​Join us for our first-ever Jeffersonian-style brunch — an intimate, structured conversation exploring how the technologies we build are reshaping human cognition, society, and our capacity for societal resilience.

​Our esteemed speakers? YOU!

​PLEASE NOTE: Space is VERY limited at this location. If you cannot make it or your plans change, please RSVP in the negative so someone else can take your spot.

​The Format

​Following Thomas Jefferson's tradition of dining-table discourse, we'll gather over brunch for focused dialogue around a single conjecture:

​The digital artifacts we create (products, systems, interfaces) enable certain politics (power, agency, and participation) while foreclosing others.

​There is only one pre-read: Langdon Winner's seminal essay, "Do Artifacts Have Politics?"

​Each participant will have time to share their perspective, followed by facilitated dialogue. No presentations. No panels. Just timely questions.

​Topics We'll Explore

​The Shaping Cycle: If we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us, how is our current stack — social media, LLMs, recommendation systems — reshaping human cognition, behavior, and society? How do we want them to be shaped, and therefore, how should we shape our tools?

​The Causal Chain: Both social media and LLMs are cognitive technologies that make us either more or less resilient to emergent threats. What's the causal relationship between system design → the politics it shapes → its downstream externalities → the unanticipated threats it enables → the societal or technological response it requires — and where does that causal chain break down?

​Cognitive Consent: What do we need today to secure our cognitive consent — our duty as citizens to think clearly and choose freely? What interventions, policies, or designs could enhance rather than undermine human cognitive agency?

​​Arrivals

​Unlike the usual tech meetup, this will be a closed-container event, so please plan to arrive on time. This enables guests to "land" together and enjoy a shared conversational experience.

​Why This Matters Now

​We're at an inflection point where the systems we're building may fundamentally alter our capacity for clear thinking, meaningful choice, and collective resilience. This conversation isn't theoretical. It's about what we do next.

​See you there, and keep it tethical in the meantime!

​- Anastasia, Ross, Zoe

​Tethics & Chill is a private, off-the-record, invite-only discourse club for founders, funders, and operators building technologies for human agency that began in Anastasia's living room in 2022 and now hosts salons in Austin, NYC, and SF.

​This Tethics & Chill is offered in partnership with Halcyon Futures and ex/ante.