SSC Meetups 2018: Times and Places

Thanks to everyone who offered to host a meetup. We’re scheduled for meetups in 77 cities (and one ship!) in 23 countries, soundly beating last year’s list. Full list of cities, times, and places is below.

Most people who are on the fence have said they’ve enjoyed going. Most people who felt intimidated about going have said they’ve enjoyed going. Most people who felt they were too different from the median SSC reader to fit in have enjoyed going. Most people who worried they weren’t smart enough to fit in have enjoyed going. Etc. Some tips from past experience with these meetups:

1. If you’re the host, bring a sign that says “SSC MEETUP” and prop it up somewhere on a table 2. Bring blank labels and pens for nametags. 3. Pass around a paper where everyone gives their name and email address, so you can start a mailing list to make organizing future meetups easier 4. If it’s the first meetup, people are probably just going to want to talk, and if you try to organize some kind of “fun” “event” it’ll probably just be annoying. 5. Some things that have worked for later meetups include people giving short presentations on topics of interest to them, or discussion of some particular blog post 6. Nothing is going to get done unless there’s a Schelling point for who has to do it, and right now that’s the meetup organizer. 7. It’s much easier to schedule a second meetup while you’re having the first compared to trying to do it later on by email 8. Surprisingly many people will love you forever if you bring stim toys 9. In case people want to get to know each other better outside the meetup, you might want to mention reciprocity.io, the rationalist friend-finder/dating site. It runs off Facebook, so you have to Facebook friend the other person first. 10. If you have a vague location like “in the mall” or “at the North Park”, nobody will ever find each other. Give a specific place (eg “at the North Park, by the big oak tree in the northwest corner”) and be carrying a sign saying “SSC MEETUP”. If you were too vague in your description, comment with a better one and I can edit it in.

Remaining issues with the times and dates: – Brisbane’s time was unclear; please confirm I got it right – Portland did not provide readable information (seriously, ROT12?!) and will have to be clearer and give a location – Copenhagen should finish their debate about whether to move the meetup somewhere else – Paris has a weird phone number with words in it. I don’t know if this is a mistake or just how French phone numbers work