[angersock]

Best parties I've been to were a healthy blend of web folks, hippies, anarchists, engineers, and discordians.

I did observe that despite having fairly good classical training and historical knowledge--more than I had, certainly!--there did not seem to be a lot of self-educated people who knew physics and hard-sciences beyond a somewhat populist level. I suggest that this may be due theoretical physics and whatnot requiring a sounder grounding in mathematics than is easy to pick up on your own.

[il]

How did you connect with that crowd? I've noticed a very high overlap between techies and hippies, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to stumble into a group of discordians short of randomly wandering the streets shouting "hail eris!".

[angersock]

Funny story, actually.

Was drinking one night hanging out with some hippy friends (who I'd met in some computer science courses back at university, doing a software rasterization project). They mentioned a great place with a bunch of different folks, and said I should go. A few nights later I showed up with another friend, and that was that.

It was an amazingly chill party--young folks up through old hippies, people smoking out in the garage at the back of the lot, tech folks chatting about different projects in a kitchen, some other really far out stuff happening elsewhere.

I'd suggest that the big thing to do is to be relaxed, chill, and ask a lot of questions. Don't bore people with your own life if it doesn't enhance what they're talking about or if they don't ask, and keep your mind open to the idea that there is not one fixed path to happiness in life.

Don't brag or be condescending, do be friendly, and be helpful--basically, just be a decent person and doors will open.

EDIT: Addendum. I saw a few things happening that were probably not legal, and I certainly was a bit out of my element. That said, being okay with politely refusing offers that weren't my thing and not making trouble for other folks helped me fit in.

[jes5199]

In the bay area, there's a constant stream of events that are in the spirit of the Cacophony Society - for example, http://allworldsfair.com/ , or the Lost Horizon Night Market ( http://blog.sfgate.com/inthemission/2010/12/13/guerrilla-nig... ) - and these things are put on by a community of people that's actually fairly small - I'm not sure they'd all self-identify as "Discordian" but, as a Discordian myself, I'll claim them.

[creamyhorror]

This is seriously making me want to move to SF, because events as artfully crazy as these simply can't happen with any regularity in Singapore. There's just no cultural history for them to - no support or interest from the very pragmatic, have-to-be-up-early-tomorrow society over here. Sames goes for the very chill party mentioned by angersock: it just couldn't happen.

When I lived in Philadelphia I don't think there were regular events of that nature, so I guess it's mostly a Bay Area/SF thing? Manhattan certainly seemed more lively in that regard.

[lutusp]

> This is seriously making me want to move to SF, because events as artfully crazy as these simply can't happen with any regularity in Singapore.

If you're serious, I should tell you that SF is by some estimates the most expensive city in the world:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/22/most-expensive-city...

Also, having lived there myself for years, it's cold most of the year except in August and September, and because of its setting it's difficult to get to or from anywhere else (bridges and crowded freeways). And finally, it's very pretty and it has enormous charm.

[colmvp]

SF has high rental prices but others costs (including taxes) are vastly more in some other cities.

[jes5199]

To varying degrees you get this stuff in Austin, Portland, Seattle, Brooklyn... And actually I've seen parties like the one angersock describes in places like Bloomington, Indiana and Huntsville, Alabama - it's a matter of knowing the right people, there's a network of social connections. I don't know if it reaches to Singapore, but it doesn't sound impossible to me.

[il]

Can you put your email in your profile? Those are exactly the kinds of events/culture I'd like to get more involved with.

[jes5199]

done. let's talk.

[personlurking]

"I've noticed a very high overlap between techies and hippies..."

Have you seen The Net? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doQAwLb-DEE

[stevenrace]

And perhaps more on point: http://www.amazon.com/What-Dormouse-Said-Counterculture-Pers...

[eli_awry]

I agree - I think it's somewhat cultural. That community has a lot of good ideas, but few fleshed-out solutions, which are harder and require more technical/modeling skills. It's hardly unique to them - education researchers (for instance, as I've been noticing recently) and many administrators are equally quantitatively lacking. Part of it may also be that doing novel critical analysis requires few resources, but doing most novel science is a high-capital endeavor.

[angersock]

I'm not sure that being quantitatively lacking is a bad thing--but certainly you need to have those folks in contact with more implementation-capable minds to help!

I saw something similar at my local Occupy protests--once we'd put in a somewhat more concrete intellectual framework for discussing grievances, things became a lot more productive.

Hit me up on email if you'd like to chat more about these things.