Rationality Club at UChicago
Hi!
I plan on starting a rationality student group at UChicago based off of sites like LW, MR, ect and more general insights on rationality in order to improve decision making and thought in people. Given that there is so much demand for groups like EA, I think may be way undervalued and highly impactful.
I created this post because I thought y’all may be able to give me good advice. If anyone has any ideas about how this should be structured or literally anything else that can help (and perhaps arguments in favor of your idea), I would love to hear it. One particular question I’ve been trying to answer is how to get good data on whether people are actually becoming more rational—self surveying does not seem like a good way to measure that type of thing (although it would probably be better than nothing).
(Also, if you’re interested and know some basic web design stuff that would be super cool 😎).
If you have any experience with doing something like this (rationality “movement building?” or something similar), I would love to hop on a call or just get a few words of advice.
If you are doing something similar at a different university or would like to, I would also love to talk.
If you’re in UChicago and would like to join or be an officer (undergrad, graduate, anything) or are just interested, send me a pm, and we can talk.
[Context: For ~4 years up until a year ago it was my job to keep track of rationalist groups around the world, also I happen to have gone to UChicago]
I don’t know of any other currently active rationality groups at universities, but I recommend joining this Discord server for people who run rationality meetups. Some of the organizers in there previously ran university groups, and even those who didn’t will probably have helpful advice.
For UChicago in particular, you probably already know this but you’ll need to apply for RSO status before December 1st. Without this you won’t be able to even book rooms, and that’s annoying because even if you successfully apply in this cycle you won’t have active RSO status until the spring. If UChicago still has an EA group that’s an official RSO, I recommend asking them for help with booking rooms in the meantime.
Thank you for your help! I was already in the Discord and have been in contact (and am a part of) the EA group here.