In this episode, I speak with Anthony Magnabosco a founder and the current Executive Director of the nonprofit Street Epistemology International, an educational organization that is committed to addressing dysfunction in public and private discourse by encouraging rationality through civil conversation. Anthony has been involved with Street Epistemology since 2013, and has given dozens of talks and workshops at conferences and events domestically and internationally. Many of his conversations have been uploaded to YouTube and demonstrate how Street Epistemology can be applied to a variety of claims including ones that are spiritual, political, or societal.
I’m involved in a lot of Street Epistemology stuff and I’ve worked with Anthony before. He’s an incredibly nice dude and also does stuff for Recovering From Religion.
I mostly do content creation and run my own SE group and I’ve done a looooot of SE. It seems simple and to most people here it isn’t revolutionary, but it’s surprisingly effective at de-escalating conversations with people whom you disagree with. It avoids the conflict nature of an argument and tends to get people to express more genuine thoughts than talking points. The method isn’t perfect and it has limits obviously, but I’d recommend everyone know it. It’s not just helpful for personal debates but it’s also helped me relate to people professionally and communicate better.
If you have questions about SE or want to run through a short session with me on discord, reply to this or DM me.