Petrov Day Ceremony

post by Orpheus · 2018-08-28T14:17:49.073Z · ? · GW · 0 comments

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IMPORTANT: read description to participate

"Petrov Day is a yearly event on September 26 commemorating the anniversary of the Petrov incident, where a false alarm in the Soviet early warning system nearly set off a nuclear war. The purpose of the ritual is to make catastrophic and existential risk emotionally salient, by putting it into historical context and providing positive and negative examples of how it has been handled. This is not for the faint of heart and not for the uninitiated; it is aimed at those who already know what catastrophic and existential risk is, have some background knowledge of what those risks are, and believe (at least on an abstract level) that preventing those risks from coming to pass is important." (James Babcock)

The schedule will be as follow:
18:00: hangout
19:50: locking doors*
20:00: ceremony

*It's important to arrive before 19:50; do not interrupt the ceremony once it has begun, late-comers won't be let in.

During the ceremony, attendees will be invited to read small paragraphs (mostly on the history of Humanity) from the Ceremony booklet, which will be provided at the event.

During the event, there will be a red button. If someone presses the button, participants will be asked to go back home immediately and in silence. When it comes to existential risks, we're all in this together, and it only takes one bad actor to screw up everything. The red button is a symbol of that.

People that have pressed the button in past years are not welcome to the event. In an attempt to punish policies over actions, people that would press the button are also not welcome. This symbolizes an attempt to creating a trustworthy community.

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