The Oppenheimer Initiative: A New Political Party for Open Dialogue and Fact-Based Choices

In a 1949 speech at the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Oppenheimer stressed the value of openness and questioned the wisdom of confrontational foreign policies. He believed these principles could be the bedrock for a more rational and effective political system.

Given the backdrop of the Cold War and the heightened tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Oppenheimer's call for openness and collaboration was remarkably prescient.

He also noted that openness alone isn't sufficient to address the world's complexities. Oppenheimer said, "The challenges of navigating the subtle, the intricate, and the unknown aren't just political; they span science, daily life, and even art. The solution often lies in 'style,' which balances assertiveness with restraint and humility, enabling effective rather than absolute action. In foreign policy, style helps us align our core objectives with differing viewpoints."

Oppenheimer, as a scientist advocating for open dialogue, questioned the risks of wielding power without thoughtful analysis. He wanted to be able to ask, 'How many nuclear weapons do we actually need for security?' At that time, even posing such a question was considered unacceptable and was excluded from public debate. When conversations are limited, groupthink and confirmation bias can easily dominate, particularly in political or governmental settings where an 'us versus them' mentality often prevails. The focus tends to shift from addressing the concerns of the other side to merely defeating them.

Oppenheimer faced challenges due to his early liberal leanings and Jewish heritage. His focus on openness clashed with the McCarthyism doctrine, which emphasized secrecy and ideological uniformity. He criticized this culture of secrecy, arguing that "secrecy deprives the government of the collective wisdom of the community."

What if we could establish a new political party dedicated to open dialogue, collective wisdom, and Oppenheimer's vision of an open society? I propose a party that backs candidates who base their decisions on thorough cost-benefit analyses and open debates. This party would operate on a transparent platform, similar to Wikipedia, where anyone can contribute to evaluating policy options by ranking the strength of their supporting arguments and evidence.

Technically speaking, I suggest using the now-public-domain Google PageRank algorithm to assess the strength of arguments based on their interconnections and the collective strength of their pro/con sub-arguments. These arguments would be organized into separate debates to evaluate their logical soundness, empirical support, relevance, and potential impact. While other algorithms could be employed, discussing them in detail might be too technical.

Such a methodology could have prevented past errors. Oppenheimer wisely observed, "Coercion is not the answer to our foreign policy challenges." Our history is marred by failed alliances with leaders who professed anti-communism but acted in anti-democratic and oppressive ways. Ill-informed decisions have led us into costly conflicts, such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Oppenheimer's insights offer a roadmap for a better future. He reminded us that there was a time when politics and science were closely aligned, and we should strive to reestablish that connection through evidence-based decision-making.

Let's form an "Oppenheimer Party" that employs a disciplined methodology to guide power through reasoned dialogue. This approach would organize arguments pro and con, evaluate them with humility, and take action within our confidence levels, all while continually refining the system.

Government-Sponsored Disinformation: Combating the Trolls through Democratic Principles

Democracy’s Mighty Arsenal

To counter disinformation, let's extend the democratic principles of Wikipedia across platforms. We'll crowdsource cost-benefit analysis and conflict resolution, turning anger into constructive dialogue.

Fighting external trolls will also defeat our internal trolls and help us break Free from Bias

The following approach that links conclusion strength to evidence strength automagically destroys my-side bias and confirmation bias because it removes arguments from feelings and uses evidence to "weigh" conclusions:

Here's how:

1.       Isolating Each Belief: Evaluate each belief on its unique page, like Wikipedia, focusing on the evidence for and against it. This will keep the topic from changing.

2.       Linking Related Beliefs: Enhance collective understanding by analyzing interconnections between ideas and gauging their strengths and weaknesses. Putting similar ways of saying the same thing will allow us to reduce redundancy and truly have one page for each belief, not matter what language, dialect, or style is used to express it. We'll group similar expressions of ideas, assigning scores to determine their equivalency and identifying the "best" way to articulate them.

3.       Brainstorming Reasons: Participants are encouraged to explore reasons for both agreement and disagreement, fostering a well-rounded understanding of the issues.

4.       Pro/Con Analysis: Every conspiracy theory undergoes rigorous evaluation through a pro/con analysis, where the strength of supporting and opposing evidence is meticulously weighed, and bad arguments are not deleted, just moved to the bottom of the lists, so conspiracy theorist can see all the valid counterarguments, keeping their arguments and ultimately their belief from gaining traction. In a world where bad arguments don't help and can even hurt their cause, they will eventually run out of steam.

5.       Evidence Linking: The strength of each belief is tied directly to the robustness of the evidence, promoting transparency and honesty in our assessments.

6.       Identifying Logical Fallacies: We scrutinize information for logical fallacies and provide verification scores, grounding our plans in evidence.

7.       We will separate arguments by their type, to keep them separated (e.g., arguments about logical fallacies, verification or replication, importance, and linkage) 

The Path to a Stronger Future

With this robust approach to information evaluation, we pave the way for a brighter tomorrow. Collaboration becomes the driving force behind an enlightened society where democratic participation thrives.

So, let's steer our course with clarity, reason, and precision. We can neutralize disinformation, triumph over biased thinking, and lay the foundation for a new era of logical decision-making and societal unity. Let's forge ahead with a specific and actionable plan, embracing the power of collective intelligence to safeguard our democracy.

Just the facts, please

A widely accepted maxim of good decision-making is not mixing your values and facts. Once you have gathered all your facts, you can use your values to select between them. However, this is why lady justice uses a blindfold when determining the facts. That is the problem with Fox News and CNN. We don’t have different values now but different (so-called) facts. When discussing the world, we need to identify the facts without hopes, fears or fit the world into pre-written stories about how we are angels and those who disagree are stupid or evil. When designing an elevator, you might be afraid your new design is too weak, hoping it is much better. However, you must run tests to determine what its actual capacity is. Then you can use your values, which want you to have a significant safety factor, to make a statement about its maximum load. You wouldn’t start this process by selling the elevator without running a test to ensure its capacity is accurate and that you have a significant safety factor.

It is the same with evidence-based policy. First, we will conduct a process to identify each policy's most likely costs and benefits. Then we will use a separate process to identify and weigh the values and interests of each party within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and identify to which degree each decision should be made by the most likely overall or specific costs, benefits, and the appropriate level of risk for each decision.