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My Big New Project

August 28th, 2009 by Oskar Kennedy

So my estimation that I would return here after the bar exam was slightly exaggerated. Fortunately for you, this isn’t the standard “OMG I’ve been so busy” post, where I list all the various things that have been distracting me, and make vague (and finally fruitless) promises to start blogging again. Instead, I’m going to regale you with tales of my new “big project,” which is – unlike almost every idea I’ve ever had – actually taking off.

It’s called Grassroots Skeptics. It’s a volunteer organization to help skeptics find, start and manage groups of reason-minded folks at the local level.

In case you’re new here, I try my damnedest to live a life grounded in reason and critical thinking. I try to understand arguments, weigh evidence and research things, instead of relying on kneejerk, biased opinions (my own included).

The idea behind Grassroots Skeptics is to take that philosophy and turn it into outreach. Rather than sit around patting myself on the back for being super smrt, I want to use my energy to help people understand why reasoning skills are so necessary, and how they can learn to think critically a little more often.

There are a lot of local skeptics groups meeting all over the place, providing social support for skeptics, and conducting outreach and education in their communities. But most of them are kind of operating in a little geographic bubble. My big – and hopefully not insane – idea is to get them working together a little bit more, sharing idea and strategies, and making it easier for them to connect to new members. If they can get advice and guidance on how to tackle a particular issue, instead of starting from scratch, maybe we can make their outreach a little more effective.

It’s a lot of planning and coordination and information gathering right now, but we’re getting a lot of positive feedback. The response has really been gratifying; now, I just have to turn that into useful action.

Our first big milestone is the rollout of our new website, at http://grassrootsskeptics.org. We’ve got a sad little placeholder site right now, but we’ve got a shiny, feature packed version (almost) in the tubes and ready to launch. The new site goes live on Friday, September 4th. If you’ve got any interest in the future of mankind, or if you don’t hate babies, swing by next Friday and take a look.

In the meantime, you can hook up with Grassroots Skeptics on Twitter and Facebook, and get more information through our sign-up sheet, or by email to GRSkeptics@gmail.com.

So I hope you’ll come check out the site next Friday. And forgive my lack of blogging activity. I’d love to say that I’ll be back soon, but I think we both know that’s not true. Don’t make me lie to you, baby.

spread the panic!