I had a dream

beinghuman · Visitor Joined: 25 Dec 2007 Posts: 12 Local time: 3:28 PM

Last night I had dream where there was new a restaurant in my home town that was dedicated to the intelligent debate. In my dream this restaurant was located in a quieter (and cheaper) corner of the city center, where there was room for a nice little garden or patio with a few tables and a small restaurant.

As I walked neared I saw that its name was “The Garden of Epicurus – The House of Debate”. I walked in and saw a computer in the lobby of the restaurant and there was an internet-page ready for all customers to use.

This page was the very own page of that restaurant where anybody could pronounce hers or his willingness to take part in the debate in this debaters restaurant. Every evening there were 5-6 timeslots available for a short burst of words or an essay that would be followed be general discussion, which everybody at the restaurant could take part in.

One could reserve a timeslot for his or hers own appearance and when booking the appearance the customer also were told to inform what they were going to talk about. These bookings could be made for weeks in advance; only limitation was that the length of the opening speech could not exceed 15 minutes.

The list of future appearances was of course available for anybody to see in real time in the internet, so that possible customers could call in the page when they wanted to know if any on interesting subject was coming up that night.

The real nice touch waited for me in the restaurant when the debating night started. In every table there was a red button for every customer. When the debate started one could press the red button, when the debate became too sophisticated, boring or silly.

When enough of the customers had pressed the red button, the turn changed and the next speaker got the podium. There was also another button, which put you in a queue for a response and gave you a queue-number. In the wall there was a sign that told which table had the next turn of response.

The tables were arranged so that the debate would be as easy as possible without rising ones voice or microphones.

In my dream this restaurant was owned by a co-operative whose owners were the workers of the restaurant and those customers who were interested in promoting this kind of intelligent debate.

Similar establishments had sprung everywhere in bigger towns with universities. The whole operation was a franchising-solution where a democratic conclave of the restaurant co-operatives made the broad decision of common marketing, suppliers and pricing.

In this peculiar dream this restaurant was the hotspot of local secular, rational, pro-science activity and the workers were mostly local activist and students. Also the owners of the co-operative came from the rationalist and humanist circles and the scientific community was heavily represented also.

This little restaurant was the place where the rationalist meetings were held and local activist got to know and bond with sameminded people.

My host explained that by day this place was a cafeteria and luncheon, where there was good and tasty locally produced food, which was not expensive and meant to be consumed in no hurry in good company.

There was also ethically produced meat available, but vegetarians were especially well taken care of. In true epicurean way there was however no discrimination based on the diet of the customer.

The Garden of Epicurus was also very popular as a place for arranging different kinds of Rites of Passage. It was a nice backdrop for a wedding or a small funeral without the religious settings.

In my dream I talked to the chief of the local "The Garden of Epicurus – The House of Debate" and she told me that the idea was based on the fact that people did not want to be mere consumers of readymade ideas and entertainment anymore.

They wanted their say and also their 15 minutes of limited local fame even if they were not stand-up comedians or singers, but people with ideas and commitments.

Years spent in Blogistan or Blogosphere had shown very many people that they themselves had new and worthwhile ideas and points of view in the matters of common interest.

Years spent in chats and online-debates had also taught people how to deal with situation where there was different and conflicting ideas floating around in the discussion. They were now ready to come out of the writing desk and present their ideas to living people and enjoy the live debate on their own pet ideas.

They already knew that debate with people thinking differently would be very important for them, as they would have by then noticed how more clearly responding to opposing views made you think on your own pet issue.

The red buttons were ensuring however that boring, offending, rude and idiotic speakers were quietly silenced out in an extremely democratic way without any referees to attack.

Feathers were not unneededly ruffled as there was no way to tell what was causing the end of your speaking turn. You could just think that the evil opposition to your pet ideas was present in force just that night and you were left with your dignity quite intact.

The leader of the local “The Garden of Epicurus – The House of Debate” co-operative told me that they kept very low profile to the outside world in the ideological issues as they did not want to be segregated as an atheist only place.

The rationalist crowd however was well aware of the ideological background and had found their way in. As there was no similar public stigma as in gay restaurants also non-rationalist friends could be brought along.

In the very ground rules there was stipulations that all the paid positions where particular skills were needed were to be filled only on merit. So the day-to-day running of the franchising-business was left for professionals and the accounting and marketing of restaurants were taken care of by professional staff.

The overall decision-making on the principles of the whole operation was however firmly on the hands of friends of rational debate.

My host told me that the name Epicurus was extremely well suited for this kind of business, as it is widely if a bit erroneously known as a symbol of enjoyment end good life. On the other hand those in the know would easily see the connection to the rationalist principles.

My host told me that these Epicurean restaurants were following in the footsteps of the veggie-restaurants of the 80s that were often born out of common ideology. Now the time was to move on and use this method to create working communities of rationalists, so that the rationalist viewpoint could be built up in the society.

But then I woke up...

ps. I have started a Facebook group dedicated to Epicurean thinking. Its name is "The Garden of Epicurus" and you can find it at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=11612624733

baddogma · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:

Wow....And I was impressed when I had a dream in color.
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aitm · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:

but.............was the food any good?

Nice idea, but it would be labeled a haven for anarchists, terrorists, secularists and all sorts of other "ists". It would be picketed by religious fundies who have the secret backing of the governments anti- anarchy,terro..etc unit, eventually being forced to shut down and taken over by Pat Robertsons campaign headquarters for a run at the presidential nomination for 2016.
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coloringzebras · Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 4:30 pm Post subject:

DID NOT READ

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