One winter ago, twenty aspiring rationalists gathered in a room, ate some food, sang some songs, and lit some candles. We told some stories about why the universe is the way it is, and what kind of people we want to be.
I wrote some things about the experience. But here's a fairly succinct description:
Like most things, winter was once a mystery.
The world got cold, and dark. Life became fragile. People died. And they didn't know what was happening or understand why. They desperately threw festivals in honor of sun gods with all-too-human motivations, and prayed for the light's return.
It didn't help. Though we did discover that throwing parties in the middle of winter is an excellent idea.
But then something incredible and beautiful happened. We studied the sky. We invented astronomy, and other sciences. We began a long journey towards truly understanding our place in the universe. And we used that knowledge to plan for the future, and make our world better. Five thousand years later, the winter isn't so scary. But the symbol of the solstice - the departure and return of the sun - is still powerful. The work we have done to transform winter from a terrifying season of darkness into a modern festival of light deserves a reverence with all the weight of an ancient cultural cornerstone.
Last year, we had fun. A few people reported being emotionally affected. By and large, though, the dominant conclusion was “This was good first effort, but much, much more is possible.” In truth, I considered it a dress rehearsal, more a proof-of-concept than a finished product. I spent the last year working to do something better, but worried that I wouldn’t be able to. That maybe people don’t create holidays from scratch that actually latch on because it’s just damn hard to do and I wouldn’t be up to it.
And I was worried that either I wouldn’t be able to make the experience as grim and intense as I wanted, or that I’d succeed, but then not be able to lift people back out of it. This was a problem for some people last year, and last year I didn’t push things nearly as dark as I was planning to this time.
I worried that even if I succeeded at creating the experience for other people, I wouldn’t be able to experience it myself. A year ago, I didn’t feel like a participant. I felt like an anthropologist - clinically detached from the bonding ritual I had created.
But six months ago, four friends and I acquired a large, three story house named “Winterfell.” And one week ago, fifty people squeezed into that house to celebrate humanity. The house seems a lot smaller once you crammed fifty people into the living room. But we managed to fit.
And then... I feel a desire to maintain some kind of modesty here, but honestly, I spent a year stressing about this and I think I’m just going to say that it went beautifully.
Not perfectly - nothing is ever perfect, and now more than ever it is clear how much more is possible with this endeavor. Yvain wrote a pretty good review of which parts went well and which parts needed work. But I got emphatic gratitude from people who had been merely lukewarm about it last year.
In the darkest section of the evening, people cried, and held each other, and I was one of them. And I was one of them as we watched time lapse footage of the stars from the international space station, and sang about a tomorrow that could be brighter than today.
This will be the first post of another short mini-sequence (either one or two additional posts elaborating on the design process, what comes next and what I’m concerned about). For now, I'll just note the one biggest flaw with this years was that it was too long. (Last years was too short, and I decided to err on the side of "test a bunch of ideas at once" so that future Solstices could settle into an ideal, traditional state faster).
I would like to note that I want to strongly encourage people who are weirded out by this to speak out (if for no other reason than to be counted as people who are turned off by it). If you have specific negative consequences beyond a vague dislike of the idea, I'd like you to articulate them, after looking through my post from last year - The Value and Danger of Ritual.
Below is a link to the 2012 Ritual Book, and a collection of links to online media for the songs and videos that we listened to and watched during the event, which you can follow along with as you read to get something (vaguely) resembling the actual experience. (Plus side - you’ll get to experience higher quality of music performance. Downside - you miss on the warm experience of singing with a group of people).
I couldn’t find links for all the songs, but there should be enough to give you the idea.
2012 Solstice Ritual Book
First Litany of Tarski - If the sky is blue....
Why Does the Sun Shine (part 0)
The Grinch
Necronomicon
The X Days of X-Risk
Ballad of Bonnie the Em
Second Litany of Tarski - If I’m going to be outcompeted by simulated minds in a Malthusian Hellhole race to the bottom...
Mindspace is Deep and Wide
One Wish (I found a Baby Genie)
Build That Wall
Quantum Entanglement
Third Litany of Tarski - If the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is true...
When I Die
Why Does the Sun Shine (part 1)
God Wrote the Sky
Blue Skies
Metalitany of Tarski - If reciting the Litany of Tarski is useful...
Beyond the Reach of God
Blowin’ In the Wind
Stonehenge (The Sun is Going to Go)
Gods Ain’t Gonna Catch Ya (slightly altered lyrics)
Take My Love, Take My Land (Mal’s Song)
Collect a Little Echo
The Drummer’s Little Boy
No One is Alone (dramatically abridged)
Serenity’
Gift We Give Tomorrow
Moment of Darkness
A View From Above - Time Lapse Footage from the International Space Station
Brighter Than Today
Still Alive
Lean on Me
A Still Small Voice
Gonna be a Cyborg
Move the World
What a Wonderful World
Seasons of Love
The Sun’s a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma (altered lyrics for singability)
Forever Young (*slightly* altered lyrics)
Uplift
Final Litany - If human values will survive for five thousand years...
Five Thousand Years (Sun is Gonna Go, Reprise) A Brief Recap (Our Story in 1 minute and 30 seconds)The Road to Wisdom
I considered not posting this comment, because it seems like you guys (and Raemon especially) have put a lot of effort into this, but I do want to sort out my response to this whole thing. Please don't take this as judgment; I'd really like to hear input about whether my reaction is wholly unwarranted, and why or why not.
When I read about this event (and I had a similar reaction to reading about last year's one, too), I get a strong sense of "ick"; a deep and profound feeling of being creeped out. I mean, you're designing and instituting a ritual. Intentionally. Why on earth would you do something like that?
From Yvain's review:
Whyyyyyyyy????
Why not just get together and hang out and... I don't know. Play party games? Talk? Watch movies? Why a ritual?
Ok, I thought I knew what a Schelling Point is, but th... (read more)
Because humans experience an emotion of "sacredness" (in scare quotes because although the feeling is commonly associated with religion, it doesn't need to be), which many people think is fantastic. This blogger puts it pretty well:
... (read more)That's not my response at all. I'm afraid you seem to be reading things into my response that are simply not there. There seems to be some sort of misunderstanding here that's causing you to set up (what is from my perspective) a straw man about objections to religion and then extensively knocking it down with arguments that have little bearing on what I've said.
I don't know why that is; perhaps I've been unclear; perhaps you are rounding to the nearest common objection? In any case, my objection has nothing directly to do with these rituals "smacking of religion". I do think, as I've mentioned in a previous post, that the desire for such rituals is stronger in people who come from a religious background and are used to such things from their youth. (I also have to wonder — and this is a bit of an aside — why we should use rituals that draw so directly from religion in form: someone (juliawise?) mentioned saying grace at the meal, and that strikes me as incredibly unlikely to be something an entirely non-religious person would come up with if ... (read more)
I think grace is underrated. As I said, I'm used to silent grace about three breaths long. It gives you fifteen seconds to relax your body, look around at who is gathered, and think "We are about to sit down and eat together. It's nice to be here."
As has been extensively pointed out in Eliezer's writings and elsewhere on this site, you can come up with a reasonable-sounding justification for just about anything; if you start with your bottom line filled in, the rest of the page is easy to write.
Here's a question. You're saying that the value of grace at a meal is that it gives you, personally, some time to whatever (relax, look around, think, etc.). You would therefore be perfectly ok with being the only one at the table participating in this silent grace ritual, or being one of only some participants, while the others merrily dug in and proceeded with conversation — yes?
I sometimes do it alone if no one else is doing it, yes. Or two of us may do it if the others in the family don't want to. But I enjoy it more if we all do it at once. This seems to set off some kind of alarm bell with you, and I'm not sure there's a good reason it should or shouldn't set off alarms other than some kind of aesthetic preference.
That was more of a joke. This is what was said: "To all whom it may concern, thanks."
My apologies, then. I read this part:
as being motivated by a dislike of religious ritual, as it explicitly mentioned "mass" and "sermon" as examples of things to avoid. But upon a re-reading, I can see that you were rather worried about Eliezer's writings being promoted to a status where they wouldn't be questioned.
Also, I might have somewhat used your comment as an excuse to make a general point I'd been wanting to make for a while. Sorry about that. But also thank you, for giving me an excuse to make it. ;)
All of that said, I can understand having a dislike of the collectivization of sacredness, I just don't share it myself.
As someone who enjoyed the Solstice a great deal, I'd like to throw a data point out there:
my family doesn't have a religious or spiritual background of any kind, so I didn't experience rituals as a child. I still enjoy spiritual / religious singing in groups, both in languages I understand and don't, and usually don't take the lyrics seriously. I find most of the value in the feeling of bonding / appreciation.
The event felt more playful than solemn, and certainly not authoritative. People seemed to be taking it with a grain of salt, it was like a social experiment of sorts. I felt perfectly comfortable with not singing along for some of the time, and this didn't feel alienating or disengaging.
That said, I think I do understand your revulsion towards rituals, and your view about collectivization of emotional experience is an interesting point that hasn't occurred to me.
I've never been to any LW meetup, but I wouldn't surprise me if such reports sound creepier than the actual rituals were due to their, er, literary genre.
Thank you for writing this. My reaction has been pretty much the same. I'm guessing that people are just wired differently, a lot of people seem to be feeling like they'd like to participate in something like this.
It makes sense that some people might be turned off by ritual. I hope those people went to one of the several other New York Less Wrong megameetups, or to the designated ritual-free day Sunday, or even on Saturday for the two hours before the ritual started. If they come to an event that has "RITUAL" in big letters all over it on the day when the ritual is scheduled to occur then I don't think you can fairly accuse it of being inflicted on them without such a sweeping redefinition of "consent" that it becomes impossible to ever do anything that doesn't exactly conform to social norms.
A lot of the above criticisms act like the ritual ruined a perfectly good meetup, but I think without the ritual this meetup would not have occurred. I went there all the way from Maryland because I wanted to see the ritual after reading about it last year. I dragged a friend who was also there because she loved rituals. Many people there weren't even in the LW community at all and came only because they wanted to see what the ritual was about. Quite a few people organized cross-continental flights from California because they wanted to participate in the ritual. If Raemon had said ... (read more)
What if next year's ritual includes chanting thrice unto the heavens a solemn vow not to kill the people who don't go to next year's ritual?
...nah, I don't think anyone wants to to kill or even shun people who don't go to the ritual. Of the top ten LW contributors on the table on the right, only two of them (me and Alicorn) attended, and for me it was a last-second sort of thing. Eliezer didn't go. It would be kind of hard to shun Eliezer and 80% of the top contributors, even if people wanted to. Only a tiny proportion of the community went to the ritual and those who chose not to were in good company.
More philosophically, wouldn't the same complaint apply to having real-life meetups at all (wouldn't it exclude people who prefer to just talk via the Internet?) or writing HPMoR (now non-readers feel left out of a lot of discussions and don't get in-jokes, so they might feel pressure to read it) or CFAR minicamps (people who don't get selected to go might feel like they're less a part of the community). And I know one commenter above managed to find some trivial differences between board game night and ritual night, but the fundamental problem of "What if I don't enjoy this but ... (read more)
The particular problem with the ritual is that unlike the other things, it seems to exist only for the purpose of community-building. Opting out of the other activities makes your cognitive dissonance module say "well, maybe I don't like fanfiction / board games / decision theory that much", which isn't that bad. Opting out of the ritual makes the cognitive dissonance module say "well, maybe I don't care that much for being a community member", which is a bit more unfortunate.
Then there's also the small thing where the nonsensical community forming rituals have popped up in every human culture everywhere as far back as we know anything about human cultures, and always tend to develop the side effect of the socially gelled people favoring each other a bit more over the boring people who don't bother to play along with the rituals. This is what the social instinct response is about, not paranoia about hooded murderers going about stabbing people one night. Traditional societies seem to end up with all members participating in whatever the local ritual is, because that's the guarantee for belonging in the in-group and the other in-group members having your back. If you don't see the point in the ritual, tough. The social cohesion mechanism wasn't built for you, just smile and play-act along for the bit of extra guarantee that someone might have food to spare for you as well on the next famine year.
But I don't want to sit quietly in a dark room. If that's our new thing I'll feel left out!
I... suppose. Sort of.
Reading the OP made me immediately update to a realization that at least some people really liked this sort of thing; I assumed the other attendees had their own reasons for attending (which may not have just boiled down to peer pressure); I didn't expect to subsequently learn that a preference for rituals is a) apparently everyone's reason for coming, and b) much more common in the rationalist community than I thought. My own concerns about consent and social pressure are part of my reaction, though not, as I've said, the entirety.
For what it's worth, I, too, have a pretty strong preference for playing fantasy role-playing games (especially of the tabletop variety), so your analogy hits close to home. I am trying to imagine what it would be like to have a strong "ick" reaction to tabletop RPGs such that I couldn't understand why anyone would do it and would avoid a group that engaged in this activity, and I think I am succeeding, at least partly. (Of course, wh... (read more)
Sorry, that's not the context at which I meant it -- I'm sure you're as willing to admit you were wrong as the next rationalist. I mean it in the context of "Barbarians vs. Rationalists" -- if group cohesion is increased by ritual, and group cohesion is useful to the rationality movement, than ritual could be useful. Wanting to dissociate ourselves from the trappings of religion seems like a case of "reversed stupidity" to me...
I tend to be pro-weirdness in general, but trying to emulate religion feels like weirdness (in the positive sense) trying to emulate normalcy, which feels (negatively)weird to me.
Yeah, that makes sense.
My question then is: why make it a ritual rather than just a holiday party? Why not: "Every year, we [my friends/this meetup group/whoever] get together on December the whateverth and have a holiday party! It's tradition! Yay!"? That works as a Schelling Point too, no?
Of course, at this point, "why" is partly rhetorical, as daenerys and Raemon have more or less responded.
Thank you; I appreciate your response. Based on what daenerys wrote, I think that my response breaks down as follows:
Using ritual to insert things deep into your psyche is something that I think is just bad. Using writings on rationality as sermons, reciting litanies about truth by candelight, etc., misses the point and is dangerous because it attaches you to the views and propositions in question too closely.
Using ritual as group bonding... I don't understand the motivation, to be honest. I acknowledge that it probably works, I just can't understand why you'd want to do it. This is, of course, a personal preference, not any kind of criticism per se.
The above two points notwithstanding, I find rituals very icky and offputting (especially, upon reflection, when they have an (explicitly?) religious feel to them!). This is the case regardless of whether the purpose is worthwhile and whether the ritual effectively serves the purpose.
From your linked post:
This describes me. Not literally; I never (well, almost never) had ... (read more)
Happiness research is pretty clear that better social connections make us happier. There's a reason that church-goers are happier than non-attenders. Ritual is good at facilitating group bonding, and group bonding is good for people. (Provided it doesn't lead you to do stupid stuff.)
Yes, group bonding is something I directly want, because I've enjoyed it in other contexts before. For one thing, I'm not that good at making casual friendships, and given a casual social setting, I won't get very close to people. I wouldn't have traveled to New York just to hang out. Participating in a more structured group activity makes people more likely to actually get together and connect with each other. Also, ritual is good for bringing up topics (death, hope) that are hard to bring up in casual conversation. Once introduced in a structured way like a ritual, the topics are easier to address afterwards in unstructured conversation.
Also, I think community support is a good thing that most of us don't have enough of. Group bonding helps produce a norm of helping each other, even if we're not especially interested in every group member as an individual.
These are good questions, and I ask that you bear with me as I try to verbalize my gut-level response.
For one thing, you sang songs. Together. Songs intended to trigger emotional responses both by their content and by the fact that they were being sung as a group.
You recited litanies — again, together (right? please correct me if I'm misunderstanding any of the details here!) — and read "sermons" (of rationality content, albeit excellently written, of course; I certainly don't deny that Eliezer's writing is evocative), in a candle-lit room (with intentionally decreasing candlelight? I'm going by Yvain's description here), again, in an atmosphere designed to evoke emotional responses.
If any of my friends suggested doing any of this at any holiday party I've been to, I (and most other people present) would look at them as if they had spontaneously gone stark raving mad. If the host of the party were the one suggesting this, and if they managed to make it happen, I would seriously consider never attending any of their holiday parties again.
Th... (read more)
Using Raemon's work as inspiration, this solstice Columbus held our first ritual. It went well enough, that we are hopefully doing a couple a year, passing around responsibility. Next one should be Darwin/Lincoln/Valentine's Day.
We purposefully kept it much more intimate, with about 10 people who are all very close to each other. This had a couple of effects: Reciting the litanies didn't work as well (any sort of reciting or singing is going to get more awkward as there are fewer people), and neither did the music. I had hoped to overcome the music awkwardness by having it led by the group members who are in a band, but musicians are very bad at getting music things done on time :P. OTOH, the small number of attendees allowed us to do a very intimate and moving group bonding thing.
The theme of the evening was about how there is no inherent joy or beauty in the world except what we perceive. The universe is cold and dark and uncaring, but that we are the creators of love and joy via our perception of it. Love exists in our heads, and it is there that the universe has meaning. I had thought I remembered some sort of Sequence post of a similar vein, but I couldn't find it.
The centerpi... (read more)
For some reason I find it interesting that you so casually mention getting married in the description as though it was nothing more than a minor diversion from the evening's main event. I half think you just threw that into the story to check if anyone read that far. Oh, and Congratulations by the way.
I'm amused at your scarequotes around "hugged." (Did you mean "goodbye?")
I'm glad this went well, and interested in how it explored very different areas of ritual-space. I've gravitated towards music because it's what I know and am good at, but have been aware that there's a lot of completely different things I can be doing. I think I'd be interested in skyping about this after I've finished the upcoming sequence.
lol, that's the G-rated version. ;)
Would love to Skype on this!
Link to Yvain's review.
You're saying that enabling an extremely common feature of human brains through words, music, aesthetically pleasing stimuli and social interaction is making people less sane? To formalize the argument beyond your horrified shriek and my incredulous stare, what's the problem with religion?
... (read more)It's a superstimulus, and all superstimuli are dangerous? It might be fair to say it's one - religion existed in the ancestral environment, but modern forms are likely optimized beyond that. But superstimuli are everywhere - chocolate and Photoshopped models and FarmVille. Are you generally this panicked about them, and if so why aren't you a Ludddite?
It strongly reinforces ingroup cohesion. Humans need social bonding, but maybe you're complaining that religion does that too quickly and with too little trust testing? Are you this freaked out about sports, politics, or fandoms? Also note that these are yearly rituals, not regular congregations.
It puts people in a more suggestible state. Like... just about everything, according to priming research. At least not more than belonging to a group which will downvote you and call you stupid on the Internet for unpopular beliefs.
No, it seriously pu
I've lurked on LW for a long time and can shrug off the second-hand embarrassment without fail, but I'll be damned if I ever link anyone I know to this web site. This undercurrent of LW does more damage than anything Roko ever posted.
I'm no stranger to ritual/awe/group bonding (Merzbow & MDMA: the reason for the season), but there is some hazy aesthetic line past which I cannot follow. Nor will I risk being associated with. Sorry.
If you enjoy this stuff, than more power to ya. Have a blast. Just keep in mind how many people are seriously turned off from LW because of it.
[in agreement with, rather than directed at, drethelin]
I'm not saying rationalists should avoid engaging in ritual like the plague; but I do a lot of promoting of CFAR and rationality to non-LW-readers, and I happen to know from experience that a post like this in Main sends bad vibes to a lot of people. Again, I think it's sad to have to worry so much about image, but I think it's a reality.
Give 3 examples of "bog standard" doomsday cults where this process has taken place.
Thanks for posting the ritual booklet. It's fascinating. With my wife being pregnant, I start looking at things through the eyes of a parent to be. Rituals are traditionally a super-familial thing, but including the whole family. Parents take their kids to Church. Parents light the Menorah with their kids. Parents celebrate Winter Soltice with their kids. Reading through the booklets, I constantly had to revise upwards the age at which I could first take my daughter to such a gathering. There's no "minimum age" to participate in Church, or the li... (read more)
Writing words that work for this is going to be really hard. Have you considered finding an appropriate instrumental tune - instrumental in the musical sense, not the philosophical sense - and just having everyone wordlessly sing to it? Until a candle goes out, perhaps? For Ravenclaws, words call forth possible objections. Singing is just singing.
There's a joke about Unitarians having trouble with group hymn singing because they're reading ahead to see whether they agree with the words.
I'm not seeing it; none of the above appears to be saying "Some people think religion-inspired rituals are da bomb, other people think they are horrible, so the truth must be somewhere in between".
Your use of "you guys", now, that strikes me as... below the belt.
My comments: Seeing people was great, actual ritual was looong, and strongly triggered my ADHD. Which was mostly mitigated by me amusing myself with shiny led gloves.
The musical selection is pretty good. The whole thing sounds very uplifting! Good work, Raemon!
BTW: By Geneva convention standard, Gallileo was tortured -- "For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person" (notice the "or mental", and it's certainly mental torture to be threatened by physical torture). It seems like at this point we are arguing about definitions, so maybe I'll stop here, but calling the relevant line in "Word of God" false because of that is a bit of an exaggeration.
Raemon, would you say something about how you addressed the topic of death? It hadn't occurred to me that this was something a community should be preparing for, but it made sense once you explained it.
Can I recommend a song?
What was the grace that we said before eating? I remember laughing at it, but I forget what it was.
"To all whom it may concern, thanks."
It may have felt quite different to those without a Quaker background, but the pause for grace felt very short to me. I'm used to a silence about three breaths long, which (especially in a really stimulating atmosphere like a house full of new people) is a nice break. Especially since the rest of the weekend was either in small groups or one large group facing the same direction, this was the only chance to look around and see everyone's faces at the same time.
Note: The meta-litany of Tarski is missing from the PDF, although it is in the table of contents.
No I'm not. I'm saying that the religious groups you've observed go wonky because they're ideological groups, and that adding religion (without a taboo against criticizing it) won't increase the wonkiness. I admit it's hard to find examples because nearly all surviving religions have such taboos, but you could propose a mechanism, or any sort of attempt to answer "What's wrong with religion?" seriously I've been asking this for three comments spit it out already.
... (read more)No, I'm not saying "Politics and religion both make you very loyal to untrustworthy groups, so they're exactly as bad as each other", I'm saying that politics is at least as bad as religion in this area, so that can't be the reason you dislike the latter. It would help a lot if you stated your reasons, since apparently all of my guesses are wrong.
Citation needed. All groups built around an ideology make people think less straight, and some parts of religion make that worse, especially the cultural nor... (read more)