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once i threw a party for the bay area rationalists, and the rules to attend were you had to be wearing a full-face coverage mask, and be naked. Many came; they all bravely stripped, donned weird masks... and then proceeded to sit in a polite circle and debate global trade.

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This reminds me of something

@QiaochuYuan

said on eigenpodcast about rationalist parties... you couldn't have possibly come up with a stronger cue for a change in social frame... and they still just wanna talk about global trade.

QC (4/10 Substack posts)

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yeah this is exactly what i was talking about lol

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I can't tell whether it's bad lol. It's probably a proclivity that assists the project of finding a metaphysics (way of thinking) that generalizes over every phenomenon and activity, being always in one frame, one has to make it a pretty damn good frame.

QC (4/10 Substack posts)

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and

it's probably a thing some people want if they keep doing it and/but i eventually realized that i did not want it and that was an important difference between me and (some) other rationalists ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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yeah, same. i really admire it about them, and i'm grateful that some people are out there thinking very hard about these things, but also i really want a party where a different part of the brain comes online. problem is i want to do that with rationalists!

8:58 PM · Mar 27, 2021

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QC (4/10 Substack posts)

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and

have i tried to sell you on "nonverbal party" yet no spoken words, no written words, all consent etc. has to be navigated nonverbally, all of this is in the party description so people who aren't up for it don't come

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oh i don't remember. this might be good. i've done it before in non-rationalist circles and it got pretty boring after an hour or so. But even an hour might be good!

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I have been to rationalist sex parties, and people successfully got it on! ... as well as having conversations about global trade (or whatever). And even at non-rationalist sex parties, I have had to add the rule "please don't talk about bloody house prices in the play space".