LESSWRONG
LW

Oh hey, this is convenient, I just got to Sydney yesterday and you guys have a meetup tonight. =) I'll probably attend. (I'm in town for three months, visiting from the United States.)

I have an ulterior motive for attending: I am looking for housing near Macquarie University for the next three months. I don't suppose anyone here has a room for rent, or knows of a good place to stay? (Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask about such things!)

[-]Gav12y00

Very nice meetup. I found the calibration exercises by Tim very useful, thanks for running them.

Ian's phenomena of the 'bouncing LED' display interested me enough that I built a bit of hardware to test whether my hunch of why it occurs was correct. I'll bring it in next time to show :-)

[-]taryneast12y00

So that went really well. 15 people, of which about 6 were brand new (welcome!). We had some great discussion, Tim led a calibration exercise. We had two poems and several people brought problems to the table to get some good advice.

[-]Brillyant12y00

I'd like to theme this meetup with a sub-goal of outreach.

If you've been thinking of a friend you might like to bring along - this is the night to do it.

This reminds me of my Evangelical Christian upbringing.

[-]Vaniver12y40

This reminds me of my Evangelical Christian upbringing.

Is growth something only Evangelical Christians should do, or should LW do it too?

[-]Brillyant12y10

I suppose it depends on the value provided by the group you are trying to grow. I'm not qualified to speak to the objective value of LW. It's cool. It's taught me some cool stuff about biases and rationality.

I only noticed—and then commented—that the language used was similar to the way we used to talk in church.

"Outreach", "bring a friend on a night like this", "appropriate for non-believers", "seeker-sensitive" (that one means they will use less church-y dialect and talk about fewer docrinal oddities so you can brong your "unsaved" friends... it is less church-y and doctrinally odd to call them "seekers".)

I likely just have a strong aversion signal that goes off when I see such language. It instantly strikes me as weird and activist-y... a desperate attempt to spread a particular "gospel".

[-]taryneast12y10

Yes, I purloined the "outreach" term from churchy language. :)

desperate attempt to spread a particular "gospel".

Perhaps a desperate attempt to spread rationality? ;) or just a wish to have more rational friends to talk to.

[-]Brillyant12y20

I like "purloined" much more than I like "outreach". :)

[-]Richard_Kennaway12y00

It instantly strikes me as weird and activist-y... a desperate attempt to spread a particular "gospel".

Leaving out the words "weird" and "desperate", that is exactly what it is. That is what LessWrong was founded for. That is what every blog in the sidebar is doing. That is the entire purpose of CFAR.

What is wrong with communicating ideas worth spreading?

[-]Brillyant12y00

Nothing. As long as the ideas are worth spreading.

I notice it feels odd to me that your response indicates you missed my point. The language just feels like church to me. I'm not making any judgements against LW's content. In fact, I'm often quite complementary.

The reality is there are methods of spreading ideas that have been spoiled for many people.

[-]Richard_Kennaway12y00

The reality is there are methods of spreading ideas that have been spoiled for many people.

Should they have been, though? Is there something inherently anti-epistemic about "If you've been thinking of a friend you might like to bring along - this is the night to do it"?

[-]Brillyant12y00

"Should" is strange word.

To answer, no. But some methods have been spoiled in reality for many people. Even churches are learning this and approaching evangelism differently.

I'm in sales and I can tell you from experience: You can fail to sell a product to someone who truly needs and wants that product because you're using bad methods.

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Meetup : Sydney Meetup - March

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Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Meetup - March

Discussion article for the meetup : Sydney Meetup - March