Kerry McKean — LessWrong

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I also think centralization in Berkeley causes damaging PR problems, and that this is a significant point in favor of many hubs. But that's in a comment because it deserves separate attention and may invite passionate response.

A story:
I was rationalist adjacent for a long time, but I never spent much time on LessWrong.com or felt like a member of The Rationalist Community. Partly, I was intimidated by the posters here and had (still have) some pretty core philosophical disagreements. But a lot of it was because every time I came here or to any other rationalist's blog, I would see a bunch of obliquely-referenced personal drama and inside baseball stuff about the... (read more)

Replying toOne hub, or many?

Kerry McKeanOct 08, 2020

One hub, or many?

I think many hubs is probably the right answer, but it depends on the goal.

If the goal is to feed people into MIRI, or generally advance some single community organization as far and as quickly as possible, then the benefits of centralization are well known and hard to overstate. Similarly, if the goal is to have a social environment for rationalists, where one's friendships and broader social circles mostly involve other rationalists, then one hub is also clearly the best goal.

However, if the goal is to spread awareness of rationality, raise the sanity waterline generally, grow the movement, or find new ideas and fruitful applications, then many smaller hubs are a vastly... (read more)

Replying toThe rationalist community's location problem

Kerry McKean5y

The rationalist community's location problem

Just wanted to toss the Colorado Front Range (esp. Denver, Boulder, and Colorado Springs) into the hat, since I have a hunch this list might get referenced a lot in future conversations. I don't think we're the best choice for primary hub, but I think we are a very attractive destination for rationalists looking to relocate out of Berkeley and/or for a secondary hub.

Pros:
-We have an existing rationality community, with regular meetups in Denver and Boulder (I host the latter). I know there's local EA meetups as well, though I'm not plugged into that scene.

-There are lots of STEM jobs in the area. We have several National Labs, lots of Aerospace contracting... (read 545 more words →)

Come to the Boulder rationality reading group!

Kerry McKean

Drop-ins, visitors, old hands, and the curious all welcome. We meet 1st & 3rd Mondays for ~2 hours to have a good time talking about ideas. Readings serve as focus for discussion--content varies but SSC is popular. Format, attendance, and expectations are very casual and friendly: Nobody will judge you for not doing the reading, or for not being familiar with some concept. Regular attendees skew "rationalist-adjacent" and aren't very plugged into The Rationality Community, though most have read the sequences. Curious and non-rationalist visitors from the university or local community are common, as are visiting rationalists from out of town. Typical attendance is 4-8 people, and typical meetings last about 2 hours. Readings are posted on the meetup.com event page (group page here: https://www.meetup.com/Boulder-Applied-Rationality-Meetup/ ), usually the morning of or the day before because I'm not very organized. I usually respond to emails, though it may take a few days.