Meetup : Berkeley meetup: Hermeneutics!
Discussion article for the meetup : Berkeley meetup: Hermeneutics!
This Wednesday’s meetup will feature Hermeneutics!, a brand-new game invented by Scott Alexander. You can read about it on his blog:
http://squid314.livejournal.com/343000.html
The purpose of the game is to see how easy it is to come up with plausible false arguments, and how plausible such arguments can sound coming from others. As far as I know, this may be the first time the game has ever been played. Doors open at 7pm, and we’ll start playing the game at 7:30pm. For directions to Zendo, see the mailing list: http://groups.google.com/group/bayarealesswrong or call me at: http://i.imgur.com/Vcafy.png Next week we can have another social-skills-themed meetup.
Sounds like a fun game! I would propose one modification: one (or more?) of the tokens should be blank, indicating that the holder may advocate “what they really think” the text means (perhaps in exchange for earning fewer points if that one wins/is voted for). I think adds an extra twist when you play with the knowledge that “one of these interpretations is really serious” (or “could be” serious if there are more tokens than players).
If that’s too easy, the blank token should mean that you can advocate any interpretation you want, so long as you don’t personally believe any of it.
Also, for whoever sets up the game, the passages should be obscure (not commonly known) and the interpretations should be close to mainstream among the belief set spanned by the group.