We need a cost-benefit analysis political part to address the dogma:


Dogma, in essence, is applying truths without considering their conflicting counterparts. Undertaking the intricate task of balancing pros and cons in our minds is akin to complex mathematical equations. This complexity escalates when we must weigh the relative importance of competing truths.

The problem arises when we insist on a single belief being the ultimate truth, neglecting the relevance of differing perspectives in various scenarios. Our world is filled with advocates for compassion or strict justice, defenders of tradition, or proponents of societal reconfiguration. While many dogmas carry elements of truth, they require balancing with alternative approaches.

The virtues of compassion, kindness, and mercy are indisputable, but they are not one-size-fits-all remedies. There are instances where the application of these virtues can lead to unintended harm: excessive compassion towards adults can neglect children's needs, and misplaced kindness towards criminals may lead to additional victims. Even trust, a valued virtue, can sometimes be misplaced, resulting in tragic outcomes.

Political philosophies often revolve around single-word approaches, creating a tendency to avoid balancing opposing principles. The crux of political issues lies in the imbalance between order and chaos, novelty and tradition, justice and mercy. If you are not constantly weighing these opposing forces in your mind, you have succumbed to dogma.

Our current methods of debate are flawed. Broadcast media, for example, lacks an effective feedback or correction mechanism. It's difficult to trust entities that spread information without allowing for feedback. Those who control the media are often motivated by power or profit, using their control to propagate their dogma or addict us to content that promotes anger or hatred.

The time-based nature of broadcast news and infotainment is particularly damaging. Each time-based broadcast is designed for a different audience, limiting its depth and preventing it from building on previous broadcasts. Organizing content by time not only removes context but also prevents the grouping of related issues. This leads to a constant reiteration of shallowly addressed topics that fit within the average viewer's attention span.

To address this, we need a paradigm shift in how we communicate and debate. We need a system that allows for in-depth analysis and feedback, one that does not oversimplify complex issues for the sake of filling a time slot. Only by breaking away from dogma and encouraging a multifaceted perspective can we hope to make meaningful progress.


Dogma: Applying truths without regard for other truths:

The act of balancing pros and cons is a complex task, particularly when it involves weighing competing truths. Our world is replete with advocates for compassion, staunch defenders of justice, preservers of tradition, and champions of societal transformation. The fallacy emerges when we cling to a single belief as the infallible truth, disregarding the varying contexts that could shift its relevance.

While many dogmas harbor elements of truth, they require counterbalance from alternative perspectives. Virtues such as compassion, kindness, and mercy often hold true, yet there are circumstances where their application can inadvertently inflict harm. Trust, another highly-regarded virtue, needs to be tempered with caution. Blind, short-term compassion may inadvertently reward and perpetuate detrimental behavior.

Political philosophies that shun the balancing of conflicting principles foster an imbalance between order and chaos, tradition and innovation, justice and mercy. We must continually strive to strike a balance between justice and mercy, and discern when more order or chaos is warranted. The refusal to question these aspects implies a surrender to dogma and an unwillingness to embrace the complexities of our ever-evolving world.


Harnessing Collective Intelligence: A Proposal for Transparent, Data-Driven Decision Making

Peter Thiel has argued that aside from advancements in data, our society has seen little progress in the past century. Google's success, valued in hundreds of billions of dollars, stemmed from their innovative use of links as a voting system for website rankings. This suggests that we could apply similar principles to rank ideas directly, rather than merely directing users to external websites. Google's algorithm places trust in websites with more links, but this can be flawed as people often make mistakes.

A more robust algorithm could consider the number of valid arguments supporting a claim, rather than merely counting links to a website. By refining this approach, we could harness the power of big data to improve decision-making. What we need is collective, transparent intelligence, not closed, artificial intelligence.

Imagine a system where we assign scores to various elements, thereby building conclusion validity from evidence validity. These could include:Linkage scores, addressing the relevance of evidence to a conclusion,
  • Uniqueness scores, indicating the lack of redundancy,
  • Data validity scores, addressing verification,
  • Logical validity scores,
  • Bias-free scores.
This could provide a solution to life's most pressing challenges. Rational collective thinking necessitates the dissection, evaluation, and scoring of arguments. We can't begin to address our problems without this process.

Transparent, collective cost-benefit analysis is the key to avoiding major catastrophes such as wars, artificial intelligence threats, global warming, extinction events from comets, supernovae, and super-volcanoes.

As it stands, our public policy is declining in intelligence. We're filtering all our decisions through our limited attention spans, compounded by the demands of our full-time jobs. We must embrace the complexity of these issues and start working towards solutions.

Harnessing the Power of Crowdsourced Policy: The Cost-Benefit Analysis Party!


Welcome to the Cost-Benefit Analysis Party! Here, I plan to introduce a unique approach to crowdsourcing government policy that I've been refining over the past two decades. The primary goal? Automating conflict resolution and mediation processes.

A wealth of literature exists on effective conflict resolution. These tried-and-true techniques can be powerfully integrated into a policy analysis web forum.

A book that perfectly encapsulates the essence of my vision is David's Sling. It embodies the spirit of utilizing reason and logic to dissect policy matters.

This forum is designed to methodically analyze the potential costs, benefits, and risks of policy propositions. Each factor is evaluated based on the strength of its supporting arguments, thus determining its likelihood. This is not a simple process; it involves intricate mechanisms promoting quality argumentation. The defeat of weak arguments and the support of quality ones lead us to reliable conclusions about the potential outcomes of various policy actions.

Quality-promoting algorithms form the backbone of this framework. They incorporate elements of upvoting, downvoting, ranking, moderation, and expertise validation, akin to systems you'd see on LinkedIn, Wikipedia, and Kialo.

My vision extends beyond the forum itself. Why not establish a political party that endorses candidates willing to utilize this forum to inform their decisions?

In essence, this post serves as an argument for the potential effectiveness of crowdsourced policy forums. Together, we can revolutionize policy-making and foster a more inclusive, informed, and democratic future.