I met Jesse Galef last year, and we became fast friends—at which point he practically begged me to read Methods of Rationality and LW. Good on you, Jesse!
This year I was the organizer for Skepticon, a conference that has traditionally concerned itself with the atheist movement. Eliezer, Julia Galef, Richard Carrier, and Spencer Greenberg were kind enough to come speak on topics more pertinent to the rationalist community (Bayes’ theorem saw lots of love, and LW was plugged in several of the presentations!). Attendance was just over 1,100, and many of the attendees I spoke with were overjoyed to see more than just the “yes, there are probably no gods” spiel. I overheard one of them tell Eliezer that she felt like his talk had revealed a “next step” in her personal growth as a freethinker.
The whole experience has left me with the suspicion that the atheist community might not be as tapped for rationalism as it could be—and that just might be one of the better places to go looking. Lately, there’s been a huge upsurge in atheist/secular activism at the college level, and as far as I know, these groups aren’t being particularly targeted.
I met Jesse Galef last year, and we became fast friends—at which point he practically begged me to read Methods of Rationality and LW. Good on you, Jesse!
This year I was the organizer for Skepticon, a conference that has traditionally concerned itself with the atheist movement. Eliezer, Julia Galef, Richard Carrier, and Spencer Greenberg were kind enough to come speak on topics more pertinent to the rationalist community (Bayes’ theorem saw lots of love, and LW was plugged in several of the presentations!). Attendance was just over 1,100, and many of the attendees I spoke with were overjoyed to see more than just the “yes, there are probably no gods” spiel. I overheard one of them tell Eliezer that she felt like his talk had revealed a “next step” in her personal growth as a freethinker.
The whole experience has left me with the suspicion that the atheist community might not be as tapped for rationalism as it could be—and that just might be one of the better places to go looking. Lately, there’s been a huge upsurge in atheist/secular activism at the college level, and as far as I know, these groups aren’t being particularly targeted.