The Assembly
Disagreement is not the problem.
Doing it badly is.
Americans are not short of opinions — we’re short of places to test them against someone who thinks differently and come away respecting each other. The Assembly is that place: part debate hall, part Toastmasters, with one unusual rule at its center. You argue the other side’s best case before you argue your own.
The Steelman
Should members of Congress have term limits?
The Constitution sets no limit. The 22nd Amendment limits presidents; several states limit their own legislators.
Step 1 · Where do you actually stand?
House rules
Six rules, each with the reason it exists. A rule without a reason is just a preference with authority.
Argue the strongest version of the other side, not the worst one.
Beating a caricature persuades nobody and teaches you nothing. If your opponent wouldn't recognize their own position in your summary, you haven't answered it yet.
Claims carry receipts.
Any factual assertion gets a source anyone can check. Same evidence ladder as the rest of Outpost — an unsourced number is not an argument, it's a mood.
Attack the position; never the person.
Behavior is judged here, never viewpoint. You may call an argument wrong, careless, or dangerous. You may not call a person a slur, a traitor, or subhuman.
Concede what's true, out loud.
Every round ends by naming one thing the other side gets right. This is the only rule that reliably changes how people argue, which is why it's mandatory rather than encouraged.
The clock belongs to everyone.
Toastmasters' oldest lesson: time limits are a courtesy, and a case you can't make in two minutes usually isn't finished.
Nobody's existence is a debate topic.
Prompts are civic questions where reasonable people differ. Whether a group of Americans deserves rights or dignity is not one of them, and never will be on this platform.
How a room will run
Borrowed from the one format with a seventy-year record of turning nervous people into clear speakers: everyone has a job, and the jobs rotate.
Speakers (two)
One per side. Two minutes each to make a case, then one minute each to answer what the other actually said.
The Steelman
A third participant who, before either speaker begins, states BOTH sides fairly. Speakers may object to their own summary — and often do, which is the most useful minute in the room.
Timekeeper
Runs the clock visibly and neutrally. Rotates every round, so nobody owns the gavel.
The Fact Desk
Flags any factual claim needing a source. Not a judge of who won — a judge of what was actually established.
Listeners
Everyone else. At the close, listeners answer one question only: which argument moved you, if any? Not who won.
No scoreboard. Ever.Rooms will never rank users, award debate points, or crown winners. The moment arguing becomes a leaderboard, people start performing for the crowd instead of thinking — which is the disease we’re treating, not a feature to import.
Finding people — both kinds
Outpost will connect you two ways, and the second is the one that matters. People like you — same county, same issue, same thing you want fixed — so you can actually do something together. And people unlike you— someone who reached a different conclusion from the same facts — because a republic where everyone only meets their own side isn’t a republic, it’s a set of neighboring countries.
Matching requires accounts and the same safety gates as the rooms, so it opens with them. What it will never do: infer your politics from your behavior to sell you something, or use your positions to target you. Matching runs on what you volunteer, and nothing else.
Practice the underlying skills in the Arcade (Fact or Claim, Source Check), read the platform-wide guidelines, or trace any claim to its origin with the Transparency Toolkit.