/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13389964]

Why aren't there any IRL forums where you can just go and find discussions on arbitrary topics in the same format as online forums, but IRL and in realtime?

[Anonymous No.13389990]

>>13389964
This is actually a really interesting topic. There’s a book called The Fall of Public Man, written by Richard Sennett. Within t he talks about the 17th and 18th centuries, where they had coffee shops as a means of gathering for the townsfolk. There the poor and rich would mingle about, talking on various subjects. Sennett goes in to explain how the separation of the rich from the poor in living quarters within cities diminished the interactions of people in public. This phenomena added with horses, carriages, buggies, etc further separated people in cities, causing less interaction and more isolation.

So in short, there used to be. But now since we are so far insulated with our own personal technology, the want and need for public gathering spaces has diminished incredibly.

[Anonymous No.13390032]

>>13389990
okay but that explanation fucking sucks

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.13390035]

>>13389990
I was going to say something of the sort. Thanks for the book, anon.

Dedicated friends still get together in public spaces, but those places are really hard to find in the US. All consumerist and uncomfortable. You’re supposed to get out of the way for the next customers. Or you’re in a college town cafe and you’re buried in your books.

[Anonymous No.13390039]

>>13389964
I've never been on it, but something on meetup, possibly? Some book clubs have better discussions but that can be very tricky and you're unlikely to find anything outside of certain cities/college towns.

[Anonymous No.13390047]

>>13390035
It's okay to admit you want my dick :3

[Anonymous No.13390083]

>>13389964
Google Hangouts was close before they axed it for spreading too much free thinking.

[Anonymous No.13390453]

>>13389990
>>13390035
>>13390039
>>13390083
Thanks for the good replies anons. If someone organized this do you think it would take off? I think it would need to be really positive and non-judgmental similar to a psychedelic concert setting to convince the socially isolated anxious scared people to come out and do this in real life.

[Anonymous No.13390464]

>>13389990
>The Fall of Public Man
Also I just bought this book, do you know of any other books on the topic which I could read to get an understanding of the issue and work towards some sort of activism group to encourage this 17th century IRL forum thing?

[Anonymous No.13390484]

>>13390453
In continuation, you kind of see this on college campuses when evolution deniers stand in the center of the campus with posters spreading their nonsense, then very often college students will engage with them and try to explain why their BS is wrong. This is actually the only IRL scenario I've ever encountered that seems similar, but unfortunately it was only initiated by crackpots. I feel that when people stand in public places trying to encourage discussion about topics, there's this connotation of crackpottery or political intentions. I want it to not be like this but instead be a truly open discussion where you don't doubt intentions and you go there and know that people truly want to discuss

[Anonymous No.13390493]

>>13390453
Your best chances are with college-aged people as they're the most willing to socialize outside of their comfort zone, but you'd also be able to find some older people, depending on where you are (where are you?). It's just really variable, and you'd need to put the word out in just the right places; aside from college papers/sites and the aforementioned meetup and other social sites, a facebook and other social media help, along with nextdoor (again, accounting for location).

I think it helps to have some specific ideas in mind with what you want to talk about but also have a place for online discussions as this can help bring people out of their shells and make them more willing to talk when they meet irl. I know you said "arbitrary ideas" but that just seems like it wouldn't work, it usually helps to have some direction (like books, philosophy, whatever). If your goal is to attract quiet, socially anxious people you might want to make specific note of that, it actually helps.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.13390511]

>>13390464
I’m hoping this book is of a similar theme, but the other titles of Richard Sennett sound great

[Anonymous No.13390523]

>>13390511
https://vocaroo.com/i/s0axKfyc4ck7

:3

[Anonymous No.13390566]

>>13390493
>>13390511
Thanks anons I will read these books

One idea I just had is that a sufficiently well-designed app could potentially "bootstrap" such a community into existence if its exist causes people who understands it goal to self-select into the network of people who propagate the existence of these open-idea communities. One worry I have is that they end up being pseudo-intellectual cesspools similar to YouTube comments. I then worry that this idea is just a shittier version of academia. But not everyone can get involved in academia. Not everyone has a high IQ or working drive. And yet they still should be involved in intellectual public life and there should be encouragement for them to at the very least come listen to ideas which are well-categorized and filtered for unsavory political intentions and propaganda. I don't know how to do this, all I know is that I am unsatisfied with the current scenario of public discourse, in every area of life from my family, to the schools I went to, to the place I work, to the world as a whole. The internet is the only place I've ever found that meets this ideal, but I do NOT want us to become dependent upon it. As such, a real life network like this needs to be created, and if there can be a tunnel from the internet to this network, a pathway for bootstrapping this real life network into the existence where the openness and inclusivity of the internet could be preserved, that would be beautiful. At the same time. I want to avoid it becoming a reflection of other aspects of the internet, like YouTube comment sections and /pol/

[Anonymous No.13390598]

>>13390566
Your goal seems extremely difficult. Unfortunately you need to have a specific topic/topics to address or else most people likely just wouldn't come to any meetings or if they did, at best, it would be a lot of men hoping to meet a women or crazies. Ending up with a pseudo-intellectual cesspool would actually be one of the better case scenarios since a lot of people use these types of social groups/occasions to just socialize without discussing anything serious, and this is even true on college campuses where people are more likely to want to discuss things, it gets even worse with non-students. Again though, this will vary according to location.

I have to think a good option would be to start a local "discussion" group online and then move it over to regular irl meetings. Unfortunately, I can't see any practical way you'd get out of using and even depending on the internet, unless you get extremely lucky and even then I wouldn't have terribly high hopes for the type of people you'd attract.

Aside from the aforementioned ways of reaching people, your public library might be a good place to meet and advertise, they let you use rooms for these types of groups and it would be a good place to discuss more intellectual things, plus there is internet and there's nothing forcing people to buy anything (making it preferable to cafes and the like).