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I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views. I'd like for the system to a

by crusso 13y ago

I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views. I'd like for the system to allow for continued refinement of arguments on various topics and to allow for various branching of thought. That is, I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular but logically consistent argumentation. As an end product, if I'm discussing, say, gun control with someone, I should be able to give them a URL: http://www.xyz3323499.com/crusso/gun_control/ http://www.xyz3323499.com/crusso/gun_control/ and all of the arguments and important information that I have upvoted, added to, or edited would show up. Most of this stems out of my frustration with the tedious nature of arguments on the internet. New stories stir up old arguments. Forums like HN tend to rehash all those old arguments with often little thought for the mountains of arguments/evidence already out there. Rather than have new stories refine or even change arguments and their conclusions, most people on the internet just chase their tails in circles. I'd view this kind of site as a "let's stand on each others' shoulders and provide our shoulders to others" kind of work. With a decent web of trust, I should be able to look at the arguments of the most "respected" members of the site and mix-in their arguments with my own. I think that a sufficiently complex web of trust would allow for fundamentally different viewpoints on a given issue to thrive because the spheres of supporters of those viewpoints have different value systems. Even with those different value systems, it should be possible at some point to pick out the thought leaders across different spheres that transcend typical Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Theist, Atheist labels with arguments that are acknowledged across the board as being internally consistent and factually based. Yeah, I realize that I've rambled -- but if someone finds value in the idea and runs with it, I'd love to see it out there.

harpastum 13y ago
Maybe something like http://www.riyarchy.com/issue?title=Euthanasia http://www.riyarchy.com/issue?title=Euthanasia or http://www.crystaltower.co/welcome http://www.crystaltower.co/welcome ?
- crusso 13y ago
  Fascinating, thanks for the pointers. I'll have to look at them further, but what I think they might lack from what I posted is a notion that different users will value some gray area arguments differently. The system should preserve those differing value systems in the arguments constructed and use them to build upon the webs of trust. For example, user bob may find it axiomatic that "healthcare is a right". User jeff will typically downvote arguments that assume that right and not want to build his framework on top of it.
IsaacL 13y ago
I've explored similar ideas in the past. One possibility I explored was breaking down claims like 'Guantanamo Bay should close' into moral claims plus factual claims, eg 'Guantanamo Bay practices torture' plus 'torture is wrong'. This could be further broken down until you had a set of moral axioms and a set of basic pieces of factual evidence, and a set of syllogisms linking them together. Different people would indeed have different value systems and also give different degrees of credence to different sources. So the goal would be to end up with a crowdsourced tree of moral & factual claims, and individual users could then decide which claims they agreed or disagreed with to come to their own conclusion on the topic. (Look up 'argument mapping' for academic exploration of the concept). My thinking now is that most online political arguments online are really about tribalism, not finding the truth. If you did have users who cared about the truth (and who could consider other viewpoints), you wouldn't need a fancy product: a simple web forum would suffice. But do drop me an email at isaac@i.saac.me if you'd like to chat more.
- nileshtrivedi 13y ago
  I agree. Breaking down a debate into arguments which have moral and factual premises will be useful. The logical validity of the argument can be automatically enforced. The system wouldn't allow you to make an invalid argument. Showing people exactly where they disagree would be a huge advancement. I think there are plenty of people who care about the truth and also care to have a consistent worldview in terms of morality.
  - iambateman 13y ago
    For me and you, this is true. Unfortunately, INSERT_MAJOR_NEWS_NETWORK is proof that the vast majority of people don't give a shit about logical validity.
    - crusso 13y ago
      I think that the success of sites like Snopes indicates that a significant percentage of people DO care about facts. We'll never have a situation where 100% of people are 100% fact driven in their belief systems, but maybe the needle might move in the good direction if more tools were available to help the transition.
netcan 13y ago
I like the train of thought. "Voting" on the internet definitely added a lot but it created a bunch of hurdles: majoritarian thought, bubbles and averaged opinions. Review sites like rotten tomatoes are a good example of the last one. The average opinion about a movie is nowhere near as good as asking a single person who shares my tastes in movies. A bubble would be much more useful here. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I think letting ideas branch might let controversial discussions get objective. Complicated can be mistaken for subjective. It also sounds like the kind of fun that can draw people in. I really like the idea.
- iambateman 13y ago
  I'm kind of waiting on Facebook to do this. Create a voting engine based on people similar to me for services like Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix. The "other people similar to you liked.." should be far more ubiquitous.
thaumaturgy 13y ago
How would you respond to someone with an opposing point of view on an issue you're passionate about replying to one of your comments with a link like that? It's an interesting idea, but I think the conceit is that other people would actually read your arguments at that link. In my experience, that's not true.
- hbt 13y ago
  I think every attempt at an argument should be followed by an attempt at a counter-argument. For example if I cite a study as a reference, a counter argument could be the methodology used to gather the data Edit: @harpastum made an excellent suggestion of existing sites. Disregard this
nmrm 13y ago
Edit for down-voters: I'm not trolling/insulting (people who post on) internet boards. I'm hypothesizing that on most topics (esp. politically charged topics, which tend to rely on hard-to-assess factual claims), a high-quality argument for or against an opinion might require years of experience, and that often communicating that experience often requires journal-article-length explanations without drawn-out review processes governed by other experts. This is not an unreasonable possibility. And if this is true, then the parent's idea might not be feasible. If it isn't true, then the parent might have a feasible idea. So... perhaps you could comment explaining why you're down-voting? I honestly don't understand. (Also, the first sentence is just true... the venues I mentioned are nearly universally more informative than a comment board... srsly, not trolling.) Original post: If you want high-quality commentary all you need to do is get off the internet comment boards. These outlets exist. They are generally called journal articles, policy briefs, court opinions, etc. > Rather than have new stories refine or even change arguments and their conclusions, most people on the internet just chase their tails in circles. I think there's something deeper going on than a short memory span. At some point (usually pretty quickly), you have to start either 1) making moral judgments, which is a whole branch of philosophy or 2) analyzing non-trivial factual claims. To do this, you need people who are trained in science or well-read in philosophy/political science, depending on the topic. At that point, might as well just read journal articles in relevant fields. The quality of argumentation on the internet might get a little better than it is today with good tools, but I don't think it can improve significantly. At some point you're asking for actual quality research (i.e. work), as opposed to armchair sophistry (i.e. fun). > Even with those different value systems, it should be possible at some point to pick out the thought leaders across different spheres that transcend typical Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Theist, Atheist labels with arguments that are acknowledged across the board as being internally consistent and factually based. Maybe on some technical topics. But even academics and policy analysts often disagree along ideological lines. > as being internally consistent and factually based. These are both fairly low bars.
- Detrus 13y ago
  I upvoted you to counter downvotes. I think the downvotes are for the offensive part of "get off the internet." How dare you suggest such a heresy? I agree that complex system discussions must be driven by people educated in the ways of complex systems, possibly from perspective of economists, justice system, etc. Of course digging through the hieroglyphics around the issues becomes difficult for laymen, even those educated in the relevant topics. And it does become more work than fun. But many online discussions are at the level of work already. People start them for "fun" then get frustrated for being wrong, downvoted, misunderstood etc. There is an addicting effect and it turns from "fun" to work of salvaging reputation, revenge, etc. Also content farms release misleading, throwaway information that gets attention. For them it is work and often very not fun. Their efforts could be channeled to better ends by new software.
capitolbells 13y ago
I recently launched a webapp, CapitolBells.com, that is sort of a HN for arguments supporting or opposing legislation in Congress ("crowd-lobby Congress"). A friend of mine runs a project called Madison, which in essence is GitHub for legislation, allowing for various branching debates and amendments to bills. We've often thought it would be cool to combine the two ideas.
atmosx 13y ago
In order for such a project to make sense, one must ask himself if he believes that there is one and universal truth that stands above human and physical laws. If there is such a thing, then there is a point in pursuing the truth, because truth gives the correct conclusions. If not, then there's no meaning in pursuing something that is relative.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  Of course there is one truth. 1+1=2, Global warming either is or isn't real, gun control either does or doesn't reduce homicide rates, etc. Aumann's Agreement Theorem suggests that two rational people can not disagree on a subject if they both fully understand all the evidence and arguments. All disagreements stem from some combination of misunderstanding, ignorance, or irrationality.
  - nileshtrivedi 13y ago
    That's only true for factual statements. It's perfectly possible to reach different conclusion starting from different moral premises.
    - Houshalter 13y ago
      Then there is still only one truth and they can still come to an agreement on statements like "gun control is good if your goal is to reduce homicide rates" or "gun control is bad if your goal is to maximize personal freedom", etc. Then it's not a matter of disagreement or coming to different conclusions, it's just having different values.
      - adigar 13y ago
        I think this works better. As someone said above, it comes down to trade offs. Arguing a point with a specific goal to work towards leads to better discussions than trying to answer questions like: "is x good or bad?"
- Detrus 13y ago
lettergram 13y ago
http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/
- MichaelDickens 13y ago
  Less Wrong explicitly doesn't talk about politics (or at least tries not to), so it's not the right venue for the sort of thing OP wants.
Detrus 13y ago
This is along the lines of structured arguments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map Doug Engelbart the creator of NLS and famous for Mother of All Demos talks about such systems http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q and http://youtu.be/VeSgaJt27PM http://youtu.be/VeSgaJt27PM etc. The general principle is we won't make much progress discussing complex issues by simply recreating the print world with increased convenience of a computer like we do now. The discussions have to take a fundamentally different form, possible only on computers, such as semantic argument maps, etc. Of course his perspective comes from 1950's when educated people had civil discussions that solved problems, or at least that's the modern nostalgia. He imagined a new class of "knowledge workers" moderating information. Instead we have voting rings and content farms. If anything, a structured argument map could shut down much of the attention seeking drivel surrounding every political/complex system issue.
- rmz 13y ago
  hear hear. Won't happen in my lifetime, but if something like mathematica or ipython workbooks could become a common way to present an argument in a public debate then much would have been won. btw: For presenting complex issues, journalism is dead. For uncovering hidden truth, not necessarily very complex ones, it's still very much alive.
patrickmay 13y ago
The talk.origins archive (http://www.talkorigins.org http://www.talkorigins.org) attempts to do this for all of the arguments posed by creationists against modern evolutionary theory. Unfortunately, there are still creationists. Even when there is overwhelming scientific evidence in support of one position, people will still hold another.
wdr1 13y ago
What I've learned is that complex political issues -- essentially anything that isn't a universal "no-brainer" -- comes down to tradeoffs. In fact, I've found a good political test to see if the person I'm speaking to can articulate a valid criticism of their own position. I.e., if they're for universal healthcare can they state why one would oppose it, without calling into question the opposition's character. If they can, you can have a fairly thoughtful discussion/debate on the topic. If they can't, then there's no point discussing things.
- bsilvereagle 13y ago
  I use a similar methodology when teammates disagree on a design point, have them argue the other side. In nearly every case the dispute is settled.
fauria 13y ago
Illustrated: http://geniscarreras.com/philographics/ http://geniscarreras.com/philographics/
dorait 13y ago
Check out http://idebate.org/debatabase http://idebate.org/debatabase I knew it as debatepedia a while ago. Choose a topic and click on a subtopic. The old version had a argument map style debates. There is already a mention of argument maps in one of the comments which is another great tool.
bazzargh 13y ago
(inserts tongue firmly in cheek) I think there would be more money for a site that helps you argue your position from available data, the truth be damned. I'm thinking "How to Lie With Statistics"[1] as a service - tell it you want to, say, show that guns are becoming safer, or that higher taxation causes obesity, and it will produce a nicely manipulated graph containing only real figures from readily available datasets, ready for feeding to a journalist. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics
- jjoonathan 13y ago
  > I think there would be more money for a site that helps you argue your position Let me toss in some anecdotal evidence in support of your suspicion. The only "debate" site to hold my attention for more than a first visit is one that focuses on curating data to support arguments about certain issues (the curation is manual AFAIK). I initially stumbled across it when debating health care reform: http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004083 http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc... Pay particular attention to to "Projects" sidebar on the left. It's a goldmine of relevant quantitative information and the arguments surrounding their interpretation. I actually don't think it's cynical to expect that this is the right way to approach the "debate market." Discovering data in relevant "digested" forms is a huge friction point. It should be central to the political debate process, it isn't, and anyone who can reduce the friction will be doing a huge service to humanity.
- akg_67 13y ago
  This is an interesting idea. I am consulting in data analytics and I get two type of clients. One where client hasn't made decision and looking for data analysis to guide them. Second where client has already made up mind and looking for data to convince others of their decision. How to lie with statistics can easily fulfill need of second type of client.
DanBC 13y ago
I love this idea. I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments. (There is probably research showing that people's beliefs become more entrenched if you show them evidence to debunk or otherwise convert them). Using gun control as an example. I have a position. I'm in a discussion with soomeone. I think I'll use evidence to persuade them, so I visit your site. I find that the argument pretty much demolishes my point. I thus ignore your site on that occasion, complaining about bias and lack of use of the site hy right-headed people, and I add my tedious arguments to my discussion. Or I find that the argument supports my position, in whichcase your sote is brilliant and the Internet is a marvel so I post a link, which the person I am talking to ignores. But it is still a great idea and you're right that some subjects (abortion; gay marriage; drug control; gun control; Israel / Palestine; circumcision; etc) get discussed a lot, with repetitive and circular and eventually boring arguments. Seeing how well, or poorly, Wikipedia has handled hot-button topics points out some difficulties of finding "accuracy" when people are not rationally calm headed. It would be great to see it though.
- crusso 13y ago
  I love this idea. Thanks, it's one of those ideas that has been in the back of my mind for a while, but it's not an easy idea for me to even convey properly. I thought I'd just make a best-effort at it and see what HN thought of it. The feedback has been really interesting and I have a bunch of URLs for somewhat similar concepts that I plan to spend some time on. I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments. I can't speak for everyone, but I can name several major political/religious positions I've had in my life that I've changed my mind on because of discussion/debate and research. *I find that the argument pretty much demolishes my point* *Or I find that the argument supports my position* Actually, I'd think that you could find arguments in support of either. I don't envision this kind of site as being the terminator of all debate, since different perspectives would be allowed to thrive in different spheres based upon the complex web of trust concept. What it would allow you to do is say to someone on some random forum, "Look, I'm not interested in taking a trip on the merry-go-round with gun control in a Youtube comment. Here's the URL to my honest assessment of the issue, if you're wanting to do something more than just grandstand and create a bunch of strawmen about my arguments, there's a starting point for you. If you have a reference for your position, I'm more than happy to look at it. What's your URL?" You can't reach everyone with logic and data, but I'd love to see a tool set that encourages people to explore their own positions in an environment that promotes really thinking about those positions rather than just going in with shields up and phasers set to kill.
ggchappell 13y ago
I appreciate the idea, but it needs some reworking. In particular, I see two big flaws. (1) The essence of the use of this site would be that one chooses a position, and then finds arguments to support it. In other words, "I've made up my mind; now show me why I'm right." Now suppose I'm the person discussing an issue with you. Why should I pay any attention to some page chosen based largely on the assumption that I'm wrong? (2) You say "... I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular ...." And then you apparently want to use something along the lines of up/down voting to judge arguments. That's not the way to get what you say you want. In short, the idea, as stated, strikes me mostly as a tool for increasing polarization. More beneficial would be a site that simply provides information to help make decisions on whatever issues are of interest. To go with the gun-control example, you could have links to -- or summaries of -- studies on the effect of gun control. You could have comparative data on rates of various crimes in locations with different gun laws. Etc. How do deal with (2) is a harder problem. The plague of voting-based-on-agreement that makes sites like HN & Reddit so much worse than they could be, is something I wish more people were trying to address.
- fragmede 13y ago
  I have some ideas for improving the efficacy of online voting systems, but starting a new online community is hard. Even just starting a subreddits is hard, and I imagine that to be lower-friction than creating a stand-alone site, given Reddit's large existing user base. If you have an online-community that you run and would like some ideas to combat vote-based-on-agreement, here are a few that I've thought up or come across: (Not claiming that these strategies are ungameable). * Limit the number of upvotes a user can give per day, thus making votes more valuable. * Force users to space-out voting, allowing only 1 upvote every 5 minutes. * Vote value: Votes are valued more the less you do it over a certain period - so if you only upvote once per-day, that post gets more points than if you upvoted everything in /new. Choice: Do it hidden on the backend, or could be interesting; do it in a user-configurable format. Give users, say, 100 points per-day and are allowed to upvote transparently - you can give one thing 100 points or four things 25 points. * Time-delayed voting: votes are only allowed after a certain amount of time has passed since you clicked on a link. A well thought-out and reasoned article should take at least a couple of minutes to read, so I can upvote that after I read; I'm not likely to wait around to upvote an image-macro with fewer than a dozen words unless it's really special. * Karma cap, both negative and positive: Limit max positive karma to something low, say 50. That's high enough to see that a user isn't brand new but isn't trivially attainable. That way, it's fine to get to the cap, but posting inane one-liners attempting to reap thousands of points for a single comment isn't so tempting. Limit negative karma to something lower, like -100 to dissuade trolls, while still showing that a user is disagreed with. Hopefully that encourages discussion for the sake of discussion. * Meta-voting: You vote on how many points a post got, so if a pithy but well-timed comment that says "lol butts" gets a lot of points, you can vote to say that the post didn't deserve those points. Make this a limited power granted to a select (but changing) group. * Make downvoting cost karma: If it cost karma to downvote, that could be a higher bar to drive-by-disagreeing. * Not sure if it's a good idea, but turn the script around. Instead of trying to avoiding the Pepsi-Blue Advertising syndrome, charge money for votes transparently adding points to a post or comment. As users can still downvote items, it becomes expensive to elevate a bad piece of advertising. Maybe extend this to users by allowing users to receive money for lots of highly-rated comments. Or perhaps use Dogecoin as your currency of choice as the real-world value of 1 Doge is so low that it's effectively free in small quantities, but not actually free. I don't think allowing the masses to vote on things is a bad idea, but it's an idea that needs some refinements for best effect.
nathan_f77 13y ago
Argh, my idea! I really need to start working on this, it's been bouncing around in my head for too long
- hackinthebochs 13y ago
  Ha, same here. Too many other things that take priority at the moment though.
siavosh 13y ago
You might be interested in this http://www.procon.org/ http://www.procon.org/
doubt_me 13y ago
Its been around for years http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Main_Page http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Main_Page EDIT: opps looks like its dead. shouldn't be to hard to clone
espeed 13y ago
I'm working on a project called Whybase that does exactly that: http://whybase.com http://whybase.com
zezantam 13y ago
Have you seen http://rbutr.com/ http://rbutr.com/? It's aiming to do a lot of what you're looking for.
tannerj 13y ago
I had an idea for something like this during the 2008 Presidential Elections. There was so much hearsay and misdirection that I did not know where to turn when trying to decide who to vote for. My idea was more of a forum where you could somehow remove the emotional human element out of the discussions and a moderation system that would not allow posts that could not be supported by credible sources. I remember I came up with a cool name, checked Godaddy.com, saw it was taken, and abandoned the idea. I think having a repository of credible facts to turn to when you need to support a philosophical argument would be awesome. Kind of like a Snopes.com meets Wikipedia.
JeremyWeir 13y ago
A simple take on your idea... http://wrangl.com/ http://wrangl.com/

by crusso 13y ago

harpastum 13y ago

Maybe something like http://www.riyarchy.com/issue?title=Euthanasia http://www.riyarchy.com/issue?title=Euthanasia or http://www.crystaltower.co/welcome http://www.crystaltower.co/welcome ?

crusso 13y ago
Fascinating, thanks for the pointers. I'll have to look at them further, but what I think they might lack from what I posted is a notion that different users will value some gray area arguments differently. The system should preserve those differing value systems in the arguments constructed and use them to build upon the webs of trust. For example, user bob may find it axiomatic that "healthcare is a right". User jeff will typically downvote arguments that assume that right and not want to build his framework on top of it.

IsaacL 13y ago

I've explored similar ideas in the past. One possibility I explored was breaking down claims like 'Guantanamo Bay should close' into moral claims plus factual claims, eg 'Guantanamo Bay practices torture' plus 'torture is wrong'. This could be further broken down until you had a set of moral axioms and a set of basic pieces of factual evidence, and a set of syllogisms linking them together. Different people would indeed have different value systems and also give different degrees of credence to different sources. So the goal would be to end up with a crowdsourced tree of moral & factual claims, and individual users could then decide which claims they agreed or disagreed with to come to their own conclusion on the topic. (Look up 'argument mapping' for academic exploration of the concept). My thinking now is that most online political arguments online are really about tribalism, not finding the truth. If you did have users who cared about the truth (and who could consider other viewpoints), you wouldn't need a fancy product: a simple web forum would suffice. But do drop me an email at isaac@i.saac.me if you'd like to chat more.

nileshtrivedi 13y ago
I agree. Breaking down a debate into arguments which have moral and factual premises will be useful. The logical validity of the argument can be automatically enforced. The system wouldn't allow you to make an invalid argument. Showing people exactly where they disagree would be a huge advancement. I think there are plenty of people who care about the truth and also care to have a consistent worldview in terms of morality.
- iambateman 13y ago
  For me and you, this is true. Unfortunately, INSERT_MAJOR_NEWS_NETWORK is proof that the vast majority of people don't give a shit about logical validity.
  - crusso 13y ago
    I think that the success of sites like Snopes indicates that a significant percentage of people DO care about facts. We'll never have a situation where 100% of people are 100% fact driven in their belief systems, but maybe the needle might move in the good direction if more tools were available to help the transition.

netcan 13y ago

I like the train of thought. "Voting" on the internet definitely added a lot but it created a bunch of hurdles: majoritarian thought, bubbles and averaged opinions. Review sites like rotten tomatoes are a good example of the last one. The average opinion about a movie is nowhere near as good as asking a single person who shares my tastes in movies. A bubble would be much more useful here. I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I think letting ideas branch might let controversial discussions get objective. Complicated can be mistaken for subjective. It also sounds like the kind of fun that can draw people in. I really like the idea.

iambateman 13y ago
I'm kind of waiting on Facebook to do this. Create a voting engine based on people similar to me for services like Rotten Tomatoes and Netflix. The "other people similar to you liked.." should be far more ubiquitous.

thaumaturgy 13y ago

How would you respond to someone with an opposing point of view on an issue you're passionate about replying to one of your comments with a link like that? It's an interesting idea, but I think the conceit is that other people would actually read your arguments at that link. In my experience, that's not true.

hbt 13y ago
I think every attempt at an argument should be followed by an attempt at a counter-argument. For example if I cite a study as a reference, a counter argument could be the methodology used to gather the data Edit: @harpastum made an excellent suggestion of existing sites. Disregard this

nmrm 13y ago

Edit for down-voters: I'm not trolling/insulting (people who post on) internet boards. I'm hypothesizing that on most topics (esp. politically charged topics, which tend to rely on hard-to-assess factual claims), a high-quality argument for or against an opinion might require years of experience, and that often communicating that experience often requires journal-article-length explanations without drawn-out review processes governed by other experts. This is not an unreasonable possibility. And if this is true, then the parent's idea might not be feasible. If it isn't true, then the parent might have a feasible idea. So... perhaps you could comment explaining why you're down-voting? I honestly don't understand. (Also, the first sentence is just true... the venues I mentioned are nearly universally more informative than a comment board... srsly, not trolling.) Original post: If you want high-quality commentary all you need to do is get off the internet comment boards. These outlets exist. They are generally called journal articles, policy briefs, court opinions, etc. > Rather than have new stories refine or even change arguments and their conclusions, most people on the internet just chase their tails in circles. I think there's something deeper going on than a short memory span. At some point (usually pretty quickly), you have to start either 1) making moral judgments, which is a whole branch of philosophy or 2) analyzing non-trivial factual claims. To do this, you need people who are trained in science or well-read in philosophy/political science, depending on the topic. At that point, might as well just read journal articles in relevant fields. The quality of argumentation on the internet might get a little better than it is today with good tools, but I don't think it can improve significantly. At some point you're asking for actual quality research (i.e. work), as opposed to armchair sophistry (i.e. fun). > Even with those different value systems, it should be possible at some point to pick out the thought leaders across different spheres that transcend typical Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Theist, Atheist labels with arguments that are acknowledged across the board as being internally consistent and factually based. Maybe on some technical topics. But even academics and policy analysts often disagree along ideological lines. > as being internally consistent and factually based. These are both fairly low bars.

Detrus 13y ago
I upvoted you to counter downvotes. I think the downvotes are for the offensive part of "get off the internet." How dare you suggest such a heresy? I agree that complex system discussions must be driven by people educated in the ways of complex systems, possibly from perspective of economists, justice system, etc. Of course digging through the hieroglyphics around the issues becomes difficult for laymen, even those educated in the relevant topics. And it does become more work than fun. But many online discussions are at the level of work already. People start them for "fun" then get frustrated for being wrong, downvoted, misunderstood etc. There is an addicting effect and it turns from "fun" to work of salvaging reputation, revenge, etc. Also content farms release misleading, throwaway information that gets attention. For them it is work and often very not fun. Their efforts could be channeled to better ends by new software.

capitolbells 13y ago

I recently launched a webapp, CapitolBells.com, that is sort of a HN for arguments supporting or opposing legislation in Congress ("crowd-lobby Congress"). A friend of mine runs a project called Madison, which in essence is GitHub for legislation, allowing for various branching debates and amendments to bills. We've often thought it would be cool to combine the two ideas.

atmosx 13y ago

In order for such a project to make sense, one must ask himself if he believes that there is one and universal truth that stands above human and physical laws. If there is such a thing, then there is a point in pursuing the truth, because truth gives the correct conclusions. If not, then there's no meaning in pursuing something that is relative.

Houshalter 13y ago
Of course there is one truth. 1+1=2, Global warming either is or isn't real, gun control either does or doesn't reduce homicide rates, etc. Aumann's Agreement Theorem suggests that two rational people can not disagree on a subject if they both fully understand all the evidence and arguments. All disagreements stem from some combination of misunderstanding, ignorance, or irrationality.
- nileshtrivedi 13y ago
  That's only true for factual statements. It's perfectly possible to reach different conclusion starting from different moral premises.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    Then there is still only one truth and they can still come to an agreement on statements like "gun control is good if your goal is to reduce homicide rates" or "gun control is bad if your goal is to maximize personal freedom", etc. Then it's not a matter of disagreement or coming to different conclusions, it's just having different values.
    - adigar 13y ago
      I think this works better. As someone said above, it comes down to trade offs. Arguing a point with a specific goal to work towards leads to better discussions than trying to answer questions like: "is x good or bad?"
Detrus 13y ago

lettergram 13y ago

http://lesswrong.com/ http://lesswrong.com/

MichaelDickens 13y ago
Less Wrong explicitly doesn't talk about politics (or at least tries not to), so it's not the right venue for the sort of thing OP wants.

Detrus 13y ago

This is along the lines of structured arguments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map Doug Engelbart the creator of NLS and famous for Mother of All Demos talks about such systems http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q and http://youtu.be/VeSgaJt27PM http://youtu.be/VeSgaJt27PM etc. The general principle is we won't make much progress discussing complex issues by simply recreating the print world with increased convenience of a computer like we do now. The discussions have to take a fundamentally different form, possible only on computers, such as semantic argument maps, etc. Of course his perspective comes from 1950's when educated people had civil discussions that solved problems, or at least that's the modern nostalgia. He imagined a new class of "knowledge workers" moderating information. Instead we have voting rings and content farms. If anything, a structured argument map could shut down much of the attention seeking drivel surrounding every political/complex system issue.

rmz 13y ago
hear hear. Won't happen in my lifetime, but if something like mathematica or ipython workbooks could become a common way to present an argument in a public debate then much would have been won. btw: For presenting complex issues, journalism is dead. For uncovering hidden truth, not necessarily very complex ones, it's still very much alive.

patrickmay 13y ago

The talk.origins archive (http://www.talkorigins.org http://www.talkorigins.org) attempts to do this for all of the arguments posed by creationists against modern evolutionary theory. Unfortunately, there are still creationists. Even when there is overwhelming scientific evidence in support of one position, people will still hold another.

wdr1 13y ago

What I've learned is that complex political issues -- essentially anything that isn't a universal "no-brainer" -- comes down to tradeoffs. In fact, I've found a good political test to see if the person I'm speaking to can articulate a valid criticism of their own position. I.e., if they're for universal healthcare can they state why one would oppose it, without calling into question the opposition's character. If they can, you can have a fairly thoughtful discussion/debate on the topic. If they can't, then there's no point discussing things.

bsilvereagle 13y ago
I use a similar methodology when teammates disagree on a design point, have them argue the other side. In nearly every case the dispute is settled.

fauria 13y ago

Illustrated: http://geniscarreras.com/philographics/ http://geniscarreras.com/philographics/

dorait 13y ago

Check out http://idebate.org/debatabase http://idebate.org/debatabase I knew it as debatepedia a while ago. Choose a topic and click on a subtopic. The old version had a argument map style debates. There is already a mention of argument maps in one of the comments which is another great tool.

bazzargh 13y ago

(inserts tongue firmly in cheek) I think there would be more money for a site that helps you argue your position from available data, the truth be damned. I'm thinking "How to Lie With Statistics"[1] as a service - tell it you want to, say, show that guns are becoming safer, or that higher taxation causes obesity, and it will produce a nicely manipulated graph containing only real figures from readily available datasets, ready for feeding to a journalist. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Lie_with_Statistics

jjoonathan 13y ago
> I think there would be more money for a site that helps you argue your position Let me toss in some anecdotal evidence in support of your suspicion. The only "debate" site to hold my attention for more than a first visit is one that focuses on curating data to support arguments about certain issues (the curation is manual AFAIK). I initially stumbled across it when debating health care reform: http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourceID=004083 http://healthcarereform.procon.org/view.resource.php?resourc... Pay particular attention to to "Projects" sidebar on the left. It's a goldmine of relevant quantitative information and the arguments surrounding their interpretation. I actually don't think it's cynical to expect that this is the right way to approach the "debate market." Discovering data in relevant "digested" forms is a huge friction point. It should be central to the political debate process, it isn't, and anyone who can reduce the friction will be doing a huge service to humanity.
akg_67 13y ago
This is an interesting idea. I am consulting in data analytics and I get two type of clients. One where client hasn't made decision and looking for data analysis to guide them. Second where client has already made up mind and looking for data to convince others of their decision. How to lie with statistics can easily fulfill need of second type of client.

DanBC 13y ago

I love this idea. I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments. (There is probably research showing that people's beliefs become more entrenched if you show them evidence to debunk or otherwise convert them). Using gun control as an example. I have a position. I'm in a discussion with soomeone. I think I'll use evidence to persuade them, so I visit your site. I find that the argument pretty much demolishes my point. I thus ignore your site on that occasion, complaining about bias and lack of use of the site hy right-headed people, and I add my tedious arguments to my discussion. Or I find that the argument supports my position, in whichcase your sote is brilliant and the Internet is a marvel so I post a link, which the person I am talking to ignores. But it is still a great idea and you're right that some subjects (abortion; gay marriage; drug control; gun control; Israel / Palestine; circumcision; etc) get discussed a lot, with repetitive and circular and eventually boring arguments. Seeing how well, or poorly, Wikipedia has handled hot-button topics points out some difficulties of finding "accuracy" when people are not rationally calm headed. It would be great to see it though.

crusso 13y ago
I love this idea. Thanks, it's one of those ideas that has been in the back of my mind for a while, but it's not an easy idea for me to even convey properly. I thought I'd just make a best-effort at it and see what HN thought of it. The feedback has been really interesting and I have a bunch of URLs for somewhat similar concepts that I plan to spend some time on. I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments. I can't speak for everyone, but I can name several major political/religious positions I've had in my life that I've changed my mind on because of discussion/debate and research. *I find that the argument pretty much demolishes my point* *Or I find that the argument supports my position* Actually, I'd think that you could find arguments in support of either. I don't envision this kind of site as being the terminator of all debate, since different perspectives would be allowed to thrive in different spheres based upon the complex web of trust concept. What it would allow you to do is say to someone on some random forum, "Look, I'm not interested in taking a trip on the merry-go-round with gun control in a Youtube comment. Here's the URL to my honest assessment of the issue, if you're wanting to do something more than just grandstand and create a bunch of strawmen about my arguments, there's a starting point for you. If you have a reference for your position, I'm more than happy to look at it. What's your URL?" You can't reach everyone with logic and data, but I'd love to see a tool set that encourages people to explore their own positions in an environment that promotes really thinking about those positions rather than just going in with shields up and phasers set to kill.

ggchappell 13y ago

I appreciate the idea, but it needs some reworking. In particular, I see two big flaws. (1) The essence of the use of this site would be that one chooses a position, and then finds arguments to support it. In other words, "I've made up my mind; now show me why I'm right." Now suppose I'm the person discussing an issue with you. Why should I pay any attention to some page chosen based largely on the assumption that I'm wrong? (2) You say "... I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular ...." And then you apparently want to use something along the lines of up/down voting to judge arguments. That's not the way to get what you say you want. In short, the idea, as stated, strikes me mostly as a tool for increasing polarization. More beneficial would be a site that simply provides information to help make decisions on whatever issues are of interest. To go with the gun-control example, you could have links to -- or summaries of -- studies on the effect of gun control. You could have comparative data on rates of various crimes in locations with different gun laws. Etc. How do deal with (2) is a harder problem. The plague of voting-based-on-agreement that makes sites like HN & Reddit so much worse than they could be, is something I wish more people were trying to address.

fragmede 13y ago
I have some ideas for improving the efficacy of online voting systems, but starting a new online community is hard. Even just starting a subreddits is hard, and I imagine that to be lower-friction than creating a stand-alone site, given Reddit's large existing user base. If you have an online-community that you run and would like some ideas to combat vote-based-on-agreement, here are a few that I've thought up or come across: (Not claiming that these strategies are ungameable). * Limit the number of upvotes a user can give per day, thus making votes more valuable. * Force users to space-out voting, allowing only 1 upvote every 5 minutes. * Vote value: Votes are valued more the less you do it over a certain period - so if you only upvote once per-day, that post gets more points than if you upvoted everything in /new. Choice: Do it hidden on the backend, or could be interesting; do it in a user-configurable format. Give users, say, 100 points per-day and are allowed to upvote transparently - you can give one thing 100 points or four things 25 points. * Time-delayed voting: votes are only allowed after a certain amount of time has passed since you clicked on a link. A well thought-out and reasoned article should take at least a couple of minutes to read, so I can upvote that after I read; I'm not likely to wait around to upvote an image-macro with fewer than a dozen words unless it's really special. * Karma cap, both negative and positive: Limit max positive karma to something low, say 50. That's high enough to see that a user isn't brand new but isn't trivially attainable. That way, it's fine to get to the cap, but posting inane one-liners attempting to reap thousands of points for a single comment isn't so tempting. Limit negative karma to something lower, like -100 to dissuade trolls, while still showing that a user is disagreed with. Hopefully that encourages discussion for the sake of discussion. * Meta-voting: You vote on how many points a post got, so if a pithy but well-timed comment that says "lol butts" gets a lot of points, you can vote to say that the post didn't deserve those points. Make this a limited power granted to a select (but changing) group. * Make downvoting cost karma: If it cost karma to downvote, that could be a higher bar to drive-by-disagreeing. * Not sure if it's a good idea, but turn the script around. Instead of trying to avoiding the Pepsi-Blue Advertising syndrome, charge money for votes transparently adding points to a post or comment. As users can still downvote items, it becomes expensive to elevate a bad piece of advertising. Maybe extend this to users by allowing users to receive money for lots of highly-rated comments. Or perhaps use Dogecoin as your currency of choice as the real-world value of 1 Doge is so low that it's effectively free in small quantities, but not actually free. I don't think allowing the masses to vote on things is a bad idea, but it's an idea that needs some refinements for best effect.

nathan_f77 13y ago

Argh, my idea! I really need to start working on this, it's been bouncing around in my head for too long

hackinthebochs 13y ago
Ha, same here. Too many other things that take priority at the moment though.

siavosh 13y ago

You might be interested in this http://www.procon.org/ http://www.procon.org/

doubt_me 13y ago

Its been around for years http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Main_Page http://argumentrix.com/wiki/Main_Page EDIT: opps looks like its dead. shouldn't be to hard to clone

espeed 13y ago

I'm working on a project called Whybase that does exactly that: http://whybase.com http://whybase.com

zezantam 13y ago

Have you seen http://rbutr.com/ http://rbutr.com/? It's aiming to do a lot of what you're looking for.

tannerj 13y ago

I had an idea for something like this during the 2008 Presidential Elections. There was so much hearsay and misdirection that I did not know where to turn when trying to decide who to vote for. My idea was more of a forum where you could somehow remove the emotional human element out of the discussions and a moderation system that would not allow posts that could not be supported by credible sources. I remember I came up with a cool name, checked Godaddy.com, saw it was taken, and abandoned the idea. I think having a repository of credible facts to turn to when you need to support a philosophical argument would be awesome. Kind of like a Snopes.com meets Wikipedia.

JeremyWeir 13y ago

A simple take on your idea... http://wrangl.com/ http://wrangl.com/