Having attended conferences under Chatham House Rule: It's invaluable if the event includes speakers that must maintain a specific public stance - politicians, people in highly visible roles/organizations, etc.
There's no top secret lore handed out, it's not a secret society taking over the world. It addresses the issue that any public statement will be cut up into sound bites, and the public discussion will only focus on one or two sentences, drowning out any nuance. And, if you misspoke, the public discussion will portray you as "not being aligned with your organizations values".
This allows people to set aside speechifying and talk about the actual problems. With lots of nuance. Acknowledging shared ground. Hashing out what the _actual_ disagreements are. We need more opportunities like that, not less.
And the rule only works if you're running the iterated version, and it's a high-value meeting. Because losing access to that forum is the penalty for violating the social compact.
There's no top secret lore handed out, it's not a secret society taking over the world. It addresses the issue that any public statement will be cut up into sound bites, and the public discussion will only focus on one or two sentences, drowning out any nuance. And, if you misspoke, the public discussion will portray you as "not being aligned with your organizations values".
This allows people to set aside speechifying and talk about the actual problems. With lots of nuance. Acknowledging shared ground. Hashing out what the _actual_ disagreements are. We need more opportunities like that, not less.
And the rule only works if you're running the iterated version, and it's a high-value meeting. Because losing access to that forum is the penalty for violating the social compact.