I'm running the East Coast Rationalist Megameetup, a convention of around a hundred rationalists the weekend of December 19th. It's the same weekend as the New York City Secular Solstice. Inevitably, something is going to go wrong. Murphy is big meanie who wrote his law just to spite me.

My question is, what's the worst thing that's going to happen? "Worst" here is entirely subjective in my opinion as organizer. I'll resolve to the three things that actually happened and stressed me out the most.

I'm going to be level with you all. My objective is to sabotage each and every one of the answers that look likely to win. I habitually check markets like this one during previous years, using it as an extra way to hear about what's going wrong so I can fix the problems.

I am aware you might be tempted to turn this into an assassination market. If you wrote something bad, and then arranged for it to happen and stress me out, you might make a decent bit of mana. Before you do that, think about these two things: 1. that would make me stressed, and 2. you could instead write something a little bit annoying then ensure that nothing worse happens.

• Update 2025-11-28 (PST) (AI summary of creator comment): An option will only resolve YES if it is among the top three most stressful things that happen to the creator. If something on the list happens but is not stressful to the creator, or is only the fourth (or lower) most stressful thing, it will not be selected for resolution.