Seattle Atheist Church

Let's get together before church and discuss this week's passages from The Daily Stoic! Each day of the year has a corresponding "devotional reading" (so to speak). Each week we discuss the readings since our previous meeting, from the previous Monday through the Sunday of the meeting, and share what resonated with us, what we found profound, and what insights we can apply to what's going on in our lives.

Each reading is about 3 minutes long. They're all self-contained, so you don't need to worry about catching up - feel free to jump in on any week's session!

The Stanford Prison Experiment. Lord of the Flies. The Milgram Shock Experiments. Three famous demonstrations that human beings are, if not innately eager to commit atrocities, at least easily made to be so. There's just one tiny problem...

...only one of them is even remotely true. And it's not the most famous one.

The stories we tell shape our expectations of our society (the Overton Window), each other, and ourselves. But are those stories true? And which ones should we tell?

This week's speaker will be Mikki Phoenix.

After the talk, we'll have a group discussion to explore the ideas presented, and to share related thoughts, resources, and personal experiences.

Let's get together before church and discuss this week's passages from The Daily Stoic! Each day of the year has a corresponding "devotional reading" (so to speak). Each week we discuss the readings since our previous meeting, from the previous Monday through the Sunday of the meeting, and share what resonated with us, what we found profound, and what insights we can apply to what's going on in our lives.

Each reading is about 3 minutes long. They're all self-contained, so you don't need to worry about catching up - feel free to jump in on any week's session!

This talk will give a look "under the hood" of large language models like Gemini or ChatGPT, accessible to everyone regardless of their math skills - I'll talk about the math using everyday analogies. I'll be showing why LLMs have absolutely no personhood, why they often make stuff up, why they're good at plagiarism, and some other things they may be good for. Knowing how a tool works lets you use it more safely and effectively, and maybe even understand how other people may be using and misusing it.

This week's speaker will be Chris Phoenix.

After the talk, we'll have a group discussion to explore the ideas presented, and to share related thoughts, resources, and personal experiences.