I've always wondered if there was a platform where we could have some standardized set of arguments regarding a proposition. Then, one would not need to tolerate repetitive pointless discussion: something that usually arises regarding propositions that require little expertise to discuss.
For instance, nothing would make me happier than to be able to reply to the nth discussion regarding the idea that "the GPL is freer than the BSD licence" with a universal fully-qualified link to every argument for and against the idea. Or "For software engineers, open-plan offices lead to greater productivity than individual offices".
While it may appear that this would lead to some sort of _Futurological Congress_-esque situation where we respond to people in paragraph numbers, it has many advantages:
* No longer will people be misled by a correct statement poorly argued for.
* No longer will message boards be polluted by the nth iteration of the same argument.
* Undiscovered lines of argument will be universally available.
Of course there's the disadvantage that you'll get less participation, and there's value in just having some number of comments even if they're repetitive: at the least, the desire to respond to that may bring people who later on make novel arguments.
This seems like a fine UI to do that. Deep link to the relevant sub-graph, and let the collective intelligence of thousands do your arguing for you. I like it.
There is lots of rich ground here to explore, but claims like "the GPL is freer than the BSD licence", will be open to a lot of subjectivity, due to there being no clear (or even given) definition of 'freer'.
I think the biggest challenge is UI and user education (most people don't know what a fallacy is, let alone how many there are and how often they likely make them).
There is this misconception today that you can argue everything, including the laws of nature.
For "For software engineers, open-plan offices lead to greater productivity than individual offices" we don't need arguments but experiments and science.
The problem is that outside of a debate forum, you'd only be making a statement to accomplish some goal, and providing the link will only help you do that if people generally agree with your statement, which is exactly the case right now.
The problem with "the GPL is freer than the BSD license" is that it's the wrong question to ask, because the perspective is too narrow. What matters most IMHO is which license will lead to the largest and most viable ecosystem of free software. If you take this perspective of a whole ecosystem instead of the license of a single project, a lot of complex dynamics and unintended consequences need to be considered, and it may make more sense to investigate empirically instead of armchair arguing.
I love this!!! I wish it gets pushed forward! I wish a lot of people would use this! I think it is a great platform!
I worked on something very similar as one of my very first projects which got me into programming. I wanted there to be a debate website where anything could be debated using arguments. I've found that the debates I would see on TV or in everyday discussions would not be good enough, because:
- There was space for people to diverge off of the discussion
- When the discussion would fork, the participants might forget some previous arguments that were made
- It would be difficult to come back to a previous point.
- People would have a bias towards the arguments made by the most prestigious side of the sides discussion a certain matter.
- It was possible to make some claims without backing up proofs/sources.
- Emotions could become a factor. The discussion can heat up.
I thus wrote a small website where one could post an idea as a node, and others could reply in favor of, against the idea or under a neutral position. The users could also vote for some nodes. The website would then become a collection of trees. As I see it, it could be used to discuss any matters! However, I've never really pushed the idea forward.
I've always thought about picking the project back up as I was passionate about the idea. I've never really got around doing so (I would love to discuss on how to get projects pushed forward). Through the years, I thought about this website, and I've found some problems that could arise:
- There would have to be a good user base. My perception was that people would have less incentive to discuss where no one would listen.
- How do you simplify ideas as much as possible? Some texts can be summarized or shortened (and some connections like relationships to other nodes could be added) and still have the same idea. I'm guessing this would be done using moderation. I think this is somewhat relevant because if you're browsing a tree of ideas, you want to do so seamlessly such that you do not lose interest in providing your input.
- For some, it is tiring to undergo a proper debate where the claims made need to be backed up. A lot of people like to discuss freely, in a comfortable setting. The usual reply system works for that.
- How do you report an improper report?
- I have found that many people like to stick with their beliefs more than with research. (This point applies to debates which need evidence. Many philosophical debates would be fine without the need for evidence.)
- It would make sense to have some nodes point to many parent nodes. How is that managed?
- The users need to learn about the possible relationships between the nodes.
- If a node would get too big, it would contain more than one idea. There has to be a system to split nodes apart.
- How do you deal with merging nodes?
- How do you manage spam and moderate node creation? (I did not have a good understanding of how to achieve these)
- How do you deal with nodes that have been edited? I've found a way to deal with this, but it's not as pretty as I would have liked it.
- Watching websites like Reddit and Facebook, I realized the reply system was enough as it allowed people as much room as they needed to make their point, using text. The only issue is organizing the ideas properly in this case. Hacker News had the reply system and people were using it to lead great discussions.
I've also thought about extending relationships to not just logical relationships. The reason I was looking to do this was that I wanted to find the simplest and most elegant solution that could apply to many use cases (not ALL the use cases though). It fitted (and still somewhat does fit in) how I think about writing good software (please someone correct me if I am wrong). The relationships would be akin to: Grows from, Follows, Is of type, Contains, etc.
I thought that this would essentially grow into a database of everything, a little bit like Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia does not allow much discussion (As far as I know).
I have a question: When using because/but/however, do they apply to the hypothesis or to the premise? It would seem logical that they apply to the premise, however the count on the homepage is slightly misleading. I thought some people were "becausing" a lot to a subject, when in fact it counted the becauses on the "buts," too.
Also, the design could be improved, but it's usable as it is.
Is there already a community/location for meta discussions? Maybe a Slack/Discord/Discourse/irc something or other.
E.g. I would like the ability to say 'I need more evidence to accept this premise', but I wouldn't want to just make a pull request if it's not something the community wants.
The fallacies reported should all be linked to a thorough discussion of each, and it should be possible to contest a fallacy report.
I love argument maps, they work much better than an essay form at trying to capture the complex aspects of an argument. But, an additional editorial aspect would be nice.
One problem I see here is people wrapping too many ideas into a single premise, which then makes arguing for or against it too difficult. Each should really be as small and isolated as possible.
Argument mapping is producing "boxes and arrows" diagrams of reasoning, especially complex arguments and debates. Argument mapping improves our ability to articulate, comprehend and communicate reasoning, thereby promoting critical thinking.
You can think argument mappings as visual hierarchy mappings.
Arguman.org’s aim is arguments to be mapped successfully by many users.
Do perfectly rational highly intelligent agents argue or is it our imperfection that needs such a tool? If yes then can people really change their minds after discussing like this?
I think that the answer to the first part of your question is 'yes'. Just imagine two (perfectly rational and highly intelligent) mathematicians debating the truth of an unknown result—say, the Riemann hypothesis. I suppose if you add the caveat 'omniscient', then the need to argue goes away.
That's a strength. I didn't know about the Plasma argument and it looks like a good one.
Someone is yet to post a good refutation to it there.
The weakness is in allowing those who disagree to throw a tantrum, be impolite, use curse words, and attack other participants, such as this post:
"What the fuck has this to do with global warming?? electric currents and your shitty plasma have nothing to do with this, literally 99% of your spam quotes are irrelevant quotes"
When it's obvious from the "spam" arguments posted that the Earth sits within a system that is 99% plasma.
The problem with this system is that you will get many participants Skissor (author of the above-quoted pearl) asking for arguments to be censored or removed. This is the major problem that forums everywhere have yet to solve - when enough of the majority deem the minority's point of view as "trolling" as asks that it be censored, there is no real debate.
I would say, based on the number of supporters of the existing arguments, it is not really a good example of weakness..
But yeah, the debate here lacks some good arguments. For example, one of the main reasons why we know global warming is not caused by the sun (aside from direct observation) is the fact that nights/winters/poles are getting warmer than days/summers/tropics, and that stratosphere is cooling.
Perhaps the weakness of the platform is that it doesn't distinguish between rational (thoughts) and empirical (facts) arguments?
This really looks interesting, I really like its simplicity. However it feels like that the arguments should either support the given statement or its converse. I think there should be other options too. As a physicist I would argue that the very statement "The universe is a simulation." is non-falsifiable, therefore it's not something we should argue about. There could be other problems with statements too, like "the GPL is freer than the BSD licence" where there is no consensus on the definition of free.
It would be nice if one could source other statements, it could integrate with it quite well.
A UI suggestion: how about make the list view in HN nested comment style? If an argument gets too much items (like this one: http://en.arguman.org/there-is-no-such-thing-as-global-warmi...), it's a little mess in tree view. The list view style is more clear, but you have to click each item to see the sub-item. How aout make them nested with indentations? So one can see all items in one place.
When will different branches get merged? ;) It is great to build the mind map and log the history just like `git` does. But people still need rooms to discuss more.
I built something like this back in the day. It looks like it's lacking a weighing mechanism. This (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_logic) is a good formalized framework to use for that, if the authors are here reading along.
[+] [-] arjie|10 years ago|reply
For instance, nothing would make me happier than to be able to reply to the nth discussion regarding the idea that "the GPL is freer than the BSD licence" with a universal fully-qualified link to every argument for and against the idea. Or "For software engineers, open-plan offices lead to greater productivity than individual offices".
While it may appear that this would lead to some sort of _Futurological Congress_-esque situation where we respond to people in paragraph numbers, it has many advantages:
* No longer will people be misled by a correct statement poorly argued for.
* No longer will message boards be polluted by the nth iteration of the same argument.
* Undiscovered lines of argument will be universally available.
Of course there's the disadvantage that you'll get less participation, and there's value in just having some number of comments even if they're repetitive: at the least, the desire to respond to that may bring people who later on make novel arguments.
This seems like a fine UI to do that. Deep link to the relevant sub-graph, and let the collective intelligence of thousands do your arguing for you. I like it.
[+] [-] jsprogrammer|10 years ago|reply
I think the biggest challenge is UI and user education (most people don't know what a fallacy is, let alone how many there are and how often they likely make them).
[+] [-] TrevorJ|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BogusIKnow|10 years ago|reply
For "For software engineers, open-plan offices lead to greater productivity than individual offices" we don't need arguments but experiments and science.
[+] [-] 1123581321|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andreasvc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qznc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kovek|10 years ago|reply
I worked on something very similar as one of my very first projects which got me into programming. I wanted there to be a debate website where anything could be debated using arguments. I've found that the debates I would see on TV or in everyday discussions would not be good enough, because:
- There was space for people to diverge off of the discussion
- When the discussion would fork, the participants might forget some previous arguments that were made
- It would be difficult to come back to a previous point.
- People would have a bias towards the arguments made by the most prestigious side of the sides discussion a certain matter.
- It was possible to make some claims without backing up proofs/sources.
- Emotions could become a factor. The discussion can heat up.
I thus wrote a small website where one could post an idea as a node, and others could reply in favor of, against the idea or under a neutral position. The users could also vote for some nodes. The website would then become a collection of trees. As I see it, it could be used to discuss any matters! However, I've never really pushed the idea forward.
I've always thought about picking the project back up as I was passionate about the idea. I've never really got around doing so (I would love to discuss on how to get projects pushed forward). Through the years, I thought about this website, and I've found some problems that could arise:
- There would have to be a good user base. My perception was that people would have less incentive to discuss where no one would listen.
- How do you simplify ideas as much as possible? Some texts can be summarized or shortened (and some connections like relationships to other nodes could be added) and still have the same idea. I'm guessing this would be done using moderation. I think this is somewhat relevant because if you're browsing a tree of ideas, you want to do so seamlessly such that you do not lose interest in providing your input.
- For some, it is tiring to undergo a proper debate where the claims made need to be backed up. A lot of people like to discuss freely, in a comfortable setting. The usual reply system works for that.
- How do you report an improper report?
- I have found that many people like to stick with their beliefs more than with research. (This point applies to debates which need evidence. Many philosophical debates would be fine without the need for evidence.)
- It would make sense to have some nodes point to many parent nodes. How is that managed?
- The users need to learn about the possible relationships between the nodes.
- If a node would get too big, it would contain more than one idea. There has to be a system to split nodes apart.
- How do you deal with merging nodes?
- How do you manage spam and moderate node creation? (I did not have a good understanding of how to achieve these)
- How do you deal with nodes that have been edited? I've found a way to deal with this, but it's not as pretty as I would have liked it.
- Watching websites like Reddit and Facebook, I realized the reply system was enough as it allowed people as much room as they needed to make their point, using text. The only issue is organizing the ideas properly in this case. Hacker News had the reply system and people were using it to lead great discussions.
I've also thought about extending relationships to not just logical relationships. The reason I was looking to do this was that I wanted to find the simplest and most elegant solution that could apply to many use cases (not ALL the use cases though). It fitted (and still somewhat does fit in) how I think about writing good software (please someone correct me if I am wrong). The relationships would be akin to: Grows from, Follows, Is of type, Contains, etc.
I thought that this would essentially grow into a database of everything, a little bit like Wikipedia. Although Wikipedia does not allow much discussion (As far as I know).
[+] [-] platz|10 years ago|reply
Also look into Toulmin - claim, warrant http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/rgass/toulmin2.htm
[+] [-] MarkPNeyer|10 years ago|reply
http://s3.neyer.me/consensus/
makes me think i should dust it off..
[+] [-] vinchuco|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.arguman.org/there-should-be-inbuilt-definitions-fo...
[+] [-] spoiler|10 years ago|reply
I have a question: When using because/but/however, do they apply to the hypothesis or to the premise? It would seem logical that they apply to the premise, however the count on the homepage is slightly misleading. I thought some people were "becausing" a lot to a subject, when in fact it counted the becauses on the "buts," too.
Also, the design could be improved, but it's usable as it is.
P.S: Gosh, my sentence is confusing.
[+] [-] kybernetikos|10 years ago|reply
Is there already a community/location for meta discussions? Maybe a Slack/Discord/Discourse/irc something or other.
E.g. I would like the ability to say 'I need more evidence to accept this premise', but I wouldn't want to just make a pull request if it's not something the community wants.
The fallacies reported should all be linked to a thorough discussion of each, and it should be possible to contest a fallacy report.
[+] [-] qznc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lars512|10 years ago|reply
One problem I see here is people wrapping too many ideas into a single premise, which then makes arguing for or against it too difficult. Each should really be as small and isolated as possible.
[+] [-] fatiherikli|10 years ago|reply
You can think argument mappings as visual hierarchy mappings.
Arguman.org’s aim is arguments to be mapped successfully by many users.
[+] [-] fatiherikli|10 years ago|reply
http://github.com/arguman/arguman.org
[+] [-] arisAlexis|10 years ago|reply
(I do think its a great platform)
[+] [-] eru|10 years ago|reply
They agree, and do so quickly. See http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2410 for an explanation of Aumann’s Agreement Theorem.
[+] [-] JadeNB|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] graphql-tlc|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leni536|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zbyte64|10 years ago|reply
Inject enough irrelevant counterarguments and you get the same quasi-controversy with the same amount of confusion for the layman.
[+] [-] planfaster|10 years ago|reply
Someone is yet to post a good refutation to it there.
The weakness is in allowing those who disagree to throw a tantrum, be impolite, use curse words, and attack other participants, such as this post:
"What the fuck has this to do with global warming?? electric currents and your shitty plasma have nothing to do with this, literally 99% of your spam quotes are irrelevant quotes"
When it's obvious from the "spam" arguments posted that the Earth sits within a system that is 99% plasma.
The problem with this system is that you will get many participants Skissor (author of the above-quoted pearl) asking for arguments to be censored or removed. This is the major problem that forums everywhere have yet to solve - when enough of the majority deem the minority's point of view as "trolling" as asks that it be censored, there is no real debate.
[+] [-] asgard1024|10 years ago|reply
But yeah, the debate here lacks some good arguments. For example, one of the main reasons why we know global warming is not caused by the sun (aside from direct observation) is the fact that nights/winters/poles are getting warmer than days/summers/tropics, and that stratosphere is cooling.
Perhaps the weakness of the platform is that it doesn't distinguish between rational (thoughts) and empirical (facts) arguments?
[+] [-] leni536|10 years ago|reply
It would be nice if one could source other statements, it could integrate with it quite well.
[+] [-] leavjenn|10 years ago|reply
A UI suggestion: how about make the list view in HN nested comment style? If an argument gets too much items (like this one: http://en.arguman.org/there-is-no-such-thing-as-global-warmi...), it's a little mess in tree view. The list view style is more clear, but you have to click each item to see the sub-item. How aout make them nested with indentations? So one can see all items in one place.
[+] [-] voaie|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tunavargi|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] grizzles|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pentestercrab|10 years ago|reply
[1] http://en.arguman.org/this-argument-has-the-same-total-count...
[+] [-] bobcostas55|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joshschreuder|10 years ago|reply
No idea how to install it, but take a look :)
[+] [-] eadz|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tengwar|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kybernetikos|10 years ago|reply
I like this implementation though. Really cool.
[+] [-] georgebonnr|10 years ago|reply