About

What is this place about?

Thoughtful and informed discussion about science, tech, politics, legislation, history, and more importantly, family, food, and funny memes!

Sit back, enjoy scintillating conversation, a few laughs, and relish this life of ours. Joie de vivre!

Want to Try Us Out for FREE?

Keep reading to get the promo code and information on a FREE MONTH

The Discussion

What is going on in YOUR world? (What are YOU interested in discussing?)

What is going on in OUR world?

Where is the harmony many people say they desire? How do we get it back? What is the source of dissension severe enough to disrupt deeply valued friendships and to bring discord between beloved family members? Why does strife seem unrelentingly virulent?

Where is the curiosity? Why should we accept any piece of information at face value? How can we possibly discern between truth and falsehoods?

How do we start building rigorous standards of evidence? How can we hone our critical thinking skills?

What builds stronger unions between people and peoples: coercive bondage or freely chosen pursuits?

If you have questions like these and want to discuss and propose ideas to understand how to make this world better for the people of today and for the future generations of tomorrow, you have come to the right place.

Make your voice heard and listen to the voices of others.

Bring thoughtful questions and carefully assess both your own answers and the conclusions of others.

Bring your sense of humor, a bit of mirth will do us all good! Bring your sense of wonder, we can find value in the beauty this life already affords!

Find and share problem-solving questions, rational and informed answers, peaceful solutions, laughter that heals the spirit, and beauty that soothes the soul.

Don’t worry about finding the perfect questions and the perfect answers. As Thomas Sowell sagely wrote, “There are no solutions. There are only trade-offs.”

Welcome to Nerds for Freedom!

Your First Month is Free!

If you read all of the above, you must be interested in joining! You can click “join” and just read the posts or you can click “subscribe” and make your posts and replies and participate in the chat sessions.

Subscribe with the following promo code: NERDSFORFREEDOM

You will need to enter in your credit card information just as if you were paying the monthly fee of $2.00, but you will not be charged. Once the first month is up, you will have the option to pay the monthly fee.

A few things to remember:

• Members cannot use the same promo code multiple times
• Free trials cannot be retracted once a member has applied it to their account
• Members are required to enter valid payment details in order to apply for a free trial, though they are free to cancel their subscription anytime before the free trial is up
• If a member cancels their subscription that has the free trial applied, their free trial will continue until the duration has expired
• Promo codes are only applicable on the web, it is not available for subscribers on the Locals mobile app
• Once you are ready to pay the $2.00 monthly fee, you will have the option of avoiding the Apple/Google surcharge fee if you support with a continuous monthly subscription through the web, rather than through the mobile app

Promo code offer expires December 31, 2023.

A Word of Appreciation

Thanks to Dave Rubin and all the people who invested time, money, and effort into developing Locals, we freedom-loving, intelligent people have a refuge from the mayhem of misinformation, trolls, and soul-crushing arbitrary rules.

Who are Nerds for Freedom?

We are! Nerds for Freedom are stewards OF freedom. The promotion of stewardship is an exhortation to each person who wish to reap the rewards of freedom to consider protecting and nurturing individual freedoms.

All grown-ups of this world carry the responsibility of stewardship. We, the adults of today, create, through action and through in-action, a legacy for the next generation. We are managing the affairs of this earthly sphere in hopes of leaving the place better than we found it, and that means making it more free for hoi polloi.

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”

Perhaps this is not a frightening prospect for those who willingly take on the mantle of this honorable obligation, but one would be wise to do so with careful preparation. Conversing with other like-minded individuals, sharing ideas and information, practicing both logic and discernment, and learning about the mistakes and the right-actions our forebears made is an excellent place to start and to maintain that preparation.

Each steward-minded person will come to the table, so to speak, with different life experiences, different personalities, and different talents. This is a GOOD thing. Echo chambers won’t help us find the answers; diverse thoughts will. Perhaps that’s why group-think can become disheartening; like a woodland pond, the longer it remains stagnant, the more it begins to stink with decay. The world needs creativity to face the complex puzzles we each encounter.

The Nerds for Freedom community is for the courageous stewards of this world. All hail each person willing to grow up! We are the ones who will confront the current challenges rather than abandoning them to succeeding generations. It is we who will hopefully become giants, similar to the ones of whom Sir Isaac Newton referred, upon whose shoulders tomorrow’s stewards may one day stand.

Community Guidelines

Question

How do we maintain our community?

Answer

The Short Version:
1) Be nice! (No bullying, No spamming, No porn)
2) Follow United States law.
3) Have FUN!

The Long Version:
With easy-to-process guidelines mostly borrowed from the interview master himself, Dave Rubin.

1. Keep your posts and your responses legal according to United States law.
2. Try to keep conversation respectful, without personal attacks.
3. Don’t endlessly blow-up other members’ feeds. If someone isn’t responding to you, let it be. Be better than the trolls.
4. When responding to a post in which multiple people’s user names are captured, and you want to ACTUALLY address a particular person, as opposed to everyone on the post, put the person’s user name at the top of your response, skip a line, type your response, skip another line, then list the other people at the bottom. (This clears up inevitable confusion, i.e., “To whose comment did you intend to refer?”)
5. We understand the need for anonymity in today’s world. Keep your nom de guerre and your avatar while remembering that, though our persons may be invisible, our words are not. The impact of our written thoughts upon the screen and directed towards other people are undeniable. Anonymity does not forego accountability. Accountability under-girds integrity, and integrity builds credibility. Let’s build a true community of responsible people upon whom we can each rely for common courtesy, solid information, and some well-earned belly laughs between whom may well become true-blue friends.
6. Don’t post pornography, graphic images or anything like that. We’ll use the “I’ll know it when I see it” policy.
7. If you are here just to wreck the place or bring chaos, we’ll delete your account. We are trying to clean up the conversation. You’ll get a warning or two, but that’s it.
8. When contributing news, please let the rest of us know the source or that it is unverified.
9. When discussing scientific topics, please source appropriately. Please provide links to your sources, e.g., scientific papers, lectures, etc.
10. Remember to screenshot and archive (Wayback Machine https://web.archive.org/save) content on the internet that you plan to share. People love to delete. (Thanks to Andy Ngô for the 8th & 10th guidelines.)
11. Use one of the following links to convert YouTube videos to an mp4 and save to your computer: https://mp4s.org/en1/youtube-to-mp4/ or https://y2mate.guru/en/youtube-to-mp4/ or https://y2mate.ch/youtube-to-mp4 (Thanks to @TheFamilyITDude for this one.)
12. I don’t stand by or endorse everything said here. Possibly even some of the things I say!
13. Post things that aren’t purely political! Science, tech, history, food, music, family, sports, and some hilarious memes (remember Rule 5). Let’s make this a place of good-fellowship outside of the political minutia.
14. Bring your new ideas to the table. Don’t just respond to my posts, post some of your own thoughts and ideas, too!
15. Know our system isn’t perfect and isn’t for everyone, and that we’ll evolve with you.
16. Most importantly, have fun.