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Comment by diggan | Hacker News Reader

We need a reintroduction of small scale, local coffeehouses as a meeting point for strangers and neighbors to discuss topical subjects:

> In 17th- and 18th-century England, coffeehouses served as public social places where men would meet for conversation and commerce. For the price of a penny, customers purchased a cup of coffee and admission.

> "places where people gathered to drink coffee, learn the news of the day, and perhaps to meet with other local residents and discuss matters of mutual concern."

> The absence of alcohol created an atmosphere in which it was possible to engage in more serious conversation than in an alehouse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_coffeehouses_in_the_17...

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I think you're implying there is a supply problem but I think it's a demand problem. I could go to a cafe right now. But when I get there, there's going to be mainly (1) people waiting for orders to go (2) people working on laptops and (3) if it's Sunday morning, just maybe a group of old folks chatting. None of those groups (except maybe the last) would react well to someone sitting down next to them and saying, "hey, so I read about X, what do you think?" It's too bad, but I don't see how we could bring that back. I don't think anyone wants to listen and talk and be challenged, they'd rather be affirmed, literally rather listen to a podcast on the same topic than to discuss anything. I don't know how to invigorate a culture of debate and deliberation except by normalizing it among schoolchildren.

I disagree that people only want to be affirmed -- people are constantly getting into debates and arguments on the internet

Not to change their mind though

In my personal experience, most of them do so precisely to be affirmed, not to have their minds changed. Because what are upvotes, if not affirmation? Even better if you manage to convince the other person, but that's entirely optional.

> I don't know how to invigorate a culture of debate and deliberation except by normalizing it among schoolchildren.

I have heard that many children in the US are being trained as political activists, instead of being trained to think critically and speak/write articulately. Is that true?

New York City public schools has the 'Thurgood Marshall Academy for Learning & Social Change' (grade 6 through grade 12) and 'Cornerstone Academy for Social Action' (pre-kindergarten through grade 5).

I don't like coffee.

Either way though, in my neck of the woods this is already a thing for those who care to do it. I used to go to a pub weekly and got to know a lot of the other regulars. I enjoyed meeting new people and getting some diversity of perspectives. There are lots of clubs in the area to meet people. I'm involved in historical and amateur radio clubs. The neighborhood association where I live puts on a lot of events for an excuse to meet the neighbors. I see people hanging out at public parks nearby all the time.

The thing I've noticed though is its harder to get many people 18-30 to actually partake in these things. From my own experiences, is not that the opportunities are not there, it just seems like those people aren't bothering to come. So normally I'm one of the few 30-something hanging out with a bunch of 40+ people. Meanwhile friends my age are only interested in hanging out at a friend's house and interacting with the people they already know. Even when they do go out to a bar, they're rarely interested in actually talking to someone new.

The coffee shops are there. Pubs are there. Public spaces still exist. There are loads of social clubs to be a part of. It just seems like these upcoming generations (mine included) don't care to be a part of it for some reason.

Bowling Alone.

Getting out and just listening and talking, in person, with people across political and religious spectrums is enough to quell the "us vs them" feeling, at least in my experience. We have so much more in common than our emotions tell us otherwise.

And the vast majority of people in any camp aren't crazy wingnuts. We just hear the crazies more frequently since (a) crazy people tend to be a lot more vocal, (b) people in power have more voice, and (c) concentrated power and/or wealth often tends to subtly (or not so subtly) corrupt people.

Getting out and talking in person diffuses so much of the tension that tends to build from reading websites with vocal, somewhat-crazy people (e.g. reddit and many news platforms).

> concentrated power and/or wealth often tends to subtly (or not so subtly) corrupt people.

I wonder if one reason for that is that power and wealth tend to minimize the negative feedback people experience from mistakes. People seem to drift towards craziness more when there's no "ground truth" to provide immediate negative feedback when you do something wrong -- like compilers yelling at you, or the needs of plants/animals for farmers, or gravity and friction for rock climbers. Living and working daily close to these kinds of constraints seems to keep us sane and humble like nothing else.

Healthy communities also naturally provide at lot of good, hard constraints. The social consequences from being a bad actor can be incredibly motivating to think and live decently (unless you're really rich, unfortunately).

NB: I don't think the negative character effects from wealth are a good argument against capitalism or property ownership. But it does reinforce that we need democratic governments with elected officials who faithfully represent the common people's interests.

"I went to my second Braver Angels meeting yesterday and enjoyed it even more than the first. At the start, the moderator had us go around the room and tell our names, whether we were red or blue or some other color, and whether anything at a previous meeting or previous meetings had affected our views."

https://www.econlib.org/the-good-old-days/

https://braverangels.org/

That's what generally referred to as a Third Place. Place One and Two being home and work.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place

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