This was the best Secular Solstice I’ve hosted so far.
I leaned unusually far in the direction of requiring effort from participants. That worked because I know my crowd, and because I was very well prepared.
We were 12 people in my living room around a large table: 3 new people and the rest regulars. A laptop with a PowerPoint showed lyrics and instructions, and I finally had good Bluetooth speakers. I also used a USB pedal to navigate the slideshow, which was delightful quality-of-life. The slides are here:
Below are comments on individual parts of the program.
Section-by-section notes
No particular remarks here; it did what it needed to do.
I think I’ll cut this song next year. It’s a bit too long and meandering, and feels too “normal” compared to the rest of the program’s tone.
I opened with the Virtue of Darkness talk, which was slightly odd given the room was still fully lit, but I liked the symbolism. I think people were genuinely surprised to be confronted with a fairly classroom-like exercise right at the start.
My sense is that most of them had never actually done a real Bayesian update before, and I feel like that should be on everyone’s bucket list. People took longer than I expected to work through the example, but everyone got through it.
Still a fun song. I should probably use fewer nanites next time. I need to practice exactly how to sing line 3; it’s easy to get wrong.
I turned off the main light on the line about “Unfriendly AI”, which landed nicely.
This year I made it very explicit that people were allowed to pass, and I gave a clear alternative. Two people took that option. That seemed to reduce pressure; the overall vibe was more comfortable than in previous years.
This was fine, but it has always been less meaningful to me than Tarski.
Some small notes:
Around here, some music might be nice as a background or transition.
I should check if the font size on the slide is too small; it felt borderline.
There’s a great physicality to extinguishing flames between your fingers. It felt exactly as tactile and slightly scary as I wanted it to.
One participant stated his belief as “I desire to be truth-seeking”, which came out very funny when inserted into the Tarski litany. I now weakly predict that next year he’ll say “I do not desire to believe what is true”, which will yield a contradiction in Tarski. :)
I really like this song in this position. Some parts are not that easy to sing, especially for people who don’t know it well, but I still think it was worth it.
I had practiced a lot, and I think it paid off; this is the best I’ve delivered this material so far.
Having someone else ask the questions aloud helped a lot for pacing and flow. It also made the whole thing feel more like a dialogue and less like a monologue-lecture.
Always a hit. No changes planned.
I had originally planned to start this segment with the Virtue of Ash, but I ended up moving that to the end instead. This didn’t cause any real problems; the narrative still hung together.
My restatement of the “other part” of Tarski here could use some work. It was understandable, but not as crisp as I’d like.
Wonderful song, as usual. I need to mark that the last line of each stanza is delayed slightly. I also need to double-check the ending, because I think I messed up the lyrics in the final lines. Someone remarked that this was “very symbolic”, which I choose to interpret as a feature rather than a bug.
The plan here was that we’d read the bolded parts together (“Rage”, “Do not”), and for each stanza, someone would have to read the first non-bolded part alone.
This was explicitly framed as an agency exercise: someone has to step up.
For the first stanza, people looked around in silence for 5–10 seconds.
For the subsequent stanzas, people jumped in very quickly. I was a bit moved by how fast they picked it up once the pattern was clear.
This is a new song for us. I deliberately chose a recording with very little instrumental intro so it would be easier to follow.
Issues:
The sound level on that recording was noticeably lower than the others, and I had to emergency-fiddle with the volume.
The font size on the slide was too small; that definitely needs fixing.
This involved a call-and-response structure: I said one line of the Virtue of Fire text to each participant, they repeated it, and then relit their candle.
This was a bit difficult for some people (hearing and repeating cleanly in a low-light situation is nontrivial), but overall it mostly worked and felt intimate in a good way.
Great song. I turned the main light back on at the word “Hark”, which felt like a satisfying and somewhat dramatic moment.
People wrote short letters to their future selves.
Notes:
Some of the additional instructions on the slide could be clearer; there was slight confusion about what exactly I was asking for.
One person took a long time to write, even though I’d explicitly written “3 minutes” on the slide. This isn’t necessarily bad, but I should be aware that this segment can easily expand in duration.
This worked well as a late-program song, though it still feels more “pleasant” than “profound”. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll keep it in this exact slot.
I still haven’t found my ideal way to blow out the candles. This year, getting up and walking outside at the end turned out to be a good way to change context; we needed fresh air anyway, and it helped clearly mark the transition from ritual-space back to normal socializing.
I should still design a more aesthetically satisfying “final candle” moment for next year.
Afterthoughts and plans for next year
After we finished, I announced my intention to make it darker next year, with a greater focus on the end of the world.
This year I had deliberately chosen:
Not to include “The Last Lifeboat”, and
To never blow out the central candle.
Both choices made the overall tone a bit lighter and more hopeful. That was appropriate for where the group is right now, but I’m interested in aiming for a slightly darker, more “end of the story” Solstice next time—while still keeping the sense of agency and responsibility that I think this year’s program captured quite well.