FtBCon 3 is over and we’ve (sort of) recovered from our sleep deprivation. Here’s a YouTube playlist of all the sessions from this year’s con:
We hope you enjoyed the con, and we’ll see you in 2016!
Wrapping it up!
Ah, time to decompress.
Overview of one more FtBCon and a chance for feedback.
Digital Self-Defense
Experts in various fields related to technology and intellectual property come together to discuss the art of self-defense on the internet. How do you protect yourself online from all manners of attack, be they hacks or legal threats?
Panelists: Neil Wehneman, Tim Farley, Jason Thibeault, Leigh Honeywell, Ben Blanchard
Make your Code of Conduct Work For You
Did you know codes of conduct cover more than sexual harassment? Did you know they can shape your event in many positive ways? Tune in and find out how to create the code of conduct that works for you, your organization, your event, and your volunteers.
Panelists: Chelsea DuFresne, Michael Damian Thomas, Stephanie Zvan
Teaching Critical Thinking
How can teachers use their role as educators to instill critical thinking and ideas like rationalism and empiricism? Are such approaches intrinsic to teaching or separate? We could also go into the ethics of where to draw the line between instructing and “preaching” but I’d actually prefer to stick to the praxis and methodology of bringing critical thinking into the classroom. How do we adapt assessments and assignments? How do we model thinking behaviors we’d like to see?
Panelists: Chana Messinger, Hiba Krisht, Matt Lowry, Dan Linford
Did You Remember Your (Love) Life Vest? Polyamory in the Deep End
At FtBCon 2, we provided a panel on the basics of Skeptics Open Up: Polyamory in the Skeptical Community. Now, we return to the subject of polyamory to delve deeper. For this panel, we assume you have basic knowledge of polyamory, which you can gain from that panel and many other sources.
There’s more to polyamory than managing jealousy, multiple calendars, and safer sex. How do you decide whether and how to share your status as poly with family, co-workers, and other acquaintances? How do you blend family and finances? How do you explain polyamory to the children in your life? We’ll cover all of this and more from a panel with years of successful (and occasionally unsuccessful) polyamory.
Panelists: Neil Wehneman (moderator), Heina Dadabhoy, Danny Samuelson, Wesley Fenza, Miri Mogilevsky, Karen Hill
Introduction to Secular Women Work
There’s a new conference in town (if the town is Minneapolis), and it’s not quite like anything else out there. Let the organizers tell you why should attend and why and how you should support the conference even if you can’t make it.
Panelists: Stephanie Zvan, Monette Richards, Chelsea DuFresne
Fundraising for a Secular Cause: Because It Takes Money To Change the World
It takes money to scale an organization up from its seeds as a good idea into a major player with local and/or national impact. Organizing a successful conference entails similar costs. But fundraising is hard, and very few people enjoy asking others for money.
This panel will show you not only how to ask people for money, but also to understand who you should be asking in the first place! Presenters range from those serving as volunteer fundraisers for a local group, to organizers of highly successful conferences, to professional staff with responsibility for raising a million-dollar budget.
Panelists: Neil Wehneman (moderator), Amy Boyle, Nick Fish, Maria Greene, Harry Shaughnessy
Secular Woman: Block Bot and Other Strategies
A brief introduction and history of The Block Bot, a blocking application on twitter, and explanation of the current features. Discussion among Block Bot admins, blockers, and coders about their personal philosophies about blocking, challenges inherent to shared blocking and their answers to some of the common criticisms.
Panelists: Nick Geiger, Vivian, James Billingham, M. A. Melby
Reasonable Relationships: How Does Our Skepticism Influence our Romantic or Non-Romantic Relationships?
When we form relationships, it’s easy to think that just trusting our feelings is the way to go. This panel discusses how and why to be skeptical about relationships, and goes through some of the common logical fallacies that people make regarding their relationships. We’ll discuss how confirmation bias, wishful thinking, the sunk costs fallacy, and regression to the mean can influence our decisions about who to date, how to date, and when to end things.
Panelists: Wesley Fenza (moderator), Chana Messinger, Franklin Veaux, Miri Mogilevsky
FtBConscience 