Human Nature & Civilization Forum Society Inc.
A forum society in Queens for the argument that never finishes: what we are, and what we keep building on top of it. Public sessions, two opposed positions, and a room that talks back.
Every civilization is a wager
about human nature.
Laws, cities, markets, faiths, schools — each one is built on a claim about what people are like when nobody is watching. Get the claim wrong and the institution fails slowly, in ways that take a generation to read.
This society exists to argue about those claims in public, with people who disagree, in a room where nobody is selling anything. Not a lecture series with a lectern and a Q&A tacked on the end. A forum: two positions, then the floor.
It is based in Flushing, Queens — a square mile that has been running the experiment on its own for a century.
What we are
The stubborn parts. Instinct, kinship, aggression, care — the inheritance that no institution gets to vote on.
What we build
Cities, laws, markets, faiths. The machinery a species invents to live at a scale it was never fitted for.
Where the two collide
Every civilization is a wager about human nature. This is the argument about which wagers are still paying out.
Four movements, one evening.
Sessions are built so that the people who came do most of the talking. The proposal below is the house format we have drafted for the society's review.
- Before01
A short reading, sent in advance
Every session is anchored to one text short enough to finish on a subway ride. Nobody arrives having to pretend they read it.
- Opening02
Two positions, twelve minutes each
Two speakers put the strongest version of opposing readings on the table. No slides, no lectern, no prepared rebuttal.
- Floor03
The room takes over
The bulk of the evening belongs to the people who came. The chair's only job is to keep the argument honest and moving.
- After04
The record
What the room actually concluded — including what it failed to settle — is written down and published here.
Not yet adopted. The society has published no format of its own, and this proposal carries no authority until it does.
Nothing is scheduled yet.
The first session has not been called.
The society was chartered on April 30, 2026 and is still assembling the people who will run it. There is no back catalogue to browse and we are not going to pretend there is.
Put your name down and you will hear about the first evening before it is announced anywhere else — which, given the society currently has no accounts on any platform, is not a difficult promise to keep.
Everything we can prove, in one place.
A charitable organization asking for your evening owes you a way to check that it is real. This is the whole of the public record as it stands.
And what we cannot prove, we say so. The society has filed exactly one document in its life. It has no officers on public record, no published purpose clause, no programs behind it and no press.
The society's purpose clause is on file with the State of New York and has not yet been published here.
Leadership has not yet been announced.
Those gaps close as the society fills them in — not before.
Nothing has been decided yet.
Which is the best possible reason to turn up early. The founding room sets the questions, the format, and the standard of argument everyone after them inherits.