
- Trickster: Advocate for terrible ideas, cause mischief.
- Captain Obvious: Restate the obvious, conspicuously misunderstand the subtle.
- Apprentice: Pay attention to how the organizer runs the exercises, and how different people interact with the instruction.
- Champion: Do it better. Do it the best.
EA roles:
- Givewell: Let no claim stand without a solid evidence base, no action without transparency.
- The Pledge: Affirm shared commitment first, work out implementation details second.
- Hits-based: Try small tests of concept and high-leverage opportunities.
- Empath: Find the human element behind abstract statistics: names, faces, backstories.
- Socrates: Ask questions which help someone refine their thoughts.
- Clippy: Numbers are good, find a number and make it go up.
- Futurist: Look for the trends and turning points.
- Realist: Why are things the way they are now?
Mood setters
Name a trivial promise you could make to someone here, yourself even. Can you make it even simpler?
Play the observation game: Select a random object. The person holding an object says something they notice about the object, and optionally shares an inference they might make based on that observation, then passes it to the next person in the circle. Continue for a set time or until everyone runs out of observations to add.
How long can the group maintain a conversation made of only nods, head-shakes, finger-pointing, and raised eyebrows?
Topics
Given you are made of _, what properties of your chemical machine might you want to know? Do you know them? (physics, chemistry, natural selection, biology, memetics, learning algorithm, fluid plumbing, electrical networks, logistics)
Have you ever had one good tip about random_word help you to a surprisingly substantial degree?
When have you felt good about giving a gift? When have you not?
If there miraculously existed one fast and easy action that could solve your recent problem, what would it look like?
Brainstorm some small things you don’t know how to do, or don’t know how to do as well as you’d like. Which of them would you actually commit to pay for resources/lessons/tutoring in, provided the opportunity presented itself?
When have you felt good about giving a gift? When have you not?
If there miraculously existed one fast and easy action that could solve your recent problem, what would it look like?
Challenges
Pick a small 30s task. Imagine it vividly, start to finish. Check that you are including lots of sensory detail: things you’d see, hear, touch, smell, taste, feel internally, etc.. Then do it. Was it like you imagined? Repeat the task. Was it the same?
Exercise (If there’s enough time and focus for it, try the whole Core Transformation sequence)
Pick an aspect / thought / behavior you don’t like.… Recall an instance of when it came up, and where in your body it seemed to reside.… Assume it has a positive intent for you, and thank it as you would a well-meaning but mistaken friend.… Ask what outcome it’s trying to achieve.… Thank it for what answer it can give.… If you can honestly promise to give that outcome-goal serious consideration next time this aspect comes up, then do so. If you can’t, then DON’T.
Pick a partner and lead them (or together, teach a rubber duck) through one of the previous exercises you thought was good. Get feedback on one thing you did well, and one thing you can do differently to improve. Try it again with that in mind. Bonus points if you record it so you can see your own presentation style.
Alternative: notice how they do the exercise differently than you, try to improve your model of the person, the exercise, their engagement.
Practice: One person says some things that are factually incorrect, predicated on bad reasoning, or harm-promoting. Everyone takes a turn expressing their lack of endorsement and/or intent to sit out of the activity. You lose by causing the group to get side-tracked by the disagreement.
If we all agree to chip $5 to anyone who could make effective use of it, we could have a pool of up to $5*n to spend on achieving our shared goals. How would you propose using it? (If you can manage anonymous approval voting, tally up how much money each proposal’d actually wind up with.)
Think about the last time someone you knew (yourself, even) seemed in need of support or help. Brainstorm ideas for specific, concrete actions you could take to try to contribute to their wellbeing. Vividly imagine being in that kind of situation again, having since become the kind of person for whom implementing one of them is straightforward and easy, and just doing it. Do it a few times, with your memory as comparison
“Project Eggplant”: an area where your thinking is not quite legible enough to share, or a problem that involves lots of private details, or a train of thought that involving other people risks distorting. Consider how much of your life this problem has an impact on, and how severe. Share with the group that you’ve got a Project Eggplant, if you do. Further details are completely optional.
(Revised)
Rationality 010 Meetup (Jester’s Court)
Practice your skills at thinking clearly and acting effectively, as both individuals and in groups, with a grab bag of short exercises and structured discussion. The specific exercises will be posted to the event.
Principles:
The zeroth skill is being able to notice evidence at all
The point of learning is not to come to the same conclusion as the instructor: the bottom line is not yet written.
Make room for private reasoning, practice non-confrontational forms of dissent, and preserve freedom to self-direct.
Iff a practice passes muster, pass it on.
What to expect
Sit in a circle, and make introductions.
Set 2 minute timer to think about “What’s your working understanding of the skills you can train here?” and “What is the most important outcome you could accomplish with this time?”. If you have a hard time coming up with anything, draw from the “role” cards in the center of the table.
With a short thinking timer, consider
what is your intent coming into this meetup?
what is the most important thing you could accomplish in this time
In the center of the table there should be a number of “role” cards. If you aren’t getting useful ideas from the previous prompt, take one: it should present an objective for the meetup you could try to achieve.
With another thinking timer, consider what immediate actions you can take to accomplish the goal or increase the likelihood of the best outcome, and choose one.
Set a timer for 5 minutes for everyone to try their action. To make it absolutely clear: if you realized in the previous steps that the most important thing you can do with your time is something other than stick around for the meetup, now is the time to go do that instead. Some examples of actions: Get a drink or snack. Rearrange some pillows to get comfortable. Get a task you’re anxious about out of the way. Send an email. Put your phone on do-not-disturb. Ask around for advice. Do a brainstorm. Grab a ukelele out of the car. Look up an article.
Go around the circle, let anyone who wants to share their intentions and/or how the 5 minutes went.
Then proceed with a grab-bag of discussion prompts and short activities. Participation is always at-will, anyone is free to jump in or out for whatever reason.
Check-in form
Wrap up
Roles
EA roles:
Mood setters
Name a trivial promise you could make to someone here, yourself even. Can you make it even simpler?
Play the observation game: Select a random object. The person holding an object says something they notice about the object, and optionally shares an inference they might make based on that observation, then passes it to the next person in the circle. Continue for a set time or until everyone runs out of observations to add.
How long can the group maintain a conversation made of only nods, head-shakes, finger-pointing, and raised eyebrows?
Topics
Given you are made of _, what properties of your chemical machine might you want to know? Do you know them? (physics, chemistry, natural selection, biology, memetics, learning algorithm, fluid plumbing, electrical networks, logistics)
Have you ever had one good tip about random_word help you to a surprisingly substantial degree?
When have you felt good about giving a gift? When have you not?
If there miraculously existed one fast and easy action that could solve your recent problem, what would it look like?
Brainstorm some small things you don’t know how to do, or don’t know how to do as well as you’d like. Which of them would you actually commit to pay for resources/lessons/tutoring in, provided the opportunity presented itself?
When have you felt good about giving a gift? When have you not?
If there miraculously existed one fast and easy action that could solve your recent problem, what would it look like?
Challenges
Pick a small 30s task. Imagine it vividly, start to finish. Check that you are including lots of sensory detail: things you’d see, hear, touch, smell, taste, feel internally, etc.. Then do it. Was it like you imagined? Repeat the task. Was it the same?
Exercise (If there’s enough time and focus for it, try the whole Core Transformation sequence)
Pick an aspect / thought / behavior you don’t like.… Recall an instance of when it came up, and where in your body it seemed to reside.… Assume it has a positive intent for you, and thank it as you would a well-meaning but mistaken friend.… Ask what outcome it’s trying to achieve.… Thank it for what answer it can give.… If you can honestly promise to give that outcome-goal serious consideration next time this aspect comes up, then do so. If you can’t, then DON’T.
Pick a partner and lead them (or together, teach a rubber duck) through one of the previous exercises you thought was good. Get feedback on one thing you did well, and one thing you can do differently to improve. Try it again with that in mind. Bonus points if you record it so you can see your own presentation style.
Alternative: notice how they do the exercise differently than you, try to improve your model of the person, the exercise, their engagement.
Practice: One person says some things that are factually incorrect, predicated on bad reasoning, or harm-promoting. Everyone takes a turn expressing their lack of endorsement and/or intent to sit out of the activity. You lose by causing the group to get side-tracked by the disagreement.
If we all agree to chip $5 to anyone who could make effective use of it, we could have a pool of up to $5*n to spend on achieving our shared goals. How would you propose using it? (If you can manage anonymous approval voting, tally up how much money each proposal’d actually wind up with.)
Think about the last time someone you knew (yourself, even) seemed in need of support or help. Brainstorm ideas for specific, concrete actions you could take to try to contribute to their wellbeing. Vividly imagine being in that kind of situation again, having since become the kind of person for whom implementing one of them is straightforward and easy, and just doing it. Do it a few times, with your memory as comparison
common—grieving, sick, stressed, anxious, melancholy, depressed, bored
“Project Eggplant”: an area where your thinking is not quite legible enough to share, or a problem that involves lots of private details, or a train of thought that involving other people risks distorting. Consider how much of your life this problem has an impact on, and how severe. Share with the group that you’ve got a Project Eggplant, if you do. Further details are completely optional.