The simple heuristic: typical 5-year-old human males are just straightforwardly correct about what is, and is not, fun at a party. (Sex and adjacent things are obviously a major exception to this. I don’t know of any other major exceptions, though there are minor exceptions.) When in doubt, find a five-year-old boy to consult for advice.
Some example things which are usually fun at house parties:
Dancing
Swordfighting and/or wrestling
Lasertag, hide and seek, capture the flag
Squirt guns
Pranks
Group singing, but not at a high skill level
Lighting random things on fire, especially if they explode
Building elaborate things from whatever’s on hand
Physical party games, of the sort one would see on Nickelodeon back in the day
Some example things which are usually not fun at house parties:
Just talking for hours on end about the same things people talk about on LessWrong, except the discourse on LessWrong is generally higher quality
Just talking for hours on end about community gossip
Just talking for hours on end about that show people have been watching lately
Most other forms of just talking for hours on end
This message brought to you by the wound on my side from taser fighting at a house party last weekend. That is how parties are supposed to go.
One of my son’s most vivid memories of the last few years (and which he talks about pretty often) is playing laser tag at Wytham Abbey, a cultural practice I believe instituted by John and which was awesome, so there is a literal five-year-old (well seven-year-old at the time) who endorses this message!
My guess is laser tags were actually introduced to Wytham Abbey during their Battleschool, not by John. (People familiar with the history can correct me)
The reason the place is designed so that you can’t talk is to make you buy more drinks. (Because when people start talking a lot, they forget to keep drinking.) It may or may not have a positive side effect on you having fun, but it wasn’t designed with your fun as a goal.
Would be interesting to see a survey of five year olds to see if the qualifiers in your opening statement are anything like correct. I doubt you need to filter to just boys, for example.
For me, it depends on whether the attendees are people I’ve never met before, or people I’ve known my entire life. If it’s people I don’t know, I do like to talk to them, to find out whether we have anything interesting to exchange. If it’s someone I’ve known forever, then things like karaoke or go-karting are more fun than just sitting around and talking.
Snowball fights/rolling big balls of snow fall into the same genre, if good snow is available.
I guess this gives me a decent challenge for the next boring party: Turn the party into something fun as a project. Probably the best way to achieve this is to grab the second-most on-board person and escalate from there, clearly having more fun than the other people?
Personally, I’m fairly committed to [talking a lot]. But I do find it incredibly difficult to do at parties. I’ve been trying to figure out why, but the success rate for me plus [talking a lot] at parties seems much lower than I would have hoped.
I’ll add to this list: If you have a kitchen with a tile floor, have everyone take their shoes off, pour soap and water on the floor, and turn it into a slippery sliding dance party. It’s so fun. (My friends and I used to call it “soap kitchen” and it was the highlight of our house parties.)
After most people had left a small house party I was throwing, my close friends and I stayed and started pouring ethanol from a bottle on random surfaces and things and burning it. It was completely stupid, somewhat dangerous (some of us sustained some small burns), utterly pointless, very immature, and also extremely fun.
John’s Simple Guide To Fun House Parties
The simple heuristic: typical 5-year-old human males are just straightforwardly correct about what is, and is not, fun at a party. (Sex and adjacent things are obviously a major exception to this. I don’t know of any other major exceptions, though there are minor exceptions.) When in doubt, find a five-year-old boy to consult for advice.
Some example things which are usually fun at house parties:
Dancing
Swordfighting and/or wrestling
Lasertag, hide and seek, capture the flag
Squirt guns
Pranks
Group singing, but not at a high skill level
Lighting random things on fire, especially if they explode
Building elaborate things from whatever’s on hand
Physical party games, of the sort one would see on Nickelodeon back in the day
Some example things which are usually not fun at house parties:
Just talking for hours on end about the same things people talk about on LessWrong, except the discourse on LessWrong is generally higher quality
Just talking for hours on end about community gossip
Just talking for hours on end about that show people have been watching lately
Most other forms of just talking for hours on end
This message brought to you by the wound on my side from taser fighting at a house party last weekend. That is how parties are supposed to go.
One of my son’s most vivid memories of the last few years (and which he talks about pretty often) is playing laser tag at Wytham Abbey, a cultural practice I believe instituted by John and which was awesome, so there is a literal five-year-old (well seven-year-old at the time) who endorses this message!
My guess is laser tags were actually introduced to Wytham Abbey during their Battleschool, not by John. (People familiar with the history can correct me)
John graciously and brilliantly came up with the laser tag guns when he was captain-by-night for agent foundations 2024.
October 2023 I believe
No, I got a set of lasertag guns for Wytham well before Battleschool. We used them for the original SardineQuest.
This is one of the better sentences-that-sound-bizarre-without-context I’ve seen in a while.
It took me years of going to bars and clubs and thinking the same thoughts:
Wow this music is loud
I can barely hear myself talk, let alone anyone else
We should all learn sign language so we don’t have to shout at the top of our lungs all the time
before I finally realized—the whole draw of places like this is specifically that you don’t talk.
The reason the place is designed so that you can’t talk is to make you buy more drinks. (Because when people start talking a lot, they forget to keep drinking.) It may or may not have a positive side effect on you having fun, but it wasn’t designed with your fun as a goal.
Would be interesting to see a survey of five year olds to see if the qualifiers in your opening statement are anything like correct. I doubt you need to filter to just boys, for example.
For me, it depends on whether the attendees are people I’ve never met before, or people I’ve known my entire life. If it’s people I don’t know, I do like to talk to them, to find out whether we have anything interesting to exchange. If it’s someone I’ve known forever, then things like karaoke or go-karting are more fun than just sitting around and talking.
Snowball fights/rolling big balls of snow fall into the same genre, if good snow is available.
I guess this gives me a decent challenge for the next boring party: Turn the party into something fun as a project. Probably the best way to achieve this is to grab the second-most on-board person and escalate from there, clearly having more fun than the other people?
Personally, I’m fairly committed to [talking a lot]. But I do find it incredibly difficult to do at parties. I’ve been trying to figure out why, but the success rate for me plus [talking a lot] at parties seems much lower than I would have hoped.
My mind derives pleasure from deep philosophical and technical discussions.
I’ll add to this list: If you have a kitchen with a tile floor, have everyone take their shoes off, pour soap and water on the floor, and turn it into a slippery sliding dance party. It’s so fun. (My friends and I used to call it “soap kitchen” and it was the highlight of our house parties.)
what was the injury rate?
We haven’t had one yet! But we only did it ~3 times. Obviously people are more careful than they’d normally be while dancing on the slippery floor.
After most people had left a small house party I was throwing, my close friends and I stayed and started pouring ethanol from a bottle on random surfaces and things and burning it. It was completely stupid, somewhat dangerous (some of us sustained some small burns), utterly pointless, very immature, and also extremely fun.
most of these require
more preparation & coordination
more physical energy from everyone
which can be in short supply
Which doesn’t make the OP wrong.