Hi all,

We have a focused discussion meetup coming up, detailed below. I also want to share some personal news- we (Nathaniel and Bodhi) are moving in two weeks. We would really love to get to see you all at this meet-up! It’s not easy to find community as an adult, and this group was a lovely space to be a small part of.

With warmth,

Bodhi and Nathaniel

ACX DC/NOLA Discussion Meetup - Democracy's Voice in Publishing

• Friday, August 25th, gathering about 5:30, discussion starting at 6:15PM

• Teaism Penn Quarter

  • 400 8th St NW, Washington, DC 20004 https://goo.gl/maps/1rYNQFibi66fs2U89

  • Website: https://www.teaism.com/restaurants/penn-quarter/

• Facebook Event for discussion:
  https://www.facebook.com/events/1414713286056199
  (RSVPs are helpful for head-count but not necessary)

We're hosting a joint event with Blake Bertuccelli-Booth of the New Orleans chapter, themed around the Wordpress Conference next weekend.

Scott Alexander recently blogged about how Bad Definitions Of "Democracy" And "Accountability" Shade Into Totalitarianism. That's obviously true in a sense, you can't be free if you're accountable to public opinion for every choice you make. But in another sense, we live in a society and the laws can't make rules for every situation.

90 years ago, Bertrand Russell gave his advice on the question: "One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways." But the judgement of public opinion in the future seems harder to predict than it was in 1930.

Writers face a particularly sharp aspect of this dilemma, selling words for money has always implicitly required some social license to operate, even in societies with mostly-free speech. Has the internet, led by WordPress and Substack, finally freed us from that constraint? Or did they only replace the monoculture's eyes with the sharper, less tolerant eyes of our individual subcultures?

Logistics: We're holding this at Teaism Penn Quarter, downtown at 8th and D, by the Archives Metro Station. Order upstairs, get your tea, then find us with a few tables pulled together in the downstairs space. No purchases are required, but we do encourage most attendees to get something to compensate for the space. Luckily the food and tea are very good; John recommends the bento boxes. For people who want to stick around for longer, it’s right by the Navy Memorial Plaza, we can move there to continue conversation.

Note the times, given the conference and venue constraints, we're going to start the discussion about 6:15. People will start gathering around 5:30, which should give us enough time to get settled in.