We met!
Omar
May 14, 2022 (Updated: February 22, 2024)
Yesterday was the first meetup of the Rationality Freiburg group and it was fantastic!
We were eight people in total, three of them newcomers who had found us via meetup.com. Also joining us were two rationalists from the Karlsruhe Rationality community.
Meeting place was Schwabentor, Freiburg and everyone was very punctual. After an introduction round we walked up to the Kanonenplatz, enjoying the lovely weather.
Omar gave an overview of epistemic and instrumental rationality, as well as some common cognitive biases. Everyone got involved, giving examples, answering questions and reflecting on the topics.
Maps help us move around the territory, but not all maps are equally good, just like a map from Berlin is useless to find your way around Freiburg. Epistemic rationality is about improving your map (mental model) of the territory (reality).
Once hunger started raising its head, the group checked several options in the city center. Since we preferred sitting outside and the streets were packed, it took us three attempts until we found a place. Being separated into two tables of four, we were forced to do some speed-dating-like switching mid dinner but this did not diminish our enjoyment.
Due to popular consensus the whole event took place in English.
We are all looking forward to the next meeting, this time with you there as well!