How do you spot the hidden agendas, biases, and fallacies in the news you consume? How can you critically evaluate the sources, evidence, and arguments that journalists use to persuade you of their views? How can you improve your own rationality and epistemic hygiene by learning from the mistakes and techniques of the media?

Join us for a LessWrong meetup where we will practice reading over news articles and trying to understand how they were written to manipulate. We will select a variety of articles from different outlets, topics, and perspectives, and analyze them using tools such as the Pyramid of Evidence, the Baloney Detection Kit, and the Rhetorical Triangle. We will also discuss how to apply the principles of Bayesian reasoning, steelmanning, and charitable interpretation to the news, and how to avoid confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and tribalism.

This meetup is open to anyone who is interested in improving their media literacy and rationality skills, regardless of their prior knowledge or experience. We will aim to have a friendly and constructive atmosphere, where we can learn from each other and challenge ourselves to think more clearly and objectively. We hope to see you there!

Instructions for accessing the venue: Find the green number keypad to the left of the doors, press the down arrow until you highlight 309, then hit the bell button. Shortly after, the door will unlock. From the lobby, take the elevator to the third floor, then turn right and walk to unit 309.

Image by DALL-E 2: "william randolph hearst standing over a printing press cackling, political cartoon"