Note that this page will be updated through 2024.

This page contains a summary of all events. You can see the statistics for the individual events here:

• Double Crux
• Cults & Cultishness
• Boardgames
• Achieving Goals
• The Hard Problem of Consciousness
• Thinking Physics (Closed Meetup)
• ACX Spring Meetups Everywhere 2024
• Hike
• The Hard Problem of Consciousness Reloaded (Closed Meetup)

Attendees

• 9 events.
• 17.11 people per event on average (σ=4.20).
• 2.33 newcomers per event (σ=2.55).
• Maximum number of attendees was 26 and minimum was 13 people.

Recurring is any person coming for the second, third etc. time whereas New is anyone coming for the first time to a Rationality Freiburg event.

Feedback

• Responses: 133 people (86.36% of attendees)

1. Practical use: For my life, what we did today will have …

• Responses: 130 people (84.42% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • a lot of practical use (1): 22 people
  • quite a bit of practical use (2): 37 people
  • some practical use (3): 26 people
  • little practical use (4): 26 people
  • very little practical use (5): 19 people
• Average answer: 2.87 (σ=1.32)

2. The atmosphere / vibe was …

• Responses: 132 people (85.71% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • fantastic (1): 56 people
  • good (2): 71 people
  • okay (3): 3 people
  • bad (4): 1 person
  • horrible (5): 1 person
• Average answer: 1.64 (σ=0.65)

3. The amount of content / exercises covered was …

• Responses: 126 people (81.82% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • way too much (1): 3 people
  • too much (2): 25 people
  • just right (3): 87 people
  • too little (4): 9 people
  • way too little (5): 2 people
• Average answer: 2.86 (σ=0.64)

4. The difficulty level of the content / discussion was …

• Responses: 128 people (83.12% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • much too easy (1): 1 person
  • too easy (2): 22 people
  • just right (3): 84 people
  • too difficult (4): 21 people
  • much too difficult (5): 0 people
• Average answer: 2.98 (σ=0.61)

5. Structure: On the whole the event needed …

• Responses: 130 people (84.42% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • much more structure (1): 3 people
  • more structure (2): 22 people
  • (was just right) (3): 100 people
  • less structure (4): 5 people
  • much less structure (5): 0 people
• Average answer: 2.82 (σ=0.52)

6. The moderation should have been …

• Responses: 128 people (83.12% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • much more relaxed (1): 3 people
  • more relaxed (2): 5 people
  • (was just right) (3): 105 people
  • more assertive (4): 11 people
  • much more assertive (5): 4 people
• Average answer: 3.06 (σ=0.59)

7. Host preparation: The content / exercises were …

• Responses: 128 people (83.12% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • very well prepared (1): 54 people
  • well prepared (2): 46 people
  • okay prepared (3): 25 people
  • not well prepared (4): 2 people
  • not well prepared at all (5): 1 person
• Average answer: 1.83 (σ=0.85)

8. Changing your mind: The event made me …

• Responses: 127 people (82.47% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • question many things (1): 8 people
  • question some things (2): 53 people
  • question few things (3): 35 people
  • question very few things (4): 24 people
  • not question anything (5): 7 people
• Average answer: 2.76 (σ=1.01)

9. Do you think you will come to one (or more) of the next three events?

• Responses: 131 people (85.06% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • probably no: 7 people
  • probably yes: 124 people

10. If you answered “probably no” in the previous question or are very uncertain, why is that?

• Responses: 5 people (3.25% of attendees)
• Answers:
  • Do not get much enlightened due to diverse of discussions.: 1 person
  • Friday evening is a bad timeslot for me.: 0 people
  • I can’t fit another activity into my life.: 1 person
  • I did not like (some of) the people here.: 0 people
  • I did not like today’s venue.: 0 people
  • I live too far away.: 3 people
  • I’m not very interested in your usual topics.: 0 people
  • The level of English is too advanced for me.: 0 people

11. What did you like the most today?

• Responses: 76 people (49.35% of attendees)

Note: Anything contained in square brackets [] is an edit by the organizers.

I liked the „make the elephants like each other idea“

Preconditions to ensure before using the method would be interesting to formalise. A list of common typical cruxes would be nice

Friendly

The discussion in the smaller group (though the group was still somewhat big)

The exercise of fooling an outsider was great! [An older version of the feedback form had only one answer field for “best” and “worst”. An organizer split that comment, making the best guess what the commenter was trying to say.]

Small discussion group

people

The many views brought about by the different participants. The reading list.

Die Übung

the structure with 3 levels of preparation was very good idea

Was fun

die Stimmung + entspannte Atmosphäre

• das Spielen hat sehr viel Spaß gemacht

Was fun

Viele neue Leute + Spiele kennengelernt

Was fun to be introduced to new games.

Cool games

[The game] Karriere Poker

Got to play Scrabble

Mich mal wieder ein bisschen an die Karriere-Poker Strategie erinnern. War leider zu kurz, um komplett rein zu kommen.

New room was great!

Es gab eine sehr gute Balance zwischen Diskussion, Input und Übungen.
Die Triviafragen waren eine gute Idee, aber auch etwas stressig 😄

Texts [An older version of the feedback form had only one answer field for “best” and “worst”. An organizer split that comment, making the best guess what the commenter was trying to say.]

New room is nice!

Der große Raum war gut (wenn auch etwas kalt).

discussions

Der Raum war schön groß.

I enjoyed the big group discussion about procrastination.

Discussion was great. [An older version of the feedback form had only one answer field for “best” and “worst”. An organizer split that comment, making the best guess what the commenter was trying to say.]

Topic

Room 10/10

We have space for some movement exercises there maybe. Like arranging in order of attribute of person for introduction [Typo corrected]

discussions + exercise

topic

Many interesting impulses.
Great atmosphere of discussions.

the topic in general!

Mind blown

Some very interesting ideas popped up during presentation and discussion. [An older version of the feedback form had only one answer field for “best” and “worst”. An organizer split that comment, making the best guess what the commenter was trying to say.]

The topic, the progression.

Gute Präsentationen, angenehme Stimmung.

Open discussion.

Zivilisierte Diskussion in grosser Runde

the small group discussion (was too little time though)

Very interesting presentations focusing on two different aspects/approaches to the question of consciousness.

The presentations and the discussions were really interesting and fun.

Presentation is rich in content. [An older version of the feedback form had only one answer field for “best” and “worst”. An organizer split that comment, making the best guess what the commenter was trying to say.]

Digging really deep into seemingly simple problems with other people was very enjoyable.

Loved the structuring and that the number of exercises was not too high.

Super interesting content.
Discovered many flaws in my thinking.
Physics is cool!

The discussions with other people who I hadn’t met before. The mindbogliness of the questions.

Very intersting topic. I liked to discover the flaws in my reasoning and thinking strategies.

Demonstrated my lack of intuitive, on-hand knowledge of physics and also that given enough time and effort, can understand (most of) it, even from just thinking and mulling over the problem

Problems

Working in smaller groups depending on our level

The book I got to know. :-)

Diskussion

Die Rätsel

Noticing my own confusion

Zu erkennen, dass eine gefühlte 80%ige Sicherheit leicht wieder kippen kann, wenn man länger nachdenkt.

Most - topics

Everyone had read some of the material so it was possible to have informed discussions.

Snacks, some people

Zahlen bringen was, wenn man weiss, dass sie falsch sind

Die Aussicht.

vibes, the route, nature, discussions

Most- everyone was inclusive and kind. Other things- hike location, organisation with the public transport

Getting to know some people

Fantastic weather, beautiful route and many interesting conversations.

Good training impulse 😃
Group was relaxed, everyone seemed to enjoy the speed

Walking together, talking to each other

Für mich haben Uhrzeit, Dauer und Niveau der Wanderung perfekt gepasst.

Free seach

Die Diskussionen.

small group discussion
thought experiments
snacks

Good structure, clear definitions and questions.

The intro

The sofa

12. What did you like the least?

• Responses: 45 people (29.22% of attendees)

Note: Anything contained in square brackets [] is an edit by the organizers.

Schade war, dass viel Zeit dafür verwendet wurde Dinge zu wiederholen, die man auch vorher hätte lesen können. Andererseits bereue ich das Lesen nicht, da dort viel mehr interessantes stand. Ich sehe auch, dass man nicht erwarten kann, dass alle vorbereitet zum Meeting kommen. Deshalb eine Idee, welche sich vielleicht praktisch umsetzen lässt: Beim Bilden von Untergruppen teilen wir die Leute auf zwischen denen, die zur Vorbereitung gelesen haben, und den anderen. So profitiert man zumindest dadurch von der eigenen Vorbereitung, dass man mit besser informierten Personen diskutieren kann. Ausnahme evtl. für Leute, die zum ersten Mal auftauchen.

The conclusion to our discussion about cult. It could have been more structured. Maybe with a voting at the end from 1 to 5 how cultish this group is.

nothing

The content felt not cohesive. Some consolidation could help.

Nichts

• der Beginn hätte etwas lockerer / gesprächiger sein können

too much game explanation time due to new players joining in between

Didn’t get to play any new game [Typo fixed]

Insgesamt ist das Feedback-Formular eher unpassend für einen Spieleabend. ;)

Exercise

Die Diskussionen und übung hätten inhaltlich noch etwas spannendere Argumente bringen können, aber das ist halt nicht immer gleich.

Exercise was quite hard.

I was not prepared

snacks :-D [This is an inside joke since some participants would like to snack less.]

Many discussions in offtopic examples. Low abstraction level.

less time

A little bit chaotic today, longer discussion in small groups would have nice, clear definition of consciousness was not given

First part didn’t really ‘introduced’ what was then presented by Nawid. Felt a bit irrelevant for the discussion part.

I think some parts of the presentations were not really relevant for the topic.

Will wasn’t fully clear about the arguments are the end. But might just need to think more about it.

Mehr Zeit, um tiefer in die Diskussion zu gehen wäre gut

Time management

I would have preferred more time for discussions, maybe by splitting up the content into several Meetups.

The discussion is not structured or guided.

Maybe spend slightly more time on the solutions.

Nothing.

Very Minor: didn’t explicitly include “some ways to problem solve” except what came up during discussion. E.g. maybe one attempt without any such discussion and then one attempt after discussing such approaches. But then, would have had time crunch

Problems

The long discussion at the end about the details of a problem that has not been discussed/looked into in our group

/

Nichts

Drinking water color [The tap water at the location was yellowish, which had never happened before]

I had the feeling the discussions today didn’t lead to a point. But that’s okay.

Fewer people than expected so the size of the room and amount of snacks did not match those expectations.

People quiostioning very basic stuff like probability

Ich war schlecht vorbereitet

Zu viele und anstrengende Steigungen. Der letzte Abstieg. Zeigt mir aber nur, dass ich mehr wandern muss ;)

it wasn’t an official cult hike

Least- no hike songs and need more group photos at the start-middle-end of the hike.

Arriving home late

The stairs and that I need more training 😃

Nothing

Nichts.

Sense of exhaustion after discussion

I was tired