In 2011, Eliezer Yudkowsky gave an obscure but fascinating presentation on evolution and “outcome pumps”. It has garnered only 7.8K views on youtube over the last decade [1]. These two processes are examples of optimization systems that can exhibit seemingly intelligent behaviors, yet these behaviors differ radically from human behaviors

This month, we’re going to start with a case study to discuss applying rationality to solve real-world problems and the broader concepts of Systematized Winning[1] and Asymmetric Weapons[2] (see links below). The case study is dealing with the recent congestion at the Long Beach port complex, as discussed in more

For the next meet-up, we’ll be talking about education. Everyone has a bone to pick with our current education system, and the rationalist community has not shied away from adding their own two cents. There are many issues to consider, including whether students can/do learn what we want them to

We are excited to announce that Robin Hanson will be giving a talk on “elites” for Chicago Rationality. To get a sense of his thoughts on the topic, and to come prepared with your thoughts and questions, see some of his writing on the subject: https://www.overcomingbias.com/?s=elite Thank you to those who had

This month we’re going to try something a little different and make concrete predictions about the future (e.g. the probability that certain things will happen by a given year). We’ll be doing it live, rather than arriving with our predictions for a pre-assigned list, so feel free to bring ideas

Description: Is there a rational argument for including “political” topics in conversations at work? Or will individuals and/or companies be more productive if they exclude such topics, to the degree that is possible? What role does an individual’s background play in this, since what is considered political versus just your life may not

The votes were close, but the topic for June meet-up (6/5 @ 2 PM) will be luck egalitarianism, or more broadly the degree to which justice requires compensating people for, or neutralizing the effects of, luck. Is it important to distinguish between inequalities resulting from unchosen circumstances or “brute luck”

This month our very own Chris Weaver will present on “Use of Bayesian statistics in Science: Advantages and Pitfalls” (see below for more detail), and then we’ll have a discussion.  Here’s a little bit more on what he’ll be covering: Bayesian techniques are popular in the rationality community, and also in science.

We’ll be talking about city planning, including what makes for a good city and how much planning should there actually be (versus organic growth). Here are two readings to facilitate discussion (not required, as usual): Jane Jacobs on cities http://www.zompist.com/jacobs.html A Scalable Urban Design and the Single Building City https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/fnzZCq4XCeoWGPEp8/a-scalable-urban-design-and-the-single-building-city

This month’s topic is about technocracy, which economist E. Glen Weyl (in the reading) defines as “the view that most of governance and policy should be left to some type of ‘experts’, distinguished by meritocratically-evaluated training in formal methods used to ‘optimize’ social outcomes.” I think this is interesting because,