Meetup : London—Inaugural Practical Session—June 9th
Discussion article for the meetup : London—Inaugural Practical Session—June 9th
Up until now the London Less Wrong meetups have mostly just been social gatherings. Quite a few of us have expressed a desire to get more out of the group. As such, we’ll be alternating the fortnightly meetups between a “social” emphasis and a “practical” emphasis. As the first of our practical-oriented meetups, this session will be more structured than previous gatherings. Attendees are encouraged to think of specific examples of what they would like to work on in advance. This could be:
a specific goal they wish to achieve (“I would like to save 60% of my monthly income”)
a specific habit or unreasonable psychological demand they would like to overcome (“I would like to be able to work for four-hour stretches without losing motivation or succumbing to akrasia”)
a specific skill they would like to develop (“I would like to be able to competently present material to large groups of people”)
any other specific thing they want which they currently don’t have to their satisfaction
As this is our first practical, we’re still experimenting with the format. In this meetup, discussion will be structured to identify common goals and desires among attendees, and to foster support and collaboration towards achieving them. We are also working on developing group social norms to provide more pleasant, productive and personally-inclusive discussion.
Please be there for 2pm if you can. We can accommodate later arrivals, but we will be starting promptly.
The venue is the Shakespeare’s Head by Holborn tube station. Turn left out of the station exit and it’s <100m on your left. We also have a Google Group. Why not join it?
I’m not normally resident in London, but I’ll likely be around this weekend, any problem with me coming along?
None whatsoever. You are exceedingly welcome.
The plan is for a couple of hours of structured discussion, followed by informal discussion on whatever comes out of that. If there’s anything you’re looking to optimise or improve on at the moment, feel free to note them down and bring them along.
I will if I can, might be attending the institut francais late night philosophy thing the night before, so I may be dead to the world…
BTW, I’ll be in London during the last week of June (25-28), anyone interested in meeting up that week? I’m speaking at two software conferences so will be pretty busy, but it would be cool to meet LWers as well.
(My topic at the first of the conferences will be calibrated probability judgements (with a big shout out to GJP), and how to improve.)
I’m busy myself, but I’ll pass it on to other Londoners at the meetup. We like visitors.
I happen to be in London this afternoon, I know it is late notice but I assume it is ok for newbies to turn up? Also, is there some specific way to recognize you?
Hi, I realise you have crossed out your post but I will answer it anyway,
We are very happy for new people to turn up. It’s the first meetup of the new format but that shouldn’t matter (it will be a little new for all of us).
We are fairly easy to recognise but we also have the art lebedev paperclip on our tables http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/skrepkus/
Hi, something came up and so I couldn’t attend, which is why I crossed out my post. Thanks for the response, and I’ll try to turn up sometime when I’ve got less important stuff going on.
Great stuff, see you there.