I’ve run this several times at OBNYC, it’s gone pretty well. Generally we didn’t bother with scoring. One issue with scoring is needing to come up with what counts for numerical questions. Although we tried to do that anyway, because we wanted to score individual questions even if we weren’t keeping score overall. For many things you can use “order of magnitude and first digit”, but that doesn’t work well for everything. Dates we generally did plus or minus 10 years. But it may need to vary a bit depending on just what the question. Maybe plus or minus some fixed percentage for many of them? (10%? 20%?) We did plus or minus an inch for a question about Conan O’Brien’s height.
One modification that got suggested at the most recent one was to say that on a 1, you look up the answer and lie; this is so that when you say “we looked it up” this is less informative. We never actually rolled a 1 after making this change, however. Perhaps one should add lookups on 5 as well if you’re doing this, to really make it uninformative? (So that the truth:lie ratio is 2:1 regardless of whether you’re doing a lookup or not.)
(At earlier ones we had for a while a “no talking about the die roll” rule that would make this unnecessary, but people didn’t like that.)
Having a good source of questions has been a little bit of a problem. The provided list isn’t that great—we’ve used questions from our copy of Wits & Wagers, or lists online, or just making ones up. Make sure you have some sort of question source!
I’ve found that a lot of exercises want a big list of questions. (Calibration Trivia, Dissent Collusion, Outrangeous, and Pastcasting off the top of my head.) I should crowdsource more of these or spend more time adding questions somehow.
I’m a bit confused on your proposed change- if you roll a 1 or a 2 you can say you looked up the answer, or you can lie and say you didn’t. Whether you actually look up the answer seems irrelevant? Is it that misleading the Lonesome is easier if the Collective knows the answer?
Thank you for the report from OBNYC! It’s good hear this has gone well :) Does it seem like it’s working as practice?
Whether you actually look up the answer seems irrelevant? Is it that misleading the Lonesome is easier if the Collective knows the answer?
I think the idea is that while you can lie about this, in reality things go fairly differently in cases where you looked it up in a way that’s noticeable.
Does it seem like it’s working as practice?
Hm, not really I guess. (Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that part!)
Hm, not really I guess. (Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that part!)
It is a useful datapoint I try to look for :) If the activity is getting use and people are having fun that’s positive and good to hear.
The first problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was would-be organizers going “I would run something, but I coming up with content and describing it sounds like too much effort.” Now they have something they can cut and paste from, and thus meetups happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
The second problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was organizers going “I run ‘open social, come hang out and talk about whatever’ meetups, but I kinda wish I had something more on-topic for a rationalist group.” Now they have something with a bit more rationalist flavour.
The third problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was the thing where someone can go to rationalist meetups for years and not learn or practice any rationalist technique or skill. That’s a very Screwtape-flavoured goal, and it’s one where the feedback loop is harder to measure.
Sounds like I’m succeeding at 1 and 2 here, but not 3?
I’ve run this several times at OBNYC, it’s gone pretty well. Generally we didn’t bother with scoring. One issue with scoring is needing to come up with what counts for numerical questions. Although we tried to do that anyway, because we wanted to score individual questions even if we weren’t keeping score overall. For many things you can use “order of magnitude and first digit”, but that doesn’t work well for everything. Dates we generally did plus or minus 10 years. But it may need to vary a bit depending on just what the question. Maybe plus or minus some fixed percentage for many of them? (10%? 20%?) We did plus or minus an inch for a question about Conan O’Brien’s height.
One modification that got suggested at the most recent one was to say that on a 1, you look up the answer and lie; this is so that when you say “we looked it up” this is less informative. We never actually rolled a 1 after making this change, however. Perhaps one should add lookups on 5 as well if you’re doing this, to really make it uninformative? (So that the truth:lie ratio is 2:1 regardless of whether you’re doing a lookup or not.)
(At earlier ones we had for a while a “no talking about the die roll” rule that would make this unnecessary, but people didn’t like that.)
Having a good source of questions has been a little bit of a problem. The provided list isn’t that great—we’ve used questions from our copy of Wits & Wagers, or lists online, or just making ones up. Make sure you have some sort of question source!
I’ve found that a lot of exercises want a big list of questions. (Calibration Trivia, Dissent Collusion, Outrangeous, and Pastcasting off the top of my head.) I should crowdsource more of these or spend more time adding questions somehow.
I’m a bit confused on your proposed change- if you roll a 1 or a 2 you can say you looked up the answer, or you can lie and say you didn’t. Whether you actually look up the answer seems irrelevant? Is it that misleading the Lonesome is easier if the Collective knows the answer?
Thank you for the report from OBNYC! It’s good hear this has gone well :) Does it seem like it’s working as practice?
I think the idea is that while you can lie about this, in reality things go fairly differently in cases where you looked it up in a way that’s noticeable.
Hm, not really I guess. (Oops, I guess I forgot to mention that part!)
It is a useful datapoint I try to look for :) If the activity is getting use and people are having fun that’s positive and good to hear.
The first problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was would-be organizers going “I would run something, but I coming up with content and describing it sounds like too much effort.” Now they have something they can cut and paste from, and thus meetups happen that otherwise wouldn’t.
The second problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was organizers going “I run ‘open social, come hang out and talk about whatever’ meetups, but I kinda wish I had something more on-topic for a rationalist group.” Now they have something with a bit more rationalist flavour.
The third problem I wanted Meetup In A Box to solve was the thing where someone can go to rationalist meetups for years and not learn or practice any rationalist technique or skill. That’s a very Screwtape-flavoured goal, and it’s one where the feedback loop is harder to measure.
Sounds like I’m succeeding at 1 and 2 here, but not 3?
Yes, I think I’d agree with that.