Position: "Real Existing Feminism is a disaster for our society".
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
Position: Most doctor's standard advice about diet is wrong. Most of us would benefit from adopting a diet closer to that our paleolithic ancestors ate.
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
Position: Anthropogenic global warming is probably occurring, but doing anything about it (probably at a government level, and slightly less probably at a personal level) is likely a misallocation of resources.
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
Position: Mathematics education is severely misdirected and over-emphasised in convertional Western high school curricula. Most high school students should learn far less mathematics, but should focus on learning a broader range of subjects, and learning them better. Students who show an aptitude may be streamed into more intensive courses to prepare them for mathematics-requiring future careers, but mainstream and disinterested students should not be going anywhere nearly as deeply into calculus or algebra, and instead becoming familiar with introductory group theory, graph theory, topology, number theory, mathematical logic, etc. Statistics should also be more prominent but with a focus less on techniques and more on real world use and misuse.
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
Position: Given current human psychology and capacity, optimal government would likely be radically smaller that current western governments. Most regulations and most government programs do more harm than good.
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
Hi I will be away in Sydney this month so I will have to withdraw my topics "Real Existing Feminism is a disaster for our society" and "Alcohol is bad for you in any quantity".
Position: "Alcohol is bad for you in any quantity".
Drive-by voters, please note: This is a topic for discussion. Please indicate your interest in hearing this discussed at the next meetup, not your current agreement.
This post consists of a pre-exercise of trying to come up with positions that divide the group. Have people done this exercise before, either on LW or at meetups? Is there a record of it?
(Are only Melbournians reading this post?)
NOTE: This post is a stub for the comments below. Please don't participate in the voting unless you think it likely that you will attend the next Melbourne, Australia meetup (Friday Aug 5, 7pm).
The next Melbourne meetup may feature a moderated, rationality-policed not-debate. Anyone willing to participate as an interlocutor should post topics below that they think are likely to split the group fairly evenly - one comment per topic. Anyone willing to take an opposing view should reply to that comment saying so. Anyone attending should indicate their interest in hearing and policing that topic by voting up the topics in which they're interested.
From Tim's summary:
Some people will be in the discussion and others will be observers, who will point out defects of rationality such as ad hominem attacks, ignoring arguments, unstated premises, etc. Be prepared to change your view (if all else fails!).