Freethinkers in a regular Zeitgeist event where we discuss topics related to: Science, Technology, Nature and Sustainability. As you can imagine this is quite open-ended. A wide variety of topics end up being discussed. Topics we have covered in the past include: critical thinking, cryptocurrency & blockchain technology, environmental sustainability, internet freedom, economic inequality, universal basic income & technological unemployment, direct democracy, evolution, how money works, artificial intelligence, cognitive biases, nonviolent communication, the Scientific Method and more!
No topic need be too sacred. No idea above questioning. The point of this meetup is not only to hang out with like minded people and have fun on a Saturday or Sunday night 😉 but also to learn something new and to genuinely intellectually explore ideas. This means taking offence isn’t adequate grounds for objecting to an idea. Your ideas and worldview will be challenged. But it is all in the spirit of fun and getting closer to the truth not about being right or wrong. If you’re getting a bit squeamish thinking this event is going to be super serious then relax it’s fun and all people and ideas are welcome. 🙂
In these events we will learn about the history of humanity and the history of human civilisations. History is often considered dry and boring, but history is a fascinating topic which can provide so much insight into modern times and ourselves.
Part 1 – Prehistory will focus on how homo sapien humans became such a dominant force on planet earth, how we outcompeted other human species to extinction and what allowed us to organise in large cohesive social structures that laid the foundation for later human civilisations to be possible.
We will explore the evolutionary baggage that we accumulated on our incredible journey out of east africa into every corner of the globe. Understanding our own past is paramount to understanding ourselves because so much of our past still resides within us, particularly with respect to our human brain and its structure.
Human beings possess several key factors that allowed us to survive and adapt to a changing environment. This flexibility in addition to our ability to cooperate in large groups was a formidable combination and key to our evolutionary success.
World History Part 1 will begin when anatomically modern humans emerged approximately 200,000 years ago and will track our journey to beyond the agricultural revolution approximately 12,000 year ago. In this time period humans domesticating plants and animals and began developing more sophisticated tools and technologies. Part 1 will finish at approximately 5,000 years ago where part 2 – Ancient History will resume a week later 🙂
Because of the serialised nature of these lectures it is important that you see each one as the future parts operate on the assumed knowledge of the previous parts.
Zachary Alexander – The Zeitgeist Movement Queensland Coordinator