Rationalists of East Tennessee upcoming events

November RET Book Club (11/08/2026)

Sun, 08 Nov 2026 21:00:00 GMT

The Game Theorist's Guide to Parenting: How the Science of Strategic Thinking Can Help You Deal with the Toughest Negotiators You Know--Your Kids

by Paul Raeburn and Kevin Zollman

As every parent knows, kids are surprisingly clever negotiators. But how can we avoid those all-too-familiar wails of “That’s not fair!” and “You can’t make me!”? In The Game Theorist’s Guide to Parenting, the award-winning journalist and father of five Paul Raeburn and the game theorist Kevin Zollman pair up to highlight tactics from the worlds of economics and business that can help parents break the endless cycle of quarrels and ineffective solutions. Raeburn and Zollman show that some of the same strategies successfully applied to big business deals and politics―such as the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Ultimatum Game―can be used to solve such titanic, age-old parenting problems as dividing up toys, keeping the peace on long car rides, and sticking to homework routines.

Raeburn and Zollman open each chapter with a common parenting dilemma. Then they show how carefully concocted schemes involving bargains and fair incentives can save the day. Through smart case studies of game theory in action, Raeburn and Zollman reveal how parents and children devise strategies, where those strategies go wrong, and what we can do to help raise happy and savvy kids while keeping the rest of the family happy too.

November Field Trip to Big South Fork (11/14/2026)

Sat, 14 Nov 2026 13:30:00 GMT

For this field trip we will be traveling to the Twin Arches at Big South Fork.

We will meet in the parking lot behind the gas station of the Northshore and Pellissippi Kroger at 8:30 AM before deciding on carpools.

Bring a Picnic Lunch.

In case of rain, the field trip will take place on November 21.

December RET Book Club (12/13/2026)

Sun, 13 Dec 2026 21:00:00 GMT

Morbid: Debunking Modern Longevity Science

(Released October 13)

by Saul Justin Newman

Our morbid fascination with death and dying has created an opening for all manner of skullduggery in the science of aging—an area of study that Morbid reveals to be rife with misleading claims, mistaken assumptions, and outright chicanery. The world’s oldest man is a fake, Blue Zones are debunked, and five decades of research on human longevity is moot. What begins with a petition to exhume a famous corpse descends into amusing, if edifying, chaos as Saul Justin Newman sets out to discover what’s rotten and what’s real in the science of dying.

Unraveling an immense scientific scandal, the author finds a billionaire wrapped up in a scheme to tap the blood of Texas teenagers, the whole field of aging awash in dubious money—and himself somehow accused of spying for Russia by a CIA operative. But under the shocking absurdities lurk deadly serious questions about how people age, how long they live, and why. Newman addresses these questions with genuine curiosity and scientific rigor, contributing mathematical evidence and evolutionary insights into the mystery and mechanics of why we age and why we die.

January RET Book Club (01/10/2027)

Sun, 10 Jan 2027 21:00:00 GMT

Common Sense

by Thomas Paine

It is difficult for us today to grasp just how terrified the American colonies were in the winter of 1776. The war had already begun—blood had been spilled at Lexington and Concord—yet few dared to speak the word, Independence." Most colonists still toasted King George III at dinner, hoping for reconciliation. They saw themselves as wronged British subjects, not as a new nation. Then, in January, a forty-seven-page pamphlet appeared on the streets of Philadelphia.

It was anonymous. It was cheap. And it was furious. Common Sense did not argue over tax rates or legal technicalities. Instead, it attacked the very idea of monarchy itself. Thomas Paine, a recent immigrant with little to lose, shattered the psychological bond between the colonies and the Crown. He dared to call the King a "Royal Brute" and argued that it was absurd for an island to govern a continent. What made Paine’s work revolutionary was not just his anger, but his language. While his contemporaries wrote in dense, Latin-heavy prose meant for lawyers and aristocrats, Paine wrote for the tavern and the town square. He used biblical metaphors and plain English that farmers, blacksmiths, and soldiers could understand immediately. He took the complex philosophy of the Enlightenment and turned it into a weapon for the common man. Within months, the pamphlet had sold hundreds of thousands of copies. It was read aloud to the Continental Army. It converted the undecided. By July, the Continental Congress had signed the Declaration of Independence, a document that owes its courage, in no small part, to the fire started by these pages. 90 pages.

You get it for free and then send it to your kindle or just read it on the computer:

Common Sense by Thomas Paine | Project Gutenberg

February RET Book Club (02/14/2027)

Sun, 14 Feb 2027 21:00:00 GMT

American Caesar

by Bradley B. Onishi

A chilling and urgently needed exposé on the forces pushing American politics and religion toward a post-constitutional autocracy; from Silicon Valley boardrooms to rural pulpits, from Catholic monasteries to Beltway think tanks and Project 2025, a convergence is underway. Reactionary Catholics dream of a new Christendom. Protestant pastors invoke divine right over democratic rule. Tech billionaires, led by the likes of Peter Thiel, argue that freedom and democracy are incompatible. Their solution? A singular ruler to bring “order” out of what they see as liberal chaos. With a theologian’s sensibility, a journalist’s touch, and a historian’s eye for how movements evolve and adapt, Dr. Bradley B. Onishi traces the strange alliance between spiritual warfare and Silicon Valley libertarianism. At the center of it all is the desire for an unbound executive―one man, beyond checks, beyond balance, beyond democracy. This isn’t nostalgia for the 1950s. It’s an organized attempt to abandon the American experiment altogether. A former insider turned academic expert, Onishi brings unmatched depth to this investigation―tracing his own path from evangelical pastor to co-host of Straight White American Jesus, the nation’s leading religion and politics podcast. As the 2024 election fades into history and a new political order takes shape, American Caesar is not just a warning. It’s a map of how we got here―and a call to act before the Republic as we know it becomes just another chapter in a forgotten history book. 320 pages.

March RET Book Club (03/14/2027)

Sun, 14 Mar 2027 20:00:00 GMT

What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing but Cocaine? A Philosophy of Addiction

by Hanna Pickard

Why do people with addiction use drugs self-destructively? Why don’t they quit out of self-concern? Why does the rat in the experiment, alone in a cage, press the lever again and again for cocaine—to the point of death? In this pathbreaking book, Hanna Pickard proposes a new paradigm for understanding the puzzle of addiction. For too long, our thinking has been hostage to a false dichotomy: either addiction is a brain disease, or it is a moral failing. Pickard argues that it is neither, and that both models stifle addiction research and fail people who need help. Drawing on her expertise as an academic philosopher and her clinical work in a therapeutic community, Pickard explores the meaning of drugs for people with addiction and the diverse factors that keep them using despite the costs. People use drugs to cope with suffering—but also to self-harm, or even to die. Some identify as “addicts," while others are in denial or struggle with cravings and self-control. Social, cultural, and economic circumstances are crucial to explaining addiction—but brain pathology may also matter. By integrating addiction science with philosophy, clinical practice, and the psychology and voices of people with addiction themselves, Pickard shows why there is no one-size-fits-all theory or ethics of addiction. The result is a heterogeneous and humanistic paradigm for understanding and treating addiction, and a fresh way of thinking about responsibility, blame, and relationships with people who use drugs. 352 pages.

April RET Book Club (04/11/2027)

Sun, 11 Apr 2027 20:00:00 GMT

American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn’s Dark Journey

by Kai Bird and Susan Goldmark

From the 1950s to the 1980s, the many dramas of American political life had one common denominator: Roy Cohn. In his twenties, the infamous young prosecutor sent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to the electric chair, and as the chief aide to Senator Joe McCarthy became the baby-faced symbol of ruthless communist-hunting. By his thirties, Cohn had begun working as the Mafia’s hired legal gun. In his forties, he was an informal adviser to Richard Nixon. In his fifties, he partied with the glitterati at Studio 54 and visited the Reagan White House where he traded gossip with the first lady. Perhaps most significant, Cohn mentored the young Donald Trump, who telephoned the older man daily and studiously emulated not only his mannerisms but core philosophies. Years after his death in 1986 from AIDS-related complications, Cohn emerged as a central figure in Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Angels in America. Cohn’s feistiness, his surly defiance—and, yes, his charm—were frequently flourished to conceal vast insecurities, particularly regarding his closeted sexuality. A street fighter, self-promoting hustler, and a true Zelig of the dark side, Cohn was a nefarious actor in a startling number of history-shaping events whose influence resonates to the present day.

June RET Book Club (06/13/2027)

Sun, 13 Jun 2027 20:00:00 GMT

Backtalker: An American Memoir

by Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw

One of the most influential public intellectuals in the world and the architect of the two biggest ideas to reshape the American conversation about fairness offers the intimate story of how her life gave birth to these ideas. It is not very often that someone comes along and permanently reshapes the way Americans think about two of the most important issues of the day. In this case: race and gender. But that is what Kimberlé Crenshaw did when she articulated two concepts that would forever change national and global debates about equality: intersectionality and critical race theory. Backtalker is the powerful and intimate story of how a little girl from Canton, Ohio, came up with a new way to look at the world. Crenshaw’s memoir traces the way her lived experience made her see things others didn’t as the daughter of a strong-minded teacher and a pathbreaking public servant, and as the sister of a protective, yet bullying older brother. She starts to talk back, and that backtalking has continued throughout her life. It happens when she is denied a role in the kindergarten school play. When she is escorted to the back door of a private club. When Anita Hill is exiled for testifying against Clarence Thomas. When OJ Simpson goes on trial. When Obama launches My Brother’s Keeper, a movement focused on boys of color only. When the movement against police violence overlooks Black women. Crenshaw is there for all of it. In the vein of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Bryan Stevenson, Crenshaw evokes each time and place like a gifted novelist with extreme honesty and specificity, making her book a series of awe-inspiring, deep revelations. As a result of her work, Crenshaw has become a force to be reckoned with across America—at schools, in the workplace, at dinner tables, and, of course, in our public square. 400 pages.