Political Discussion

These fortnightly sessions are dedicated to the discussion and exploration of an idea that I, as the organiser, have planned. No prior reading or knowledge is required. For more information, please visit https://www.think-philosophy.group/about/

Join us for another evening at #WPLDN. This month, Louise Towler shares what AI actually looks like inside a WordPress agency, day to day. We'll follow that with a hosted, room-wide discussion on levelling up in WordPress, what the wider shift happening around us means for the work, and what it asks of us as a community. Two sessions, both grounded in the world WordPress competes in, rather than the world inside it. 📅 **Date:** Thursday, 30 April 2026 ⏰ **Time:** 6:00 PM BST 🎟️ **Cost:** Free (Registration Required) \-\-\- **Session 1: How we're integrating AI into our agency workflow** 🤝 **Speaker:** Louise Towler ([Indigo Tree](https://indigotree.co.uk)) Everyone's talking about AI transforming the way we work. But what does that actually look like inside a WordPress agency, day to day? Louise will share what Indigo Tree has been doing over the past year, integrating tools like Cursor, Sourcery, Claude, and Teamwork's MCP into real client work and reporting workflows. How they approached the change management, what genuinely saved time, what created more work than it solved, and what they're still figuring out. Louise is the Founder and Managing Director of Indigo Tree, a digital agency trusted by businesses and non-profits across the UK. With over 30 years of experience in software and website development, she leads a team of developers, designers, and digital marketers delivering high-performance WordPress websites, content strategy, and technical SEO. A regular conference speaker and recipient of a Women in Innovation Award, Louise is passionate about creating websites that are inclusive, fast, and sustainable. \-\-\- **Session 2: Levelling up in WordPress, a hosted discussion** 🤝 **Host:** Dan Maby The world WordPress operates in is shifting quickly. Clients expect more. Competition is sharper. AI is reshaping the work, the pricing, and what people are willing to pay for. "Good enough" isn't what it used to be, and the bar for working professionally in WordPress is moving up, whether we like it or not. So what does that mean for us? What does levelling up actually look like for agencies, freelancers, product builders, and everyone in between? And what does it mean for WPLDN, a community that has, if we're honest, often looked inward at the tool rather than outward at the world WordPress competes in? If the ground is moving, the conversations we have when we come together probably need to move with it. A hosted, room-wide conversation about the wider shift and what it asks of us, both professionally and as a community. Less about the tool, more about the work, the market, and what we want from the room we're standing in. Bring an opinion! \-\-\- **Schedule:** 🔹 **6:00 PM** – Doors Open & Networking 🔹 **6:30 PM** – Welcome & Session 1: Louise Towler 🔹 **7:30 PM** – Short Break & Networking 🔹 **7:45 PM** – Session 2: Discussion Hosted by Dan Maby 🔹 **8:30 PM** – Social & Wrap-Up \-\-\- **📢 RSVP Now!** Whether you're deep in AI tooling or still working out where it fits, whether you've been in WordPress for fifteen years or fifteen months, there's something here for you. Free pizza, excellent company, and post-event socials at a local bar afterwards. We'll see you there! 🎉 \-\-\- **Venue Information** **The Bridge** is a charity supporting women to make positive choices and encouraging improvements to fitness, health, and wellbeing. The venue features a plant-based café (supplied by Girls Who Grind Coffee) and is just a 5-minute walk from London Bridge Station. \-\-\- **Massive thanks to our sponsors who make these free events possible:** [DreamHost](https://www.dreamhost.com/partners/wpldn/), [PodcasterPlus](https://www.podcasterplus.com/?utm_source=wpldn&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=partnership), [Mollie](https://www.mollie.com/gb/integrations/woocommerce), and [Kinsta](https://kinsta.com/) \-\-\- If you're interested in being a featured speaker at an upcoming event, we'd love to hear from you at [https://wpldn.uk/speak](https://wpldn.uk/speak). **🎥 - Media Release Terms** By attending, you understand and accept that portions of the event may have audio/photo/video-recorded and/or live-streamed and may be used by the organisers. You agree that the organisers have the right and permission to use and publish such media for any purpose in any format, including online and offline, now and ever after, without further compensation, permission, or notification. You understand that all official recordings from the event are the exclusive property of the organisers, available under the Creative Commons Attribution­ShareAlike license for general use, and you do not ask for nor expect compensation or notification of the use of official recordings or photographs in which you appear or speak. Please inform an organisational team member at the event's start if you do not wish to appear in photos or videos.

April's book: Anywhere but Here: How Britain's Broken Asylum System Fails us All by Nicola Kelly **What is it like to arrive on our shores with nothing and be pushed to the margins of society?** **Who stands to gain from an asylum system that is intentionally hostile?** *Anywhere But Here* is a powerful exposé of Britain’s broken asylum system and how it fails us all. Each year tens of thousands of people risk their lives to cross the Channel in small boats hoping to find safety in Britain. Yet the very system designed to protect them has all but collapsed. With unique and unparalleled access, award-winning journalist and former Home Office insider Nicola Kelly takes us behind the scenes of the small boats crisis for the first time. We follow the under-resourced coastguard overseeing search and rescue operations in the Channel. The decision-makers hired from McDonald’s and Aldi to conduct ‘life and death’ asylum interviews. The immigration barristers securing last-minute reprieves for deportees who narrowly escaped death. And we step inside the Home Office corridors as ministers and advisors respond to emerging crises and scandals, from Windrush to the Rwanda plan. At its heart are the stories of war-torn arrivals, lone teenagers and trafficked women attempting to settle in cities, towns and villages across the UK. We travel to meet them, exploring where they have fled from and why, and the response of local communities to their new neighbours. **Situated on the beaches and the ports, in the hotels, the courtrooms and the detention centres where the futures of those affected unfold, this is a searing investigation into one of the most urgent issues and shocking injustices of our time.** The meeting starts at 7:30. After starting the group, we will break up into small groups. Those familiar with the CLH Book Group meeting know how this works: in each group we take turns introducing ourselves and giving our 1 minute thoughts on the book. It's important not to go over a minute and not to interrupt other people's minute so that everyone gets a chance to participate. After this first round, each group discusses for another 20 minutes or so. We then shuffle the groups so as to talk to as many different people as possible and in the new groups repeat our introductions and 1 minute thoughts. We'll do this a couple of times before coming all together at the end in one last big group. While we are very social and welcoming, the book group's primary focus is on discussing books. Feel free to turn up if you haven't managed to finish this month's book but note that the group works best when we have all read at least half of the book and are prepared to share our opinions. *** £3 per person to attend. If it's your first time, come and try us out for free! If you prefer, you can [pay online, by clicking here](https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=ZWCNRJ25BDL96). We encourage dialogue, debate and sharing of information on our site but ask people to keep their comments cordial. Any views expressed here are those of the individual posting them and may not reflect those of CLH.

Дорогие друзья! Я приглашаю вас на встречу для практики русского языка как иностранного 🎉 📍 Где: Southbank Centre 🕖 Когда: каждый четверг в 19:00 💷 Стоимость участия: £5 В отличие от нашей традиционной встречи в пабе, это занятие будет более структурированным: • вы получите раздаточные материалы (handouts); • мы будем обсуждать интересные темы, делиться мнениями, дебатировать и играть — всё на русском! 🇷🇺 Эта встреча идеально подойдёт для тех, кто владеет русским языком на среднем уровне и выше, и хочет улучшить разговорные навыки в живом и увлекательном формате. Приходите — будет весело, полезно и по-русски! 😊

Join the Prime Time Over 50s Social Group for a chilled out evening Following the success of our previous events, like the lively gathering at Oxford Circus, we would like to invite you to an evening that is perfect for mingling with like-minded individuals and making new friends and social connections. As you are aware this is a wetherspoons, so prices will be very reasonable

This month we have a fantastic session hosted by James Birnie, Director of Strategic Consultancy at **[Forrow](https://forrow.uk/)** where he will talk about how to get post quantum ready. In this talk James will discuss why all the world's encryption will break, why a lot of your data is leaking right now, what you need to do now and what you will need to do in the near future. **About James Birnie** James Birnie has worked in software delivery since the 1990s, when TDD was something you studied but never did, "agile" and "lean" were words used to describe athletes, and Pipelines were for carrying oil. James worked in a successful startup for 10 years before he became a consultant (and an ex software engineer) at, first, Thoughtworks and then Codurance. After time as Head of Platform at Currencycloud and VP of Engineering at IMMO Capital, James returned to consultancy and is currently Director of Strategic Consultancy at Forrow. He mainly spends his time trying to keep organisations secure against current and future threats, including the immediate threat of Harvest Now Decrypt Later attacks. **Food and Drinks** Pizza and drinks will be provided upon arrival sponsored by **[Codurance](https://www.codurance.com/),** with vegetarian and vegan options available.

Where are we now? Contemporary capitalism with its most extreme expression sometimes defined as "techno-feudalism" sees a concentration of power within massive digital platforms, resulting in extreme inequity and the erosion of democracy. What can we do about it? To counteract this extreme centralisation of wealth and power “Techno-Collectivism” is a governance model which integrates libertarian socialist principles with modern technology to manage digital infrastructure. It aims to counteract the systemic failures of neoliberal capitalism while avoiding the authoritarian pitfalls associated with historical socialist regimes. See article… [Link](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/395850712_Techno-Collectivism_Scaling_Libertarian_Socialist_Governance_of_Digital_Infrastructure) Historical and Political Context… This article clarifies the distinctions between socialism, capitalism, and libertarianism, noting how "libertarianism" has been ideologically captured by right-wing market interests. It advocates returning to the original egalitarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-authoritarian roots of libertarian socialism. The framework is built upon three ethical principles: needs-based distributive justice, which prioritizes human care over profit; communal ownership, which grants control to those who use the resources; and citizen control, which ensures genuine and meaningful participation. How? Technological Implementation Tools To scale up these principles, open-source AI could be used for transparent resource planning as well as decentralized ownership and decision-making, decentralized social media platforms to facilitate federated, autonomous communities. Universities as Experimental Testbeds The authors propose universities as the ideal environments to pilot these sociotechnical experiments. By utilizing their existing intellectual capital and relative autonomy, academic institutions can lead the shift toward post-capitalist, anti-authoritarian governance models.

Philosophy in the Park is a philosophical discussion group. Open to all. No previous philosophical experience necessary. We will meet outside St Giles Cripplegate. Here's how it works: * At the start of each hour vote on which questions to discuss. You can vote for more than one question if you'd like. The questions with the most votes are the questions we discuss. * We then break up into groups and each group does a different question. The question is just a starting point and it's cool if you go on tangents and up end talking about different things. You're welcome to join in and participate or if you'd prefer you're welcome to sit back and enjoy the conversation. After an hour we all come back together, take a quick break and then repeat all over again. So in 3 hours we go around 3 times. The aim is to have fun, meet new people, generate interesting and thought-provoking conversations, have your horizons expanded, challenge your preconceptions and who knows - you might even learn something? In order to make the conversations as fun, interesting and productive for everyone as possible please follow these simple guidelines: 1. Keep it Philosophical (No Science, no History, no Evolutionary Psychology, no contestable facts, personal anecdotes etc). 2. Think for Yourself (No phones, no looking up definitions, no name dropping Philosophers / books you've read). 3. Tangents are Cool (Don't worry too much if the subject drifts and you don't answer the question). 4. Keep it Succinct (Like this). 5. Be Excellent to Each Other (But of course). Philosophy is about conceptual analysis. It's thinking about thinking. It's not about empiricism or the real world. It's about abstractions, concepts and ideas. To terms of the right attitude: It's not about debating and trying to win - it's about listening to people and working collaboratively to increase our collective understanding. No homework or prior knowledge or reading is necessary - simply come and enjoy the discussions. After the event finishes we have an area reserved in The Shakespeare pub which is just around the corner from the Barbican. You are very welcome to join us if you'd like. If you would like to submit a question please join the Whatsapp group. Question submissions take place on the Thursday before the meeting. We hope to see you there. Nice one. ... To join the Philosophy in the Park WhatsApp Group please click here: [https://chat.whatsapp.com/CdFaxJHbeOw9UOfuk7spiK](https://chat.whatsapp.com/CdFaxJHbeOw9UOfuk7spiK) (in order to stop spam bots this will take you to a Waiting Room. Once in please write your name and we will join you to the main chat). If the link doesn't work then please send me a message with your phone number and I can add you directly. Meetup charges subscription fees. If you would like to make a donation please click here: [https://paypal.me/philosophycollective](https://paypal.me/philosophycollective)

We love a good chat. Come and join us at Table 45

**THE NEXT CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF CYPHERMUNK HOUSE** For two years we have been teaching all who have passed through our doors the benefits of open-source technology and the security of sound money. That journey has rapidly expanded into the understanding and philosophies of sound body and mind. Get involved with Cyphermunk House as we launch the next stage of our membership programme and announce our future schedule. Plus live music from didge player, Pepe! [TICKETS HERE](https://btcpay.btc.aw/apps/rvvVwGSSSiJ7UgtzjmBdxy1Uq6a/pos) Promotional activities related to shitcoins not permitted. No unsolicited photograhy. Peace and love.

In this event, we will discuss about a science or philosophy book chosen by London Science and Philosophy Book Club. The attendees will be divided into groups and each of them will focus on a chapter in the book. This month we will discuss about a fascinating book called Heartwarming by Hans Rocha Ijzerman. If you haven't read the book, it's no problem. I will bring you up to speed with the discussion materials. We will meet in a nice lounge area at 6 p.m for introductions. Please come on time so you will not miss out on valuable discussion midway. If you end up in the waitlist, feel free to show up. Book Description: A hot cup of tea, coffee, or cocoa is calming and comforting but how can holding a warm mug affect our emotions? In Heartwarming, social psychologist Hans Rocha IJzerman explores temperature through the long lens of evolution. Besides breathing, regulating body temperature is one of the most fundamental tasks for any animal. Like huddling penguins, we humans have long relied on one another to maintain our temperatures; over millennia, this instinct for thermoregulation has shaped our lives and culture. Temperature contributed to our evolution our upright walking, our loss of fur, and our big brains and now continues to affect our lives in unexpected ways, and the link from a warm mug to our emotions is anything but straightforward. Studies have shown, for example, that a chilly deliberation room can predispose a jury to convict and that a cold day can make us more likely to buy a house. Our mind-body connection works the other way, too: thinking about friendly or caring people can make us feel warmer. Understanding how we subconsciously strive to keep our temperature in an optimal range can help us in our relationships, jobs, and even in the world of social media. As IJzerman illuminates how temperature affects human sociality, he examines fascinating new questions: How will climate change impact society? Why are some people chronically cold, and others overheated? Can thermoregulation keep relationships closer, even across a distance? The answers offer new insights for all of us who want to better understand our bodies, our minds, and each other. Heartwarming takes readers on an engaging journey through the world, seen from the perspectives of coldness and warmth. Agenda: 6 p.m to 6:30 p.m: Introduction and Socializing 6:30 p.m to 9:30 p.m: Book Discussion 9:30 p.m to late night: Drinks, Dinner or Feel free to go home.

When judging morality, should we prioritize **intentions/duty** or **outcomes/results**? It introduces two influential philosophers as representatives of these approaches. * **Immanuel Kant (deontology):** An action is moral when it is done from **duty** and follows rational, universal principles (the **categorical imperative**). Certain acts—like lying—are wrong regardless of the consequences; you can’t do a wrong thing for a right reason. * **John Stuart Mill (utilitarian consequentialism):** The morality of an action is determined by its **effects**, specifically how much **happiness/well-being** it produces. Mill argues that some pleasures are “higher” than others, and that good intentions don’t redeem harmful outcomes. ## Discussion Questions 1. **The lying dilemma:** A murderer comes to your door and asks if your friend is hiding inside. Kant would say you must not lie. 2. **Can good intentions rescue a bad outcome?** 3. **The organ harvest problem:** A surgeon has five patients dying of organ failure and one healthy patient in for a checkup. Killing the one to harvest organs would save five lives, and the math works out for the utilitarian. Why does this feel so deeply wrong? Is that feeling a point in Kant's favor, or just a bias we should overcome? 4. **Do rules need exceptions?** Kant insists moral rules must be universal, with no exceptions. But most of us can imagine extreme scenarios where any rule seems like it should bend. Does the need for exceptions fatally undermine deontology, or is the strength of the system precisely that it refuses to bend? 5. **Who gets to calculate the consequences?** Utilitarianism asks us to maximize good outcomes, but we're notoriously bad at predicting consequences. If we can't reliably know the results of our actions, is it practical to base our entire moral system on outcomes? Does this uncertainty push us back toward rules and principles? 6. **Everyday morality:** Think about a real moral decision you've made recently, even a small one. Did you reason more like a Kantian (what's the right thing to do in principle?) or more like a utilitarian (what will produce the best result?)? Do most people naturally lean one way? 7. **Justice vs. the greater good:** A town can prevent a deadly plague by sacrificing one innocent person. The greater good is clearly served. But is it just? Can an action be morally right and deeply unjust at the same time? 8. **The big synthesis question:** Are these two systems actually opposed, or do they often arrive at the same answers by different paths? Is it possible that we need both: rules to guide us in the moment and consequences to evaluate systems and policies over time?

We may pick a specific topic and post in advance or may discuss current events and various ad hoc topics . We would love to spend time hanging out and getting to know one another. Atheist, agnostics, other non-theists, and atheist-friendly people are welcome to join us. Note: COUNT operates a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/groups/COUNT.discussions (http://www.facebook.com/groups/COUNT.discussions/) to promote discussions among members and visitors.

Let’s meet, wander the exhibits and open galleries, and enjoy an evening out in the Franklinton Arts District. (Nearby pay parking is available in the garage on McDowell, right around the corner from One Line Coffee, and, past it along the curb as McDowell dead ends.)

It feels like we just saw each other 🤷. Join members of the local design and UX community for our monthly breakfast. For May we’re stopping in for Rooh’s popup breakfast/cafe concept. You know someone is getting the lobster yuzu croissant, and that’s not even the prettiest thing on the menu!.

Details Let's join together for a fiesta! (Invite friends - we have lots of room!) Taco Bar Margarita and Beer tasting Complementary chips and salsa Margs/cocktails at the bar for purchase Freshly prepared snacks in the deli for purchase Festive Band/Music Margaritas/Mexican Beer Tasting + Taco Bar: $15.00 per person (covers 4 Margarita or beer samples and one pass thru the Taco Bar) Where: #MarketDistrict (Grandview Yard) location. The party room (our private space) will be decorated with both patios open! Adjoining upstairs area also open for over flow and mingling. After Party: Sometimes, we head to a venue to hear live music afterwards. LDNL is at Black Swan in Hilliard tonight! Wear your bright colors and cheerful !Salud!

Let's grab some coffee/food and share a morning chat! The East Market has an ample parking lot and outdoor and indoor seating. Grab a cup of coffee from Winston's Coffee & Waffles or on your way to East Market and meet us on the second floor - table behind or east of the elevator. Per what this group is about: "Everyone is welcome! International transplants to Columbus who want to improve language skills, Columbus residents who enjoy talking to people from other countries, and those who would like to discuss international travel and culture, and who enjoy getting together for good conversations."