I saw that there is a "friend" option for tickets, and kids are also allowed. How likely is a friend or spouse who doesn't read these blogs to enjoy coming along? Did a lot of people bring friends/spouses last time?
Many of the ACX meetups, especially above some threshold size, have a certain flavor, people want to engage deeply with the ideas---their own, some one else, something read recently. This conference is similar, but more dense, more quick in the experience, stretched over a long time.
If they greatly enjoy at least one writer listed, and don't have some general dislike for a majority of them, they'll have a great time. It will be colored by self-purchasing attendees more actively flitting around to events and taking advantage of more opportunities to speak to more people. They can expect some depth, but not getting to monopolize anyone's attention.
I have a bit of work to do on the scheduling app before sending it around to everyone this year, not certain when I will get to that, my guess is in like 4 weeks from now.
Relatedly: we have finished renovating the final building on our campus, so there will be more rooms for sessions this year than last year.
Our festival of truthseeking and blogging is happening again this year.
It's from Friday May 30th to Sunday June 1st at Lighthaven (Berkeley, CA).
Early bird pricing is currently at $450 until the end of the month.
You can buy tickets and learn more at the website: Less.Online
FAQ
Who should come?
If you check LessWrong, or read any sizeable number of the bloggers invited, I think you will probably enjoy being here at LessOnline, sharing ideas and talking to bloggers you read.
What happened last year?
A weekend festival about blogging and truthseeking at Lighthaven.
Who came?
We invited over 100 great writers to come (free of charge), and most of them took us up on it. Along with regulars from the aspiring rationalist scene like Eliezer, Scott, Zvi, and more, many from other great intellectual parts of the internet joined like Scott Sumner, Agnes Callard, Patrick McKenzie, David Friedman, Cremieux, Kevin Simler, Andy Matuschak, Scott Aaronson, Alexander Wales, and more.
Then we sold over 300 tickets. All together, half the attendees were from California, half traveled from further afield.
What happened?
We had a fun weekend of sessions about writing, editing, rationality, superbabies, alignment, deception games, and more. The Fooming Shoggoths dance party was the activity that most came up in people's favorite sessions list.
How much did people like the event?
On average, people rated the event an 8.7/10.
75% of people said they'd come again, and 23% of people said "maybe". (2% said "no".)
When we sent a save-the-date the email to last year's attendees with a link to buy tickets this year, 50 people bought tickets (before the website was up).
What feedback did people give?
Here's a sampling of the positive and negative feedback we got. (Click to expand.)
Best thing about LessOnline? (~15 selected responses)
one-on-one late-night conversations
Getting real professional tips from writers I've followed and respected for years
It didn’t hurt me (am autistic; expected to suffer)
Many weird nerds to vibe with
Fooming Shoggoths and following evening
getting to know the LessWrong community
Hope for gene therapy
Music, games, rationalist culture
Focus on thinking well in most conversations, leading to energy overall.
The venue. I've never been to the Bay Area before. This place is paradise.
Normalizing writing. So encouraging
Advice about how to grow the audience for my blog. A analytical audience to talk with about my health and longevity research.
Talking around the fires
Overall vibe, questions in my own session, morning convos with Zvi
Always nice to meet people from the Internet; density here was pretty absurd (in a good way).
Being able to easily transition between interesting sessions and spacious conversations with people
Worst thing about LessOnline? (~15 selected responses)
felt it difficult to break into conversation or get them going, especially with so many talks happening
Sunburn.
sessions that weren’t valuable
Uhm.. I wish there were more people and more interesting conversations spontaneously occuring somehow? I had some really valuable ones and sometimes they were and sometimes they weren't easily accessible.
Doom
Apart from not having enough time to fully enjoy it, sometimes I wasn’t quite sure what to do, or wasn’t sure which sessions would be worthwhile. If I had recruited some friends to attend the conference with I think I’d have enjoyed it more.
The lack of any gap between events for transit time. Some parts felt a bit crowded like the Glass Hall or Bayes Attic and getting in and out was pretty annoying
Looking for rooms. Bathrooms are often full
I had fewer cool conversations than I would have guessed - lots of people I don't know
The only real negative feedback I have is that the schedule website was quite difficult to use on mobile.
It was overstimulating at times, and very tiring. Absolutely worth it, though. Generally: that I couldn't go to every session.
Sessions very hit and miss, found it difficult to find attendees with shared vibes—wanted a somewhat more accessible+complete version of names/faces doc, I think.
Nothing really notable here within your locus of control. I’m approaching or in middle age and sometimes not as energetic as the attendee base.
Got incredibly exhausted by Sat evening and had to rest Sunday instead of attending.
INTENSE FOMO
Anything else you'd like to add? (~10 selected responses)
The first one isn’t even over yet, and I’m already looking forward to the next one.
I appreciated the organizers tolerance for the fact I messed up the first night's reservation.
Y’all should maybe signal a little harder how awesome this was going to be. Maybe quotes or something (“Better than a CFAR reunion” would be mine). I almost didn’t attend.
The antiviral humming hypothesis could have been tested with more scientific rigor
Where the bathrooms are being marked on maps would be helpful.
I decided pretty last minute to come, and largely only came because I'm very close. Partly the messaging made me expect I'd feel out of place if I didn't post on LW a bunch. But then it was great! Some ideas: broaden the messaging a bit, give more of a sense earlier of what the schedule might be like, let people register interest without committing and then send them some emails as the schedule materializes / the price is about to go up / the deadline for a proper name tag passes / whatever
The snacks were really good. in particular I appreciated the yogurt, berries, builder bars, and bagels, in that order. less touchy feely than I was expecting for a rat event in the bay
This was possibly the best conference / convention I've ever attended, including academic psychology conferences, tech industry user experience conferences, and gaming cons. It's the only time I really have had conversations with strangers and felt like I came away with a possible ongoing connection. It just felt comfortable and it felt like things were designed for people like me.
The recurring positive themes were the interesting serendipitous conversations, the comfortable environment (Lighthaven), and getting to know other writers and internet people.
The recurring negative themes are crowdedness, and difficulty finding people for 1-1 conversations. We expect to improve those this year.
There was also a theme of too many interesting things happening. Unfortunately we expect to have even more interesting things happening this year :(
What did it look like?
What's new this year?
The theme for LessOnline 2025 is Original Seeing, inspired by the extract from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance as written in the sequences.
What does this mean for the conference?
We're encouraging people to weave this into their sessions and share advice on how to do this in your writing. We'll see what people come up with!
But mostly it will be basically like last year but with even more people attending.
