European Community Weekend in Berlin

The Berlin Meetup Group is organizing the first European community meetup. We are planning a fun weekend with a focus on bringing the LessWrong community closer together. As a treat, some participants offer rationality exercises and workshops.

If you like your local meetup we hope you will like this too. It is similar, but bigger: You will get to meet and exchange ideas with a diverse set of awesome people from all across Europe. And if you don’t have a meetup nearby or didn’t get around to participating yet, this is a great opportunity to get in touch with the rest of the community.

The community weekend will take place April 11-13, from Friday evening to Sunday early afternoon, in the Odyssee Hostel in Berlin. The cost is 70 € including accommodation and breakfast. A conference room with a projector and wifi will also be available during daytime.

The event is participant driven so you (yes, you) are very welcome to help with the content. Please contact Tristan (wegnertristan—at—googlemail—dot—com) for planning and scheduling.

Friday evening we will welcome everyone around 17:00 and proceed to have dinner together. Sleeping quarters (shared rooms) will already be available from 16:00. The evening can be used for getting to know each other better or exploring the city in small groups. We also made sure that there are plenty of cultural, party and sightseeing offers available throughout the city.

Saturday after breakfast, there will be a semi-structured program in the conference room. Offers will include a workshop for habit implementation, a science based introduction to meditation along with a practice session, and clicker training. We also encourage everyone to take part in lightning talks, where you are invited to give a short 5min presentation on any topic you are passionate about.

Saturday evening can be further used to nerd out, explore the nightlife or participate in an exercise in social comfort zone expansion.

Sunday will have room for additional projects. We will say goodbye in the early afternoon to give us enough time to head home. Of course everyone is free to prolong the stay in the greatest capital of Germany.

By the end of the event we hope that we will have made new friends, exchanged ideas, received valuable feedback and started a joint world optimization project or two.

To sign up, email John (johncryptfrink—at—gmail—dot—com), preferably before the first of February. The number of participants is limited, so register early to make sure you can participate.

Looking forward to seeing you
John, Tristan, Alexander, Matthias, Christian… & everyone else from the Berlin LessWrong meetup

UPDATE: We’re now at slightly over 40 participants and can’t accept any more people. Please mail John anyway if you’d have wanted to come! Things may still work out if someone else can’t make it after all—and it will help us have a better idea of how many people to plan for next time.