I attended a meeting with a local Taiwanese discussion group the other day. We watched a documentary on the life of three rice farmers in Tainan, Taiwan. This was followed with a discussion on the economic factors leading to the extinction of the occupation in Taiwan. These came up - ideas of economic comparative advantage, realities of sociopolitical structure, and philosophies behind robust personal happiness. It was a good discussion.
People are evidently willing to get together to talk about important issues. In fact, a few hours of dedicated time is easier to get than trying to get people to write to a forum with their ideas. Talking is easier than writing.
The transient nature of the discussion is regrettable though. I’m working on a format for generating web-publishable content from these very meaningful discussions.