Set of people:
authors or thinkers who I want to recall (e.g., “Sam Harris is the mindfulness and antireligion guy”)
people I notice I confuse with other people
people who I notice I can’t remember their name when I meet them (but do know them) - typically people I know and like but don’t meet with regularly enough
coworkers in my broader team, my management chain
Photos: publicly available photos if googleable, pics from names and faces slides from meetups
Hi! I’m Michael aka Rai, one of the organizers involved. Here’s my take.
Roland creeps me out in a S1 way. I am not comfortable holding conversations (especially about personal things) around him. One day, I realized that I am not the only person feeling uncomfortable about Roland.
One of my chief aims as the current de-facto organizer of Rationality Zurich is to have a social group which is pleasant for the people involved, and I have come to believe that Roland’s presence at the meetups is net negative, especially (but not exclusively) for the kinds of things which I would like to do more of at Rationality Zurich. Circling is a good example of those things.
I think there are ways Roland could change that would make me feel less creeped out, and maybe reverse the decision (mine was to ban Roland from meetups I organize) - roughly, more social intelligence or empathy. But fixing that is not my responsibility.