For our January discussion meetup, we will be hosting lightning talks & discussions from meetup attendees.​The meetup will be on Saturday, January 4 from 2-4:30 pm in the mezzanine at South Loop Strength & Conditioning (645 S Clark, Chicago IL 60605).​You can give a short, informal talk (5-10 min.) on

The next monthly discussion meetup is Saturday, Dec. 7 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). We’ll be discussing the clinical, economic, and social ramifications of the GLP-1 class of weight loss medications (e.g. Ozempic, Wegovy, etc).​Clinical: impact on patients’ weight and addictive behaviorsEconomic: impact on food industry and

The next monthly discussion meetup is this coming Saturday, Nov. 2 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). We’ll be discussing the factors that drive voting behavior. Just a few examples: how much is voting decided by … See below for a few short readings to provide some background

Scott Alexander has helped coordinate “Ballots Everywhere” meetups in several major cities for this November’s election From Scott: “Each election year, I’ve shared how I plan to vote in local elections. This year I want to scale up and produce voter guides for all the big US cities/states with a critical mass

For October’s discussion meetup, we will be discussing John Ioannidis’s 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.” In addition to outright fraud (​Ariely​, ​Wansink​, Francesca Gino (​lawsuit​!), etc.), there are quite a few more subtle and pernicious ways in which seemingly compelling results can be indistinguishable from, well,

In lieu of our normal “first Saturday of the month discussion meetup,” we will be hosting an Astral Codex Ten Meetups Everywhere meetup on Saturday, 9/7 in Ping Tom Park. These meetups tend to draw a larger and more varied group of people than a typical Chicago Rationality meetup, so

The next monthly discussion meetup is SUNDAY, August 4 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this month, we’re going to discuss the (supposed) decline of social capital (social connections), an idea popularized by Robert Putnam in “Bowling Alone”. Has social interaction declined? How does technology-mediated interaction factor

There are many famous historical examples of multiple people making the same discovery nearly simultaneously (calculus, natural selection, the telephone, etc.). Is this because inventions are inevitable and are “going to happen sometime soon” once all of the necessary pieces are in place? Or, do individual researchers shape the technological

The next monthly discussion meetup is Saturday, June 8 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this month, we’re going to try something different. We going to facilitate one-on-one discussions (note: not debates per se) with people that have (roughly) opposing views on particular issues. Essentially, we’ll poll

The next monthly discussion meetup is Saturday, May 4 @ 2 PM (see below for location etc.). For this meetup, we’ll be discussing the relationship between social media and mental health, with a focus on arguments by psychologist Jonathan Haidt (particularly from his new book) and some criticisms of his