Alex and Simmo group house, parent page
2025-08-25
One key open question right now is “Oxford or London” (or some third thing, but I can’t be bothered to consider a third thing right now)

Why London or Oxford?

I’m a UK citizen, no worries about visas
Home country → already have some friends, have shared culture, speak the language
I’m built for English weather, I dislike living places where I have to wear suncream, I am a pale and burnable guy, sweaty and grumpy

Why London?

There’s already a nascent scene (Mosaic)
- Could contribute to something that is already gathering momentum, rather than building from scratch
- Can plug in ~immediately
What scene is desired?
- Not purely Effective Altruists
- More post-rationalist, arty
- I’m not particularly opinionated here. I’ve been living at my mum’s for 8 months, it’ll just be a thrill to see people my age again
It’s big, there are lots of people, it’s the New York of the UK (of Europe?)

It’s really big.
- (This can be addressed by living close to an extant Mosaic house, sticking to a neighborhood)
It’s expensive
I’ve lived there for ~3 years and never loved it (although, I did really love Hampstead Heath)
- I think there’s a viable path to loving it, which really just looks like “live in a nice neighbourhood, walking distance from people, live with great people, have a bike, go to the gym, do fun things on weekends”

It’s dense, it’s pretty
I imagine there’s a more cohesive social scene because it’s not a gigantic mega-city
As such, it’s potentially less alienating? You don’t feel as dwarfed by it, as surrounded by concrete?
It may be slightly-to-somewhat cheaper than London (e.g., you could cycle around, rather than expensive underground every day)
It doesn’t have a Fractal-type community, I’m pretty sure, so me and Simmo could found something, which would be cool
- Get the status of “founder”/“founding member”
  - Positives → if we founded Fractal Oxford, we’d get to be part of the Fractal ecosystem, be on the same team as e.g. Tyler Alterman, Priya and Andrew (admittedly, they might be just as friendly to Mosaic people despite not sharing the name)
  - Negatives → more responsibility, chance of failure → could we be out of our depth?
    - Counterpoint → responsibility is good, a fish in a bigger pond, give yourself the space to be stressed and expand your agency and power level

Possibly fewer cooler people than London, because it’s smaller?
- Somewhat skeptical of this → imagine there’d still be enough cool people

I don’t really know how to decide or get close to deciding
One viable path is “visit each for ~2 weeks”, make some friends in each
- Visit Mosaic, see how it is
- Visit [cool people in Oxford (I don’t know any yet)], see how it is