What we’re about
LessWrong is a movement that seriously tries to better the world by a significant margin, not shying away from the most unconventional strategies. Most notably, we believe in the prime importance of securing AI Safety, and we subscribe to the values of transhumanism. Knowing that nature is not a fair enemy, we put in a great effort to grow as individuals and as a community, hoping to gather enough strength to live up to the task. We do this in various ways, applying epistemic standards at least as rigorous as that of science, thinking hard about late advances in philosophy and how to put it's lessons into practice, while keeping an open mind to the benefits of subjective wisdom like spirituality and our intuitions.
We come together in Amsterdam to practice all sorts of paradigms of self-development. Inspired by LessWrong, but willing to wade a little further into the mystic side of things, we could be best described as a postrationalist venue.
Amsterdam Rationality Dojo was born out of the observation that the strongest biases are emotional ones, coming from a sense of scarcity. The model is something like: half your brain only cares about "system 1" needs like food and sex and social bonds, and it's just going to stand on the brakes until you address them. Our best guess is that a rich social circle is the most important one, and especially the most underrated. Even more so among intellectuals with a knack for autism or otherwise systematizing thought. ARD was started to fill that gap, mostly for ourselves.
We can't describe succinctly what we're about, but here's a few things that we are interested in so you may create an impression bottom-up:
- (far reaching consequences of) new technologies, i.e. the technological singularity
- (actually practicing) Effective Altruism
- (actually practicing) Transhumanism, i.e. lifespan and intelligence augmentation
- Sprituality, as a toolkit for emotional intelligence that (so) far outpaces modern psychology. Also psychedelics
- Authentic Relating, as a way to create supercharged social bonds
- Other ways to self-upgrade to make structurally better decisions, also known as Applied Rationality
- Startups, working in tech, investing, and other ways to make a fuckton of money and climb the ladder of society
In practice, we like to do Applied Rationality and Authentic Relating exercises, go for walks in nature, (ecstatic) dance parties, Wim Hof trainings, community weekends, tantra workshops, psytrance festivals, EA conferences, and any and all the richness that life has to offer. We also love math.
