#1. Meta discussion on a reading about the rationality community itself. see, e.g., this blogpost: https://srconstantin.github.io/2017/08/08/the-craft-is-not-the-community.html
#2. Discussion on a reading of fairly general interest regarding rationality (e.g., https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yPLr2tnXbiFXkMWvk/an-equilibrium-of-no-free-energy among obviously many others)
#3. Discussion of a more topical post, applying rationality to current events or concerns. (e.g., https://slatestarcodex.com/2018/09/06/acc-entry-should-childhood-vaccination-be-mandatory/ among many others) Here is some general discussion on those categories:
OPTION #1 might be appropriate if the identity of the Chicago Rationality group is not very well defined. I notice there are several related groups, most of who haven’t met in a while or don’t meet regularly. When chatting with people on Sunday, people seemed unsure of why they attended and what their goals were. One main distinction seems to be whether to focus on intrinsic (community-building) or extrinsic (world-changing) goals, as suggested in the post linked above.
OPTION #2 might always be appropriate, especially if the group is well defined but maybe hasn’t met for a while and wants to get in touch with its roots. Also good if a large proportion of people are relatively new.
OPTION #3 might be appropriate if you don’t care about the other stuff, and just want to dig in and argue about something (without people taking it personally–a reason a few people mentioned for their interest in rationality).
