Helsinki LW Meetup - Sat March 5th

post by Erebus · 2011-02-21T22:10:23.496Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 17 comments

Contents

17 comments

According to the statistics, out of all the cities in the world without a Less Wrong meetup yet, Helsinki has the third largest LW readership. I know I would certainly like to get to personally know more people interested in rationality topics, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. My preliminary suggestion was met with positive responses, so I think we're good to go.

Time: Saturday 5th of March, from 15:00 onwards

Place: Cafe Aalto in the second floor of the Academic Bookstore in the center. SEE EDIT 2.

EDIT: The meetup is getting closer, so the time and place can now be considered fixed.

EDIT 2: Cafe Aalto was too full, so we have moved to Cafe Picnic at Yliopistonkatu 5.

17 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by Kevin · 2011-02-21T10:08:03.082Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

But would Helsinki still be top 10 if we subtract out Kaj's refreshes?!?!?

Replies from: Kaj_Sotala
comment by Kaj_Sotala · 2011-02-21T22:45:31.155Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I don't know, but I'll be at the meetup.

Replies from: Kevin
comment by Kevin · 2011-02-22T16:28:59.429Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

(the correct answer is yes, and that you probably aren't being double counted unless you spend your day running from university lab computer to lab computer refreshing LW on new IPs)

comment by Risto_Saarelma · 2011-03-06T07:37:46.400Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks to everyone for the great meetup.

Replies from: djcb
comment by djcb · 2011-03-06T10:50:12.931Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Good to hear -- I found out a bit too late that the meet-up had moved to another place... - so I hope this wasn't the last one...

Out of curiosity (never having at such a meet-up), what happened during the meeting? Thanks!

Replies from: Risto_Saarelma
comment by Risto_Saarelma · 2011-03-06T11:07:58.598Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

We talked about a bunch of random stuff, like what people are up to, how active are they on LessWrong, why would you use random fractals when doing physics modeling and what's the deal with the wings and halos in Haibane Renmei. The meeting lasted until Cafe Picnic closed at 18:00. Also it turned out that I was the only one who'd been in both the Overcoming Bias Helsinki meetup a couple of years past and in this one.

comment by typo · 2011-02-22T09:00:07.998Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm a newb here at LW, but I'll still be at the meetup. Maybe then I won't be quite as newb anymore!

comment by djcb · 2011-02-22T16:10:57.201Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Sounds good! Are there any specific topics to discuss, or maybe someone who would like to present something?

Replies from: Erebus
comment by Erebus · 2011-03-02T07:12:56.261Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I didn't have any specific topics in mind when proposing the meetup. Since this is the first Helsinki meetup, I think it might be a good idea to start with something like rationalist origin stories to get the discussion started.

comment by CannibalSmith · 2011-02-22T12:23:46.771Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Riga reporting. Will the meetup be in English?

Replies from: Erebus, Risto_Saarelma
comment by Erebus · 2011-02-22T13:19:56.313Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I wouldn't expect that having the meetup in English would be a problem for most of the prospective participants.

comment by Risto_Saarelma · 2011-02-22T13:19:41.978Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Anybody showing up and speaking English will probably get everybody talking in English.

comment by Risto_Saarelma · 2011-02-22T04:38:01.176Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Marked my calendar.

comment by Bongo · 2011-02-22T02:38:09.912Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'll be there.

comment by Erebus · 2011-03-07T19:17:23.444Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Thanks to everyone who attended!

For the next meetup we should probably think of discussion topics in advance. Risto asked about the concrete benefits of having read Less Wrong. At least I feel that I wasn't able to articulate a satisfactory answer, so that might be one topic for next time. Since most of us were quite young, another thing that comes to mind is optimal career or study choices.

comment by TraditionalRationali · 2011-03-04T17:03:59.319Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I will show up.

comment by Jonii · 2011-03-02T15:08:56.136Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm interested, and most likely I'll be there.