Around the time I discovered LessWrong I coincidentally stumbled up Toastmasters public speaking clubs, and think the rationality community would be well served by supplementing directly organized LW meetups with piggybacking off TM meetings:
- less effort: pre-existing membership and organizational know-how without having to build from the ground up
- content: well-structured agenda with abundant content
- messaging: full-length speeches are excellent opportunity to spread rationality ideas to an open-minded audience
- practice: “table topics” (brief improvised speech games) exercises clear thinking under time pressure
- group dynamics: volunteer organizational duties via club leadership roles (president, VPs, treasury, etc)
- diversity: more opportunity to interact with non-rationalists, both as a challenge to engage and as an opportunity to instruct
Especially in areas where numbers are insufficient to reach critical mass to organize viable clubs, TM clubs could go a long way to fill the gap and even magnify the reach of the rationality community
Around the time I discovered LessWrong I coincidentally stumbled up Toastmasters public speaking clubs, and think the rationality community would be well served by supplementing directly organized LW meetups with piggybacking off TM meetings:
- less effort: pre-existing membership and organizational know-how without having to build from the ground up
- content: well-structured agenda with abundant content
- messaging: full-length speeches are excellent opportunity to spread rationality ideas to an open-minded audience
- practice: “table topics” (brief improvised speech games) exercises clear thinking under time pressure
- group dynamics: volunteer organizational duties via club leadership roles (president, VPs, treasury, etc)
- diversity: more opportunity to interact with non-rationalists, both as a challenge to engage and as an opportunity to instruct
Especially in areas where numbers are insufficient to reach critical mass to organize viable clubs, TM clubs could go a long way to fill the gap and even magnify the reach of the rationality community