HOLY HOT DAMN!!

Yeah it was a lot of fun! And tear down was amazing. 20 minutes for everything. Amazing what cooperative/helpful people can do!

It was good to meet yoU!

It was wonderful to meet you, too!

So what did you actually talk about?

The beauty of particle physics, for one. A surfer/physicist discussed the possible findings at CERN this year when their accelerator is completed and turned on, including the theorized Higgs boson, and the kinds of beautiful geometric patterns that emerge when the different particles are graphed (and also when gaps that interrupt the current symmetry are filled in). I won't be able to explain it well-- but here you go!

That was one. Other talks were about accelerated skill aquisition (from and his pal Rand Fitzpatrick) that uses techniques and doesn't require a superior intelligence.

radiantsun and a fellow named Jonathan gave a talk called "social bonding" which enumerated the most effective ways we connect with people-- curiosity and sincerity among them.

pjammer, a self-professed "natural depressive", gave a talk called Learned Optimism, which wasn't as Tony Robbins as it sounds. It was actually really inspiring to me (I tend to be a blend of the two, but what if I really shrug off pessimism? But then, also shrug off the expectations that get let down when something doesn't go the way I hoped?)

I went for a walk with Todd Huffman, one of the main organizers, who talked about "Hacking the Human Fantastic", discussing how we can use historical methods of creating whole civilizations to make microcosms and movements-- an exploration on "wisdom of crowds" concepts, oh, and also about the magnets implanted under his fingertips and how they enhanced his sense of touch and field perception.

What else, what else... ah, a researcher named Aubrey De Grey, a TED alumnus who gave a wacky speech on avoiding aging 3 years ago which you can watch here, gave a talk for BIL called "How to Be a Successful Heretic", which is quite applicable to the way his ideas are starting to gain mainstream acceptance.

Brad Templeton, the Chairman of the Board for the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), spoke about robot cars of the future. :)

Then there was a spirited talk about Open Source Physical Security, which basically decentralizes the idea that the government must set up barriers on our behalf, and how we can consider other ways to balance issues of privacy and transparency and personal (and societal) security.

A really wonderful talk, led without any visual aids but riveting just the same, talked about the unique challenges (mostly social, some educational) in raising "gifted" children and the problem with treating them as if they are "intellectually 20" when they're still, for all intents and purposes, 12.

And on and on and on. There were many talks I missed, too, as there was a flurry of activity in the various rooms and common areas, including people I hadn't seen in ages that I wanted to catch up with. It was extremely social and wickedly cool, very much the kind of environment I thrive in and would love more of in my life. :)

Some blogs and the site itself might start archiving all the talks and better abstracts than that which I've written above. But guess what-- the next BIL will be in Southern California!

heh, for some reason I actually know who Aubrey de Grey is.

actually some of this sounds very overwhelming, because it touches on two things that I know I'm terrible at:

a) "intelligent" conversation, on "intelligent" topics. I put it in quotes since it's not a particularly objective distinction - but I'm the sort of person that can make smart-ass remarks all day and still be a complete moron. I could never give a talk on 'social bonding' or 'learned optimism' and I'm not even sure if I could carry on a conversation about it.

2) large-group social interaction. My extroversion is inversely proportional to the number of people I'm supposed to be able to converse with. Conversations with lots of people always makes me feel like everyone else already knows everyone else, and I'm just the new schmuck from left field.

the main reason why I'd want to go to one of these things is precisely identical to why I once puked off the edge of the Grand Canyon... (not that it *cured* my fear of heights, but it did help make it somewhat more manageable)

Have you been to a conference before, ever? This was my very first.

Various people who were there did say they became overwhelmed at points. It was indeed really intense. MOST of the people who attended were intense in voice, appearance, and force of thought, so you felt it palpably as you maneuvered about the place.

Not everyone who went "conversed with lots of people". Some came to listen, to help, and absorb. The large groups of interaction easily broke up into manageable pockets and we'd go for walks in the graveyard for peace (during the day, natch).

I mean, I've never even taken a CLASS on physics, so here I was attending a talk on a subject I'd be a "complete moron" about. I didn't even know what question I could ask that wouldn't be a "stupid question", but I let all that go, because physics is all around, it's life, and it builds everything we see, and its laws govern the limits that we're only aware of as humans right now.

I also was able to engage folks completely unlike me. For one, I was getting some soda and a fellow across the table from me has a nametag on, with his name and the word "Leapfrog", which I recognized from commercials about educational toys for kids. (Yes, I'm childfree, but I love my nieces and nephews). I asked him if he worked there, and we talked about it. One thing led to another and I learned that he was taking a year off from work JUST to read all his physics, math, and artificial intelligence books, and he had some with him that he showed me. I'm HORRIBLE at math, but I had plenty of things to ask him and he didn't treat me like a moron at all. He was very sweet and he was challenging himself to stay current on his passions in exile.

There was a lot of humanity in this otherwise cerebral gathering. I found little bits anytime I looked. I loved it!

so what did you talk about?

I have no idea how you operate, but I get terribly anxious if I feel like I can't construct any response beyond "yeap".

I didn't get up to speak. I had nothing prepared, and many slots were already full by the time I would have worked up the nerve. I asked a lot of questions, I listened. I helped. I picked up when someone was confused but not sure who to ask their question to, and I would go do it for them if they looked stuck. I would alert someone that a talk they were interested in was about to start. I borrowed a knife and cut up apples and smeared peanut butter on them.

I get anxious too if I can't say anything clever back, but I've practiced overcoming it. Sometimes it helps to say "You mentioned $SCARYGEEKTERM earlier; what did you mean by that?" or to try to get back into the humanity of their subject-- "You sure seem passionate about $HIGHBROWTOPIC. How did you develop these theories? When did this interest begin for you?" It helps that I'm kind of an origins-geek. I like getting meaning, and hearing the story of that initial spark.

oops, the term "talk" seems to have gotten overloaded. I meant it as a synonym for "converse", not "lecture".

I've gotten better at it over the years, but I'm still pretty terrible at asking questions. I think it's a pretty knee-jerk "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you" response to the fact that I don't like having questions asked of me.

well, sometimes I do, and usually if I can foresee that a question is coming (see: "job interview" context) but in general I tend not to be prepared at all to give an answer - especially not a straight and honest answer. I can be relied on to come up with something absurd, and occasionally even clever, within two tenths of a second, but if someone asks me something simple like "where did you go to school" there's a damn good probability that I will seize up and not be able to immediately give the correct answer.

without getting too much into the meta-implications of me asking a question about questions... do you like having questions asked of you? ("[violent slap]" is a correct answer.)

do you like having questions asked of you?

Yes!

I sometimes get into disproportionate modes in which I'm doing all the asking, they're doing all the answering, and they're not curious about me at all. (Then again, I'm told by some that they're just as curious, but they learn by observation and not explicit extraction of inner words the way I do).

I no longer expect people to be curious about me so much, thanks to years of wrangling my ego down to healthier levels (though I'm not 100% humble/unassuming, but I still shoot for lofty ideals). I have at least enough ego left to really, really delight in getting attention and curiosity thrown my way. At a certain level, also, I can get a little bashful, but I don't run away... I just duck down a little and try to divert.

I'm also not a very private person so I'll answer most sincere questions, and I also find that tough questions give me a chance to explore my own motivations and ethics--aloud, vulnerably--to the one asking.

I definitely have learned to be an observer of people, from the fact that I am not so huge a fan of questions.

I always worry that my answer to a question is not "correct" in some way. I don't mean factually correct, but rather, appealing to that person's expectations. That's a main reason why I tend to come up with absurdities - if I feel that I'm going to get verbally beaten to a pulp for my answer, it may as well be not something I truly believe in.

"where did you go to school?"
"Uncle Al's College of Entomology and Used Tire Salesmanship"
"oh... you're a loser"

now replace my answer with the correct one and you can see why the result (that I perceive to be inevitable, regardless of my answer) would bother me enough that I feel it necessary to come up with something completely wrong.

I never, ever would have guessed you had an ounce of insecurity. That sort of thing manifests in odd ways-- either acute shyness or unbridled arrogance-- but this is a new form. I figured you just liked playing with non-sequitors for jollies. But no, a defense mechanism, it turns out!

One that's probably helped win you appreciative friends.

I say, why not drop the fear? If you don't have the most appealing answer all the time, so what? Do you really think people *expect* that? They don't, unless they're fucked up in some way.

And why not welcome the verbal beating? Instead of cowering in fear of being the less-smart, why not filter out the blows and learn? Maybe learn how to spot a logical fallacy-- an ad hominem, a straw man. There, you can use those awesome powers of observation, and absorb a new move, internalize it. You can learn two-fold-- verbal jujitsu and how to take apart and analyze someone's assertions.

It's FUN. Being less intimidated takes practice but it's HELLA FUN.

an ounce? I have enough of it to fill several industrial strength wheelbarrows! (I'm actually quite surprised you didn't pick up on this before!)

why not drop the fear? -- hah, if it were that easy! And yeah, I have grown up with the idea that that is what people always expect. It goes back to my childhood... when I was three or six or even twelve years old, I totally didn't have the perspective to realise it, but the environment my parents raised me in, at best, constitutes psychological abuse, and at worst is reminiscent of cult brainwashing techniques. If I wanted any of me to survive, then I had to hide it well, and throw illusion after illusion out there to be completely decimated.

And why not welcome the verbal beating? I'm just not a masochist, I suppose. It's the same reason why I don't welcome a physical beating - what's the use of it? I definitely know how to spot logical fallacies well enough - it just gives me little pleasure to take people's assertions apart. This is especially true if these people are my friends. If it's a telemarketer or other random, well Hell, they're fair game. But I don't like engaging in what to me seems belligerent behaviour in a non-belligerent context. I think you've noticed that even if what I'm saying makes little sense, it isn't particularly mean - to me, throwing people's logical errors back at them is mean. Is that how I'm to treat my friends?

(I'm actually quite surprised you didn't pick up on this before!) -- You're evidently that good at hiding it? :)

If I wanted any of me to survive, then I had to hide it well, and throw illusion after illusion out there to be completely decimated. -- I'm sorry you went through it. But you can move beyond it. You're in the present, and all around you, people are recognizing your worth. Listen to them, let them crowd out the abusive voices and messages of the past. It's a process, in NO WAY is it easy, but you must believe that it is POSSIBLE.

I'm just not a masochist, I suppose. -- I should reword it differently. I don't mean enjoy the pain. I mean USE the pain, and perhaps see past it and reframe it. I have grown via painful experiences because I stepped back and asked "what can I learn from this?" You can always learn something, even if someone is verbally vivisecting you. Tone down their attempts to browbeat you and split your mind into an observer mode, rather than a victim. Are you giving in to them? Ask yourself if they deserve this. Are they doing this to you because they themselves are insecure, and it manifests themselves by being an asshole? You might surprise yourself, even feel compassion. If you can feel compassion in the face of someone calling you an idiot, someone who is in NO POSITION to judge (all they really are is loud), then you are more than capable for feeling compassion for yourself, and allow yourself to rise above the barbarism of power exchanges people engage in in the name of utterly false, ephermeral superiority.

Even if you choose not to throw back logical errors, you can still learn to spot them (all I really said, anyway) and let them roll off your back when people think they've got the upper hand.

I don't at ALL condone belligerence, but strength of conviction and accountability AND, yep, vulnerability and trust. They all beget each other and multiply memetically, in practice.

Really!

You're in the present, and all around you, people are recognizing your worth.

question - how do you deal with compliments? (one overt indicator that people are recognising one's worth.) I tend to take them poorly because I don't have much of an instinctive way of responding to them. Thus, my response is formulaic and therefore very likely comes off as insincere. My most frequent response is to divert them, in an absurd manner that - tellingly enough! - is nearly identical to the manner in which I divert an insult.

"you're an idiot!"
"the Hell I am!"

replace that first line with "you're really good at that". My response may very well be the same. It's sufficiently counterintuitive a social scenario that I just don't know what the right answer is. The result of the whole exchange is that I end up feeling awkward at best, and forget that anything good may have taken place. What's a better approach?

By the way, I love your absurdities and wit and I miss feeding with you!

well, thank you! :-) I do like the fact that I can come up with absurdities - sometimes it worries me, though, if I feel like it's the *only* thing I can do.

... and if you're ever down in the socal area you'd damn better let me know and if for some reason I dare venture into Silicon Valley (perhaps I am lost), I will inform you!

I do like the fact that I can come up with absurdities - sometimes it worries me, though, if I feel like it's the *only* thing I can do.

It isn't. You didn't get into MIT that way, if I can hazard a guess. There's a powerful brain that can wield rapier wit, and if it can do that, it can do so much more that's untapped. If I knew you better, I could probably dig around (with permission) and uncover them like so many diamonds in the rough.

I MUST go to freaking So Cal! It's a moral imperative. I'll resolve to do it quickly!

actually, I did get into MIT that way, but that's neither here nor there.

I'd give you permission to dig around only after we could come to some particular set of understandings. I touched on this briefly in another post in this thread - my great concern is if I trust someone, and they give me a verbal "sucker punch" (any sort of flagrant, non-constructive insult) when I'm at my most vulnerable. For example, if you were to reply to this comment with "okay, you're an idiot", I'd be a lot more upset than if you said the same thing to a comment that blathered on for no reason about ostrich people from space.

I am, for some reason, three or four standard deviations more sensitive to this than the average person. Hell, I once broke up with a girlfriend who had this knack for making petty remarks at the worst damn possible times. I think one of the last things I said to her was "I didn't think you had it in you". It always catches me by surprise, and I just don't like it one bit.

For example, if you were to reply to this comment with "okay, you're an idiot", I'd be a lot more upset than if you said the same thing to a comment that blathered on for no reason about ostrich people from space.

But you have choices.

You can react in different ways.

Here's three scenarios, all following you saying something meaningful (to you) to a person:

1) Person says "You're an idiot."
2) You say (to yourself), "I'm an idiot, because they said so."

1) Person says "You're an idiot."
2) You say, outloud, "FUCK YOU! No, I'm not." And you get emotional, because they broke the gift you gave them; your earned trust.

1) Person says, "You're an idiot."
2) You think, "OK, this person's being toxic and has nothing to contribute to me right now. I've learned not to associate with this person. If they start acting better, perhaps we can talk again. I'll go find someone worthy of my trust."
3) And you walk away.

I used to do the first scenario all the time. I dabbled with the second and didn't really get anywhere. But then I dabbled in the third. Toxicity and negativity was something I needed to reframe like water off a duck's back. No one gets to decide I'm an idiot. No one gets to arbitrarily pick out violent words that penetrate my sense of self, because they're NOT in charge of my sense of self (something this extrovert had to learn!).

But even if I close the door on toxic attempts of others to gain superiority on me, I can keep it open to allow the encouraging, positive models of friends and family, and I can practicing giving acceptance and forgiveness to others too. And, the more i'm accountable when I screw up and do something inconsiderate, erroneous, or assumptive, the the less I screw up and the better skilled I become.

And then you get better at fearless immersion, and you start seeing opportunities instead of finding a way to seal off every potential (but often insignificant) evil of the world.

Words are only words. The words of others don't define you. You can accept, you can filter out, you can push back, you can redirect, you can blaze a trail. You can do it with words, the convictions to back them up, and the actions that reverberate across anyone within range. And you can do this with compassion, with mercy, with ambition, with ethics, with support, with autonomy, and without a hardened exterior that dams the flow of fortune.

Am I getting somewhere with you yet? :)

hmm, is there a scenario number four in which I actually win? It seems like #3 is the most favourable, and even that is me breaking even at best. It's sort of disappointing to think that that's the best you could get out of some people... and yes, I internalise that disappointment very, very hard. If I execute a Third Scenario with the utmost possible dignity and grace (which I'm really quite capable of doing), I'll still think of myself as having gained nothing.

Breaking even sucks in the long run!

I enjoyed seeing you beaming with the joy of all that delicious social time.

I enjoyed seeing you be you! You light fireworks, quiet ones all around.

I take it you had a good time? ;) I'm glad - they are indeed life affirming experiences, and sooo much better than traditional top-down, Big White Guy Standing At A Podium type events. Great way to meet contacts, have good conversations, learn, etc. I just wish the sessions were more like 2 hours than 45 min. typically, but hopefully that can change in the future.

Keep track of the barcamp.org wiki - they seem to always have a bunch of them going on here since it's where the movement started. My goal is to eventually speak at one of them some time... if I can settle on a topic :p I've helped with the volunteering (helping the folks behind Brainjams, which morphed into the Social Media Club), but the volunteering at a barcamp is definitely different - the whole 'pick up and clean up' by everybody is amazing. Kind of like watching bees coordinate their dancing :)

I see why you've made it out to conferences so much. This was my very first, and I think I'm going to start collecting them. :)

I just wish the sessions were more like 2 hours than 45 min.

Why, though? I mean, the ones at BIL were actually way too short (15 minutes, most folks had prepared for longer). No one spoke for 45 minutes that I can recall. There were a lot of people to squeeze in.

I'm curious about the BarCamp thing... time for research!