Discussion article for the meetup : San Diego meetup

WHEN: 20 November 2011 01:00:00PM (-0800)

WHERE: 6380 Del Cerro Blvd. San Diego, CA 92120

We're having another San Diego meetup on Sunday, November 20th at 1pm at our usual location. As mentioned in the first San Diego meetup announcement, it's in a kind of strip next to a grocery store. The room we have is in the far back, so once you come in just go as straight as possible against the left wall. Minors are allowed; they just can't order alcohol. (So if you want to order any, be sure to bring your ID.)

Since there was interest expressed in this last time, I'll prepare a presentation on the Enneagram and bring a projector. (At last check they had removed their projector but still have a projection screen mounted on a wall.) For those who weren't there for that part of the discussion, the very short version is that the Enneagram is a personality typing system that is ridiculously insightful and predicative. It intertwines motivation, affect, thought, and behavior into a coherent pattern and details what nine of those patterns are, with the implicit claim that there are only nine such patterns (although there are relationships between them that add variety to types' expression). It turns out you can make insanely accurate predictions of others' behavior using this tool because you learn to understand where they're coming from on a surprisingly subtle level, and you can also learn things about yourself that introspection normally fails to pick up on. If you're curious to learn more before the meetup, read this. Just be aware that the Enneagram started out as a "sacred symbol" used for spiritual purposes, so you'll sometimes encounter some religious elements tossed in randomly. Just ignore those parts. Over the last ten years, I've found that the Enneagram works perfectly well from a rational reductionist materialist perspective.

With all that said, I'll offer this only if people who come are interested. If there's a strong preference for just hanging out and chatting, then so be it! I just want to hang out with fellow aspiring rationalists.

If there's something you want to present that requires a speaker for a laptop (or equivalent), let me know. I can almost certainly pick one up at the same time I'm getting the projector.

If you want to carpool, ask! I'm coming from around UTC.

Discussion article for the meetup : San Diego meetup

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5 comments, sorted by Click to highlight new comments since: Today at 6:47 AM

I will attend. Message me for rides from Lake Forest.

Calendar marked. I'll be coming from the La Mesa area if anyone wants to carpool/masstransit hop.

I'll be there :-)

Mercurial, thanks for an AMAZING presentation on Enneagrams. I was a "9" in the meet-up, but written tests keep brining me out as a "5" with 9 coming in 3rd or 4th place. Whaddyagonnado. I can't wait to find out what my wife is.

Mike

Glad you enjoyed! (And sorry for not responding sooner; I wish there were a setting that informed me when someone replies to a top-level post of mine!)

Don't take the tests too seriously. Supposedly the RHETI somewhere in the ballpark of 80% accurate (although I'm not sure how they determined that), but in my experience it's just not nearly as helpful as talking to someone who can actually use the toolset. Threes, Sixes, and Nines in particular seem to have a lot of trouble with tests: Threes keep wanting to be whatever the "best" type is, Sixes keep double-guessing their answers, and Nines tend to see most of the choices in the forced-choice tests as relatively arbitrary ("Well, I'm like A when I'm with these friends but I'm like B when I'm with those friends, so I could go either way").

I think training System One, like I described in the presentation, is much more likely to type you and your wife correctly. Although as you said, I'm pretty sure you're a Nine.

I hope we can expect you at the next meetup!