> It's talked about as being a place where relative strangers socialised and had substantive conversations on politics and philosophy that changed the history o

> It's talked about as being a place where relative strangers socialised and had substantive conversations on politics and philosophy that changed the history of ideas whereas today they are places to be "alone together". These days, I think that sort of environment exists in some of the "third places": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place