Thinkers planning meeting

As many of you have noticed Meetings just aint happening like they used to.

Having to get up at stupid o'clock in the morning for work has meant I've not been able to run my usual rota of meetings.

Other prefects scheduled to run Meetings have also been prevented by running meetings by one thing or another.

I would like to apologize profusely to anyone who feels they have been let down.

Tommorow night (Friday) at 3pm SL time I will be holding a planning meeting for current prefects and those who wish to become prefects. It would be fantastic if we could work out a new rota for running the regular meetings.

Remember Thinkers are also welcome to run "irregular" meetings at HQ - just clear it with a prefect first and get your prefect status- it's necessary for inviting people into the group.

If you can't make the meeting and would like to be involved, either use this thread or IM me.

When a weekly Meeting plan is worked out, it will be posted in this thread.

Thank you to everyone who has continued with their Thinkers membership during my recent neglect.

I'm sorry I missed my own meeting... I fell asleep on the sofa.

I don't feel like an irredeemable shit though, since I haven't been bombarded with messages asking me where I was.

So we might as well just do it right here. *snicker*

I'm happy to still do one or two nights a week, as long as there are other meetings happening too.

They would have to be at 2pm though. I can do one later meeting at the weekend, and an earlier one on most Sundays.

Can anybody else pledge a regular meeting? It doesn't have to be weekly... even one night a fortnight or month would be a great service.

i can probably do a regular Thursday slot, sometime between 2 and 4 pm game time - initially at 4 I guess, although I am lining up some Friday am (my time) work, so it might have to slide forward a bit, finishing at 1am or later local time and getting up at 8 is not a barrel of laughs...

It will probably be an eclectic mix of topics, but then what is new

Sunday: Mature Thinkers (with Jinny or Eloise)

Monday: Theology/religion (with Jinny)

Tuesday:

Wednesday:

Thursday: Eloise

Friday: Hot Tub meeting (with Jinny or Roxie)

Saturday:

Would anyone like to fill in the gaps?

although he is more than capable of speaking for himself Damien usually does an early Thinkers (1pm game time) on a Wednesday...

Although I was obliged at one time to ask Eloise to host a session for me, I generally try to organize and host a Wednesday evening Thinkers', normally at 1 pm although occasionally it may be at 12 am if that suits me better.

The most difficult part always seems to be to pick a topic.

Perhaps we should organize a topic pool?

Hello there,

I think I'll be able to run a Thinkers' on Tuesdays, 2 PM PST (or 10 PM GMT, right? ). Alternative would be 2 AM or so, since I do telecommuting and can do the hosting BEFORE my lovely colleagues drop by at the office Just tell me what you prefer.

I'll be "recycling" some topics from very similar events I hosted in RL (it's nice to be lazy!). Yes, getting interesting topics is hard. Here are some ideas:

"The brain is just a big computer?" Based on theories by Steven Pinker and others, this will explore what science thinks is going on in our brains, and we leave the question to where the soul is located to the audience

"Humanoids from all over the Universe, unite!" Carl Sagan once said that we would be able to communicate to other species in Outer Space if they were humanoid bipeds breathing oxygen... meaning, very similar life forms to us. I'll present Sagan's arguments with some ideas of my own.

"The Skeptical Environmentalist". This should be classified as a mature event, since it is VERY polemical - an analysis made by Danish ex-greenpeace member Bjorn Lomborg, a statistics professor working for the Danish government, who looked at past data and concluded that, after all the hysterics by the "greens", the Earth is actually getting BETTER as well as its inhabitants. This topic generally ends with the host being put to the torch by lefties (I'll bring my fireproof shield).

"Genetics in 2030". We laugh at those ideas, but in 2030 we will be able to buy pills and drugs at supermarkets which will enable us to change our skin color permanently, grow fur or extra legs, become immortal, or even change our sex! How will our society deal with those problems then? However, since we know what will happen today, shouldn't we prepare our children for what comes next? (note: I think there was already one Thinkers event on Bioengineering or so, but I missed it )

If you wish me to go a little bit into science-fiction or fantasy, I can also do some things about archetypes and why Star Wars sells.