(FREE) Open Air Debater's Drop in Clinic - Speakers Corner, Hyde Park

Hi All! As part of my group, I am very interested in building skills around creating public dialogue about todays most pressing (and hilarious) issues facing our world today. As many of you may know, a beacon of Free Expression is located just round the corner in LONDON: Speakers Corner in Hyde Park.

Weather and conditions allowing, I will be hosting a Open-Air Debate stand where I will be debating with the public on some key points of interest (summarised below). You are Very welcome to come along, either as an active participant or simply an Intellectual Voyeur if you prefer.

The emphasis if this even is not so much what are are debating, but rather how to hold a good debate that serves those who seek to be informed, rather than to inform. The paradox and issue that arises with most political dialogue's and debates today, are that they are aimed at persuasion alone, the assumption is to teach not to learn. I would like to introduce the art of philosophy back into the British staple.

This is not to say that one cannot have passion in a belief - but is does reframe passion to suggest that our biggest lessons lie in the opinions and perspectives that challenge our own. Our passion to be to expand our most precious beliefs, not simply to hold them.

Format:
As such these session will be a mix of suggesting my own prompts for things that are of interest to me; and ill be floating for some of the session(s) to see what others are saying too.

Open. I will have a series of debate prompts, which members of the public can choose to argue FOR OR AGAINST. For this first Week I have generated my own, but if there are any passionate members who would like to put a topic or debate question put forward - ask me on the day or submit a prompt suggestion to this group.

I am not Wikipedia so not all prompts will be accepted, but on topics that I feel I can offer some insight or learn from I will try my hardest to accommodate.

You can either come along and argue yourself or I will add it to the question list and notify members when the subject is chosen by someone with a link to the recording!

All interactions will be lived streamed and posted to my channel.
https://www.youtube.com/@Jestalittlefurther.

Scheduled Livestream will be here when available:

There are few conditions, other than to bear in mind and uphold the following "purpose of debate" and "philosophies of engagement".

PURPOSE OF DEBATE: To explore all and often conflicting perspectives, considerations and evidence; to learn, explore, analyse, and expand a common understanding of any topic, and potentially allow both or either side to arrive at a more informed conclusion.

Courageous Collaborator's Philosophies

• To Honour Our Self, through Spoken honesty despite fear; and honour the contribution and expression of others with consensus, query and debate.
• To Explore any ‘dialogue’ with the intention of discovery; uncovering common truths and exploring our differences with awe, good humour and accountability.
• To Endure against discomfort, fear, anger, frustration and upset, that would otherwise stop a good debate; and instead expose the Unknowns and the “Why’s” of disagreement.
• To Discover our truths through play, and with our newfound understanding, we accept and teach others; an endless cycle of discovery, learning and growth.

Look forward to seeing you/your suggestions there/online!

Ps. It will be a YouTube livestream - I will NOT be monitoring the comments live, UNLESS its a really slow day - in which case maybe we can play around with debating online. OTHERWISE, even though this will be streamed, it is NOT an online debate.

Pss. This is the first time I will be livestreaming anything, ever, so technical difficulties may arise. I will try to trouble shoot ahead of time - but please let me know if you witness any problems. If the livestream fails - I will try to get it up and running for future sessions.