Sofia Panasiuk

We don't reward name or concept dropping, we don't make people feel bad if they don't express themselves cogently, and we encourage people who have a disagreement to talk it out later so that we can hear from more people who want to contribute something to the discussion.

Here are specific ways we go about this: 

At the beginning of each cafe, we go through some house rules. One of them is not to name or concept drop without saying why that person is relevant to the current discussion or defining your terms. We even came up with a silly little gesture (**jazz hands**) to normalize asking people to define their terms. We've found... (read 400 more words →)

As one of the organizers of the philosophy group being discussed (Being and Becoming for reference) I read this post and comment section with great interest. We've been hosting these meetups every two weeks for 2+ years so it's about time we get a heavyweight critique. First, I feel really terrible that you felt this terrible after an event I had a hand in organizing. Seriously. I sincerely hope you haven't given up on the idea that 'common folk' can reason well, value holding true beliefs, and are deserving of admiration for attempting to understand themselves and the world better, even if they get there by different means than you do. 

I don't... (read 660 more words →)