Schedule Of Talks

Psychedelics & Harm Reduction

Ivy Astrix - Friday March 4, 8:30pm to 9pm

Download file: slides
Going over the basics of psychedelics: types, effects, what ‘normal’ and trip doses can be like, and a very brief (one slide / 2 mins) summary of the emerging legal / decrim ecosystem. Also going over harm reduction: trip preparation, how to test your drugs, what to do with a bad trip / bad reaction, dangerous analogues to watch out for and why everyone should carry narcan with them (and time for questions).

Lightning Talks - Friday March 4, 9pm to 10pm

Why Russia invading Ukraine is a good thing and other European perspectives - Lorenz Westner

We Don’t Know if Cryptography Exists - Lucca Ashtear

Did you know that modern cryptography is built on a foundation of sand? In this talk, we’ll cover the uncertain nature of the existence of cryptography and why we all still go about our business as though it exists.

A light hearted discussion about disinformation dynamics using Roon’s meme language as a model for a poorly named theory ‘Lowest Energy / Complexity Topography’. Earnest and constructive roasting is appreciated.

Stories Shaped for Impact

Mattias Martens - Friday March 4, 10pm to 11pm

My book, How to Do Things with Stories, is all about the ways that stories influence people. I offer a way to think about storytelling that connects it to the conscious, unconscious, and collective unconscious. I want to show you how, with the right balance of ambition and humility, it is possible to tell stories that persuade, liberate, and transform.

Jargon In The World Of Defense Intellectuals

Saturday 3:30pm to 4:30pm - The Hearth - Celer

In 1984-1986, Carol Cohn immersed herself in the world of men who made nuclear policy, and wrote compellingly about how “the better I got at engaging in this discourse, the more impossible it became for me to express my own ideas, my own values.” Often, we imagine new language and terminology can only improve our understanding of the world, since we could always abandon it. I want people to talk about both Cohn’s paper and their own experiences with learning new language with results that weren’t purely positive.

Interintellect: Materializing the New Republic Of Letters

Saturday 3:00pm to 5:00pm - Coliseum - Étienne Fortier-Dubois and Alex Grin

The listing on the Interintellect website is copied here:

In the age of Enlightenment, the Republic of Letters was a group of intellectuals who lived across Europe and kept in touch through written correspondence. It was a rare instance of a community that formed irrespective of geography, at a time when the low bandwidth of long-distance communication made it difficult to work.

Today the situation is somewhat reversed. Online communities thrive with no regard for physical proximity, while it is common to not know the names of our neighbors. People sort themselves according to their interests in places like the Interintellect or through the emergent dynamics of Twitter. We are building countless Republics of Letters, all across the web.

But this comes at the cost of everything that physicality brings: human touch, spontaneity, high bandwidth interactions, serendipity. As a result, there is much talk of materializing communities somehow. Some would like to build villages for their friends and themselves. Some consider moving to cities that serve as a nexus for their group. Some organize Vibecamp.

This comes with challenges and risks. In a community where pseudonymity is common, meeting in real life is like taking a blindfold off. It can be scary: you’ll be seen for who you really are. And then there are various risks around changing dynamics, the possible presence of problematic people, etc. So we can ask: should online communities strive for materializing physically, or should it remain a rare, exceptional effort?

On the other hand, what are the gains to be made? Can physicality strengthen the bonds that exist across global communities, making them even more able to create good? Is there a tradeoff between the benefits of proximity and those of global interconnectedness?

The Republic of Letters was eventually outcompeted by institutions that developed when intellectuals came together. But those institutions have aged, not always well. Can something like Vibecamp—and new villages, and new city nexuses, and so on—replace them in some way? That’s what we’ll attempt to answer.

Solving A Non-Euclidean Puzzle Game, Antichamber

Saturday 8:00pm to 8:30pm - Parthenon - Matt Arnold

Projecting the non-Euclidean lateral-thinking puzzle game “Antichamber” and inviting attendees to solve it as a group!

Why the Wolfram Physics Project is my favorite theory of everything

Saturday 8:30pm to 9:00pm - Parthenon - Ellis Driscoll

If you like reading about physics in your spare time, this talk is for you. An amateur, non-technical explanation of the Wolfram Physics Project and its parallels to Donald Hoffman’s theory of reality and panpsychism.