Hey Rats
I run the rationalist meetup group in Ahmedabad that meets up every so often to discuss rationality, EA, LW, ACX related topics, or rather regular topics in a rationality lens. THis is a list of the meetups we’ve had so far and maybe some musings on how it has taken shape over the years, or maybe some on my personal journey with rationality as well.
Story
I have been interested in this whole sphere for a relatively long portion of my life. I first came across it through HPMOR, totally organically through fanfiction.net(it was one of the longest fanfics there at the time), which I guess changed my worldview in enough points that I eventually came across Scott alexanders writings a few years later, and that really spoke to me in ways. It was as if he was articulating deep insights that I myself insighted too, but putting them in ways I never could. His writing and articulation is something that really spoke to me, and a standard I still aspire to.
First, be kind,
is an ideal especially that I aim to never violate.
It seems like fate then, that when I first visited bangalore, I was heavily motivated to check out the meetups that I had seen listed there. (during the covid lockdown the subreddit for slatestarcodex listed meetups, i was sorta dumbfounded that there were meetups for this thing in the first place, but i made it my mission to get there.
I quite enjoyed the meetup, hosted by Sachit and Faiz and others, and I met some great people there. I didn’t know it until then, but it was like a small part of my soul musculature that had never had reason to be flexed suddenly flexed, and it grew in size and was seen. Awesome stuff. I also met a brother that day, who remains my friend to this day(Hi Aditya if you’re reading this)
I want to create the same thing in Ahmedabad, so I did just that.
There have been two meetups so far, and both have been pretty amazing. To my surprise, 4 people showed up at the first meeting, and 5 people shwoed up at the next one. I am optimistic that this will grow some more, and I look forward to making that happen.
This is a log of those meetup, and my experiences from the beginning of buildgint that community.