Monday Night Freethought

Let's meet again to think and speak about topics that you might not have the opportunity to discuss anywhere else. As usual, we will talk about whatever we want. Eat if you want, think, and be merry.

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At our most recent meetup on January 20th, we discussed these topics, among others:

• panarchy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panarchy)

• the growing polarization of American society and the two-party duopoly of American politics

• compulsory education and intellectual resistance from students

• social value of education in the United States vs. India

• K-type vs. R-type societies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory)

• Free to Learn by Peter Gray (http://www.freetolearnbook.com/), Sudbury schools (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school)

• $1 trillion student loan bubble and the even larger U.S. treasury bubble

• Bretton Woods (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system) and the exporting of U.S. dollar inflation

• official government unemployment statistics vs. Shadow Stats (http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts)

• interest as a discount on future production

• talking about interest with a Muslim - the example of getting apples for State Fair apple pies

• structural unemployment, the price of labor, minimum wage laws

• technology and its democratizing effect on opportunity

• Bastiat's petition on behalf of candle makers to outlaw the sun (http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html)

• Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt (https://mises.org/books/economics_in_one_lesson_hazlitt.pdf), the broken window fallacy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window) and make-work programs - the seen and the unseen

• dualism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dualism) vs monism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monism), the singularity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singularity_Is_Near)

• A.I. in game development, Dwarf Fortress (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarf_Fortress)

• a working 3D printer in Minecraft (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NosYiyNXhzQ)

• virtual reality - Occulus Rift (http://www.oculusvr.com/), the growing difficulty in distinguishing between virtual reality and actual reality

• neuroplasticity (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity) of the brain and childhood trauma

• libertarian co-founders of Paypal - Elon Musk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_musk) and Peter Thiel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel)

• looking at life from subjective and objective perspectives

• "What does not kill me, makes me stronger." (http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/38037.html)

• weak atheism and strong atheism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_and_positive_atheism), the unfalsifiability (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability) of the existence of God, anthropomorphic deities