THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS

ST PANCRAS

REGENERATION

1 PHILOSOPHICAL FARMERS

Stephanie has been a farmer for over 20 years. Before that, she helped her dad on the farm. Farming is second nature to her.

Recently, Stephanie received an invitation to a ‘farming conference’.

The invitation sat on the kitchen top for a few days until Stephanie put it in the bin. Her teenage son, Ivan, saw this and said:

Ivan:

“Hey, I thought you were going to go to that.”

Stephanie:

“No, it’s not my kind of thing.”

Ivan:

“Why not?”

Stephanie:

“Because I know everything I need to know about farming. The farm works well enough. I don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken.”

Ivan:

“Yeah, but what if it could work better. There might be stuff out there that you don’t know about.”

Stephanie:

“Perhaps, but humans also love to re-invent the wheel and even more than that, they love to spend a lot of time talking about reinventing the wheel. It will probably be a waste of time.”

Ivan fishes the invitation out of the bin and looks at it.

Ivan:

“It’s only half a day. I think we should go together.”

Stephanie reluctantly concedes. She thinks: ‘It’s not a huge commitment and it would be nice to spend the time with Ivan.’

At the conference, Stephanie and Ivan watch the keynote presentation by a wizened old man called Paul and his grandaughter, Sylvie. The presenters describes two types of farming and the philosophies behind them:

“The Philosophy of Regenerative Farming: Co-creation

Regenerative farming views the earth as a living, self-healing organism and positions the human farmer as its caretaker, collaborator, and partner. It shifts the goal from "What can we take from this land?" to "How can we help this ecosystem flourish?" Success is measured not just by the volume of food harvested, but by how much life, vitality, and resilience are left behind in the soil for future generations.

The Philosophy of Extractive Farming: Domination

Extractive farming views the earth as a passive, empty machine or factory floor, where soil is merely a structural medium to hold plants upright. It operates on a philosophy of control and domination, treating nature as an adversary to be conquered, sanitised, and forced into predictable uniformity using technological and chemical inputs. Success is measured strictly by short-term efficiency, speed, and maximizing immediate economic return above all else.” (Open AI, 2026)

After the keynote speech, Stephanie says to Ivan:

“I don’t have a philosophy of farming. I’ve just learned to do things as I’ve gone along.”

Ivan replies:

“You do, everyone has a philosophy underlying what they do, maybe you’ve never put it into words though.”

Stephanie says:

“I honestly don’t think I do. I just try to make the farm work as well as it can so that I can support our family.”

Ivan replies:

“Well that’s a philosophy. And to me it sounds more like an extractive philosophy. You want the farm to provide for our family. Do you care about the farm?”

Stephanie:

“Of course I care about the farm, if there’s no farm or the farm is in a bad state, we’re in trouble, but I don’t think farms need all that much looking after.”

Ivan:

“Well after that talk, I do! I think my farming philosophy is leaning more towards the regenerative one.”

Stephanie:

“I knew we shouldn’t have come here, all this philosophy stuff is going to come between us.”

Ivan:

“Maybe, or maybe it will just raise questions for us to talk about, we can get to understand each other better and avoid disagreements in the future.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

How do you think this conversation about farming philosophy will affect Stephanie and Ivan in the long run?
Do you agree with Ivan that everyone has a philosophy underlying what they do, whether they know about it or not?
How important is it to examine your underlying philosophies?
Why do you think Stephanie and Ivan had such different attitudes to the conference at the beginning of the thought experiment?
What assumptions did you make about them (if any)?
Did those assumptions hold true in the second half of the thought experiment?
What would have surprised you? Why?

By: Bonny Astor, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Founder - read more of her writing here.

SOURCES:

Inspired by Nancy :-)

OpenAI. (2026). Philosophical comparison of regenerative and extractive farming models [Large language model]. ChatGPT.

2 GENERATIONAL CHURN

Aidan and Mac are leaning against their office building, smoking.

They used to smoke outside the front entrance, but now they have to go around the corner by the bins. In the early 2000s, smoking was still allowed inside the building, but they just caught the tail end of that.

Aidan takes a long drag on his cigarette and exclaims:

“It is impossible to work with them. They think completely differently.”

Mac:

“But they’re only 20 years younger than us, how can they be so different?”

Aidan:

“Maybe its because of lockdown and too much screentime, and AI…but I feel like they have grown up in a totally different reality to us.”

Mac:

“Maybe, but I don’t hink they’re any weirder than any other generation. Every generation has challenges and pressures that make them strange. The Billy Joel song “We Didn’t Start the Fire” comes to mind”

Aidan:

“I don’t know it.”

Mac:

“Well the chorus is:

‘We didn't start the fire
It was always burning since the world's been turning
We didn't start the fire
No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it’

And the verses are just lists of all the momentous events and influential people from different decades. For example, the first verse is about the 50s:

‘Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio
Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe’

The last verse is about the 80s:

‘Wheel of Fortune, Sally Ride, heavy metal suicide
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz
Hypodermics on the shore, China's under martial law
Rock-and-roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore’ (Joel, 1989)

So, maybe every generation is weird to the other generations. Because we all live in different realities?”

Aidan:

“I don’t know, I think these newer generations are weirder. Maybe it's because changes happen more quickly nowadays, there is new technology at an increasing pace.”

Mac:

“Maybe, but maybe they also think we are weirder than we thought our parents were.”

A couple of 20-something new employees walk past the alleyway where Aiden and Mac are smoking. They glance at Aiden and Mac, giggle, and walk off.

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

What do you think the 20-something employees are thinking as they walk past Aiden and Mac?
What are ‘generations’? How important are they as concepts?
Do people from different generations live in different realities?
Do you know what generation you are? How important is your generational identity? How much does it affect your life?
If you had to do a ‘Billy Joel’ style summary of your generation, what would you include?
Are the gaps between generations the same as they’ve always been? Or has something changed?
How could people from different generations understand each other better?
How important is it for people from different generations to understand each other?
What are the main differences between ‘Boomers’ and ‘Millennials’? Between ‘Millennials’ and ‘Gen Z’?
Are there any advantages to the differences?

By: Bonny Astor, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Founder - read more of her writing here.

SOURCES:

Joel, B. (1989). We didn't start the fire. Song. On Storm front. Columbia.

Inspired by: Sinek, S. [Simon Sinek]. (2024, May 14). Why young people don't have 'the hunger' for work (and what leaders need to hear) | Dr. Eliza Filby [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kgEtkVG5zw

3 GODS OF DESTRUCTION

Wanda’s break up has led to a breakdown. It brought up lots of old stuff and she’s found herself in a very dark place, perhaps the darkest place she’s ever been in.

She spent several days in her room, lying in bed, doomscrolling and eating only ricecakes.

On day 3, Wanda texted her sister, Sylvie, telling her what happened and asking if she would come over.

Sylvie came over immediately. She gave Wanda a big hug and said:

“I’m so glad you texted me instead of keeping this to yourself like usual.”

Wanda cries a little bit and eventually says:

“I’ve never felt this bad before. I don’t recognise myself anymore.”

Sylvie says:

“That’s because you’re becoming something new. You’re in a time of profound change. It’s like a wildfire. It has destroyed things as you know them, but it has also created conditions for something new to grow.”

Wanda:

“What do you mean. How can anything grow after a wildfire?”

Sylvie:

“It happens all the time. Lots of plants actually need fire to germinate. Things must break down in order to be reconstructed.”

Wanda:

“What are you talking about? This sounds like all that regenerative farming stuff you’ve been reading.”

Sylvie:

“It is, but I’ve realised that a lot of what I’ve learned about regenerative farming also applies to life. Everything is cyclical, destruction and decay are necessary for creation and growth. The only unnatural thing is to try and stop these cycles. That’s when you become like a plastic bottle that never changes and sits in a landfill forever.”

Wanda:

“Ugh Sylvie….this is so progressive and idealistic and modern.”

Sylvie says:

“It isn’t just ‘progressive and modern’! It’s scientific, and it’s also part of loads of ancient mythologies. Listen to this…

Sylvie reads from a BBC article about Hinduism:
“Shiva is the third god in the Hindu triumvirate. The triumvirate consists of three gods who are responsible for the creation, upkeep and destruction of the world. The other two gods are Brahma and Vishnu. Brahma is the creator of the universe while Vishnu is the preserver of it. Shiva's role is to destroy the universe in order to re-create it.” (BBC, 2009)

I think the reason you’re feeling so terrible is because you haven’t broken down before. But I actually think it's a good sign that you can feel this rubbish. You’re allowing yourself to go through a cycle. Before now, you put everything in a box. You never talked about your feelings. You were like a piece of plastic, totally impervious to the world around you. Now you’re becoming more organic. Breaking down so that your elements can be recombined into something new. If you’d stayed plastic, you’d spend your whole life in a landfill.”

Wanda:

“I would have liked to think I could have transformed without tragedy. Do you think that's possible?”

Sylvie:

“I’m not sure. All of my biggest learnings have come out of my biggest challenges. So even if I could rule out tragedy in my life, I’m not sure I would.”

Wanda goes quiet. After a few minutes she asks Sylvie:

“How did you work all this out Sylvie?”

Sylvie replies:

“From nature. We can learn a lot from nature. That’s why it’s so important to stay connected to it and to protect it.”

She reads a quote from David Attenborough:

“If children don't grow up knowing about nature and appreciating it, they will not understand it, and if they don't understand it, they won't protect it.... and if they don't protect it, who will?” (Attenborough, 2015)

Wanda:

“Maybe I should try and connect a bit more. It’s either that or become a better, even more impervious type of plastic.”

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

What do you think of Sylvie’s statement: “Destruction and decay are necessary for creation and growth. The only unnatural thing is to try and stop these cycles.”?
What about Wanda’s question: “is it possible to transform without tragedy?”
Is destruction constructive?
Sylvie says: “All of my biggest learnings have come out of my biggest challenges. So even if I could rule out tragedy in my life, I’m not sure I would.” What do you think?
Why do you think ancient mythologies have Gods of Destruction?
How connected to nature do you feel? Is it important to you to be connected or not?

By: Bonny Astor, THOUGHT EXPERIMENTS IN PUBS Founder - read more of her writing here.

SOURCES:

Attenborough, D. (Director). (2015). Conserving wonder [Film]. Learning through Landscapes.

BBC. (2009, August 24). Shiva. Religions - Hinduism. https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/deities/shiva.shtml