Quick non-binding poll of preference. Vote up if you'd sooner eat pizza at the SIAI House (or whatever simple things we can figure out how to buy or cook or heat down there), rather than going to a restaurant.
Okay, calling it for pizza. We just got 4 pizzas (plain, margherita, pepperoni, and supreme) and a tray of veggies for dipping. Any other participants can feel free to bring other stuff.
Vote up if you'd rather go to the restaurant.
(And feel free to reply as well if you want to make some sort of statement about how you feel it would be too sad a Newtonmas if you just ended up eating pizza... I think we were assuming there'd be at least one person like that without actually identifying them, vide pluralistic ignorance.)
This was a nice little informal Newtonmas gathering. We decided to nuke the moon.
Nice. If I had been there, I would have lobbied to crank up the Earth's axis of rotation to make it perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic.
I'm still working on the details of how to generate the necessary torque. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know.
Aww! I new that I was going to miss something fun! So, was this just a decision, or did you also act upon that decision?
(I wasn't there, but Mr Show -- Blow Up the Moon seems relevant)
PS: Who was it that came up with the idea for me to write a self-insert fanfic based on Yudkowski Returns?
It was me. Zack Davis was jokingly suggesting a benefit performance, you were unhappy that it was a bad play, and I was looking for things that would make it a better play, such as playing it as a farce.
And again, the whole point was that, technically, it's not self-insert fanfic if someone else already inserted you...
If you want to get more meta, you could have the characters in the story use game theory to analyze the causal basis for oppobrium towards authors of self-insert fanfic (perhaps in terms of signals about underlying psychological states, and/or signals about abhorrence of some of those psychological states, and/or signals about abhorrence of inadequate abhorrence).
(And then, having analyzed the oppobrium and reduced it to game theory and social psychology, they could argue about whether or not the oppobrium "should" apply to their own author. And about whether or not having the analysis even gives them any useful information to help decide that question.)
I think it may have been one of those "obvious minds think alike" moments. I'll take credit if nobody else does, though.
Doh... Need to not reply while watching anime...
That should read "The SIAI house, huh? Where is that?"
Should this novice deign to be present amongst the giants. (sorry, the Japanese really do talk like that, and I've been watching anime for three days - in Japanese, as it is the best way to learn the language). Or, to put it in the colloquial "Should I be privileged to attend."
Alas... My legs have conspired to keep me away (well, really, they just have been acting up over the last week, and I had hoped they were finished, but it seems not).
So, I hope that your Positive-Affect-Day, Schelling-Point-mas goes well (I must confess here that I did not understand the Schelling-Point portion of that expression until I googled it upon discovering that my legs were going to keep me away from the meetup... At which point I realize... The whole expression is both quite pertinent and funny. Well done whoever came up with it)
Thank you... Then I shall be there (not that my cats are not good company; they just aren't too good on the conversation end. They do have more than one word, fortunately, but every one starts with Me--- and usually ends with ow or eh)
Right... "doko" is "where", I was thinking "there" but that's "soko"...
Let me see if I can get an LW Meetup set up, in which case I can forward to meetup.com. Otherwise I'll PM or just post the info here.
New, but would like to be there. I am kinda more partial to pizza myself. Not that I don't love Chinese Food, especially on Mythmas, but I, strangely (as a student) do not eat Pizza nearly often enough.
There will be a LessWrong Meetup on the Friday December 25th (day after tomorrow.) We're meeting at 6:00 PM at Pan Tao Restaurant at 1686 South Wolfe Road, Sunnyvale, CA the SIAI House in Santa Clara, CA for pizza or whatever else we can figure out how to cook. Consider it an available refuge if you haven't other plans.
Please comment if you plan to show up!
(Edit - See poll below on whether we'd rather stay in and eat something simple vs. going out to a restaurant - it's possible that everyone was assuming everyone else would prefer the latter while actually preferring the former themselves. - EY)