MyGiftedLife.org

www.edge.org/

To me, this sounded like a really cool group, and I'm sure they have lots of really fascinating stuff...
But it seemed a bit slanted toward 90% male contributions, and that always makes me wonder...
Anyway, has anyone else seen this site, or heard of this??

I hadn't heard of them, but they do look interesting.

Aside about the supposed sexism (and not an invite to hijack the thread): I wouldn't let the "maleness" bother me, because it's probably not even realized as biased, if indeed it is. Part of the very reason why the internet is gaining power is due to the female presence. Up until the internet, women were expected to work harder and stay shut up. The genderless anonymity and freedom of speech that so far still exists here has freed our thoughts, and make no mistake - people are listening. I know many women who even go so far as to give themselves a male nickname online so that their gender won't discriminate against them. I refuse to resort to that. People need to see that women have smarts, too. The net has a higher percentage of introverts than real life, and it is a provable fact that introverted men are less threatened by smart women than their extroverted male counterparts are. Introverted males are more likely to see us as cute anomalies at worst, which is a far cry from being openly attacked by a chauvanistic male (who assumes a smart woman is a chauvanistic female, which sometimes can be true, but usually is not).

Oh, I just picked up the book that's based on this: What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

Keep in mind that many of the most influential people in the world are probably older, and grew up in an era in which men were more prominent and better respected. Give it some time.

Another interesting find my philosophy of religion prof clued me in on is www.closertotruth.com/

Why a dinner? It looks too much like a stuffy "ulterior motive" social gathering. Why can't these types of groups open themselves up to a truly public for growth, sharing and internalization? I don't understand MENSA, EDGE and other carbon copy brain children that reinforce the sanctuary phenomenon. In the end, won't your logical constructs affect everyone, top down, regardless? Isn't this in its own way some form of social Darwinism, keep up, or we'll be pressing forward without you? My question is this - do you/these people/whomever you fancy this be posted to, really want to improve the world, articulate the tough ideas and press onwards in truly relevant ways, or are you attempting to usurp the predominant, loud / brash "ruling culture" with one of your own? I look at groups of supposed smart people, read texts, watch derivations, and there is almost a learning curve built against understanding. Do you really want the people you're speaking to to understand you, or is this the new wave of ruling class sensibilities?

I realize that it is arrogant of me to assume that the knowledge must have the purpose, and the purpose must have a place in easily accessible public forum, for he who uncovers does have at least some right (within his own lifetime at least) to decide what he'd like to do with his skills, whether those be constructive or destructive. My only question is the function and whether there are pretentions towards something less exciting, and more "business as usual".

I see it as just the opposite.

We have some of the greatest of today's minds getting together in interdisciplinary groups over dinner to dream up new ways of seeing and changing the world. And then they share what they're thinking and discovering and creating with the rest of us through videos (TED Talks) and books (EDGE) and Twitter and. . .

We are getting more transparency than we ever have. People who used to sit in ivory towers are sharing information in ways that are far more interesting and accessible than they ever used to be.

It's really exciting, and I'm happy to keep my nose out of it and let them go on being brilliant together over a steak and a glass of wine and wait to see what they come up with. I think it's a bit presumptuous to imagine that the addition of more voices will improve the process rather than detract from it. We've all done group projects in school, and we know how that usually turned out. . .

I'm not proposing a free for all, just some thought going into an improvement of a very rigid format.