Summery of the best reasons to agree or disagree so far
myclob
reasons why I am doing this.
If you don't want to read it all just, but still want to try something
with me, just read the next paragraph.
I want to organize posts into "reasons to agree with school uniforms"
and "reasons to disagree" with school uniforms. To do this, I (or the
moderator) can post to messages responding to this idea. These messages
will say. "reasons to agree" and "reasons to disagree" to post reasons
to agree with school uniforms, just respond to it. Hopefully this will
sumerize all of the reasons to agree or disagree that have been posted
so far. To get the true effect, you have to use the tree method of
viewing ideas.
-------------------------------------------------
The boring explanation
We are drowning in information, we need some way of organizing it
This web will help people resolve conflict because it can also help
people keep track of information. The principle of competition between
ideas, would make you want to put your idea in the right category, to
make sure that it is seen the most.
Lots of web sites seek to express positions, and the reasons for
believing them. However no web site has yet sought to address all
truth. On this web site all information will end up as a support for
some opinion. We are drowning in information, but the problem is not
too much information, it is that we have now way of dealing with it,
all at once, or outside of some context.
You go to one person's web site to learn what Rush Limbaugh
thinks; you go to another web site to learn what Al Gore thinks. You
go to another web site to learn what Abraham Lincoln once said. There
has never been any attempt to summarize the knowledge of the world into
one whole. However with a million hands, and a system that promotes
the survival of the fittest idea, that keeps getting better, conflicts
will solve themselves magically. While you sleep, thousands of people
will be working on a solution. Highlights of the worlds best essays,
newspaper articles, books, speeches, and debates will evolve into a
united whole. This web site will become a great frame of reference.
We can look at the best reasons for believing or not believing
anything.
Too many categories may cause problems. One way of addressing the
problem would be to only show the 3 most used categories for a certain
discussion. That way each idea would not be too complicated, when
trying to sort through them.
However, Einstein said that things should be made as simple as
possible, but not more so. I think we should organize all of the
reasons to agree or disagree with every idea. To do this, I think it
would be very beneficial to be able to classify all the posts. If you
want to have a comprehensive site dedicated to each issue, and you want
to have all of the reasons to agree or disagree, you have to have some
way of organizing the information. Or else how could you ever make a
decision?
If you really want to make a decision, you also have to have some way
of evaluating each post, so that the best ideas and reasons to agree or
disagree with an idea will go to the top of their category.
I do not see how the human race makes decisions without some sort of
system like this. Are we really so self righteous to think that we have
all of the information without brain storming all of the reasons to
disagree with a certain course of action? Are we really so self
righteous that we don't even think it is important to try and organize
reasons to agree and disagree, without assigning value to each of these
ideas?
We can not do this very well, because our brains can not comprehend
more than a few reasons to agree or disagree with an idea at a time.
Our brains are not capable of making logical choices that take all of
the reasons to agree or disagree into account. However, computers can
allow the whole online community to evaluate each of the hundred of
reasons to agree or disagree with a particular idea, each on their own
merits.
We should create a computer algorithm that represents an idea's score.
This idea organizing algorithm is meant to organize ideas just like
Google organizes websites (putting the best at the top). This website
will promote quality. The idea score is based on an algorithm that
takes into consideration these factors:
Quantity of reasons that agree or disagree with the idea: The side with
more reasons (to agree or disagree) would get more points than the
other side. For example this idea has more reasons to agree than
disagree. Just like when you fill out a list of reasons to or not to do
certain activities, you tend to choose the side with more reasons to
agree.
Number of people who agree or disagree with the idea: The side with
more people who agree should get more points. People could vote for or
against ideas.
The website with better web links. Better is determined by Google rank.
There would be a field where you could enter link that "agree" or
"disagree" with the idea. The side with better web links would win.
Example
Results of peer evaluations: Their would be forms that people would
fill out that asked pointed questions about each idea. You could
respond to each question on a scale from 1 to 10. These results would
affect the total score for each idea.
Money. "Follow the money." People could donate money to this website if
they believe in it. But a better way of doing it would be to let people
donate money towards a specific idea. If you don't like the way this
sounds you should read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I'll just briefly
say that money is the only way of measuring someone's blood, sweat, and
tears. Money is the only way that someone can pay someone else for
their work. Also, it could be used on this website as tug of war
analogue. Money could be donated to each side of an idea.
Experts. Each idea would get more points if it was submitted from the
e-mail address of a professor with a degree in the subject mater that
is being discussed. For instance if someone said that Abraham Lincoln
was an idiot. And someone disagreed, and someone else agreed. If the
person that disagreed had a degree in history and the idea was
submitted to the history section, then the person who disagreed (the
professor) would win. The more prestigious the school, the more points.
Prestigious would be ranked by the US News report, or some other
un-biased judge. I don't care about you people that say, "The smartest
people don't always make the best decisions." We are talking about
percentages. Of course the smartest people don't always make the best
decisions, but they would tend to make better decisions that stupid or
uneducated people.
Items that agree. People would be able to submit books that they think
are important to read to make an educated decision about a certain
topic. For instance "The communist manifesto" by Carl Marx and "Atlas
Shrugged" by Ian Rand may be considered to be the most important books
to read regarding weather or not we should raise taxes. Those that had
read those books, should have more say on this idea than those who have
not, because this website desided that those books are very important
to understand to make a decision about this issue. But the algorithm
could go deeper. We are only just beginning to enter the rabit hole. We
could let people who have read these books submit essays on them (like
book reports in school). The people with a higher "grade" on their
essays would get more say in those issues that people have said that
those books are important.
The goal of the algorithm is to put the best ideas to the top. I don't
know which one of these would carry more weight. For instance should
experts or web links carry more weight?
I think it would be cool if each user could say which things they want
to pay attention to. That way if one user respects authorizes, like
people with degrees.
If every one gets a vote on which books you should be an authority in a
subject, than why shouldn't those who wrote a book reports on those
books be given more authority in that subject?
I'm very sorry I deleted any of your annotations, I am new at this
website, that is the only excuse I can give, and I promise I will not
delete any more.
If every one gets a vote on which books you should be an authority in a
subject, than why shouldn't those who wrote a book reports on those
books be given more authority in that subject?
"If an idea that has certain intrinsically good aspects is presented in
a manner that for the most part will tend to garner a negative vote, it
will be seen as a bad idea before even any further depth can be
ascertained. That is, not as many people will be interested in viewing
it objectively, or even at all, given an initial coating of negative
feedback."
And how would my algorithm do this worse than any other website? I
actually think that that could be worked into the algorithm, that if
you bought into an idea before it was popular, than you would be given
more credit.
"Quantity of Reasons: Unworkable"
How is it unworkable? A computer counts the number of ideas, not too
difficult.
"Impractical" Why?
"not qualitative" I address quality with other parts of the algorithm.
"not representative," Why? Don't just make up accusations, defend them
"open to abuse," Every system is open to abuse. If you punish those who
commit this abuse, or remove the rewards for abuse, do you think it
would stop?
"promotes low standards of morality," How so? What does that mean?
"ill-conceived," Gosh, what did I say that made you so mad?
"requires vetting of reasons for validity," That's the whole point
"Money: "Oil is the only effective fuel for today's energy needs" -
Paid for on behalf of the members of OPEC by the Members of OPEC. Lot's
of reasons for this one too."
I would have a place where people evaluate the motivation of those who
agree and those who disagree.
"Authority: Again, how do we ensure that a person's supposed authority
is real, and, if it is, that it relates to the idea in question?"
Give me a chance and I would explain. I thought that we could maintain
a list of professors along with the subjects they teach. I think this
would be pretty easy to get off of the schools official website.
"For example, does a professor in Ancient Egyptian history score more
points than a boot scrubber who lived through the Second World War on
an idea about Fascism?"
I don't understand the comparison. Why not compare a professor who had
a degree in current history? The system is not completely developed. It
is just an idea of mine. I did not write it out in precise and vivid
detail. You can make up a stupid way of implementing my idea, and then
say it is stupid, but I never advocated that method. Yes your guy who
"lived through WWII" might be better, but I'm looking at statistics.
Statistically speaking wouldn't you rather have someone with a degree
in economics making decisions about economics than someone who has
never heard of economic (see it's easy to when an argument you
exaggerate).
How will this work?
Much like Linux is built by many different people, I think that this
website could make a list of all of the reasons to agree or disagree
with different ideas.
Ways this website will make money
Advertising
Online dating or networking.
If people are going to be going threw and rating how much they agree or
disagree with different ideas or beliefs, after a while this website
would get to know a person pretty well. Why not allow users of this
website to use this information to meet like minded people? I can't
remember a whole lot from my statistics class, but I imagine it working
something like this. On my website you would say, on a scale from one
to 10 how much you think an idea or a reason to agree or disagree with
an idea is valid. You could then be compared to other people who use
this website. For instance person A might give the position represented
on issue number 1 a score of 6 (out of ten). Person B might give that
position a score of 7. So on this issue they are one point away from
each other. After a while you could find out what the average point
difference is between you and another person. Two people who agreed all
the time would have an average point difference of zero (this is highly
unlikely). This is where statistics come in (42.7% of all statistics
are made up on the spot (Steven Wright).). If two people agree once,
that does not necessarily mean that they are a good match.
Statisticians call this a confidence interval. If we defined similar
minded people as individuals who are always within two points of each
other, we could come up with a confidence interval that two people are
"similarly minded".
We should use the idea stock exchange to match individuals who want to
date or network.
If people are going to be going threw and rating how much they agree or
disagree with different ideas or beliefs, after a while this website
would get to know a person pretty well. Why not allow users of this
website to use this information to meet like minded people? I can't
remember a whole lot from my statistics class, but I imagine it working
something like this. On my website you would say, on a scale from one
to 10 how much you think an idea or a reason to agree or disagree with
an idea is valid. You could then be compared to other people who use
this website. For instance person A might give the position represented
on issue number 1 a score of 6 (out of ten). Person B might give that
position a score of 7. So on this issue they are one point away from
each other. After a while you could find out what the average point
difference is between you and another person. Two people who agreed all
the time would have an average point difference of zero (this is highly
unlikely). This is where statistics come in. If two people agree once,
that does not necessarily mean that they are a good match.
Statisticians call this a confidence interval. If we defined similar
minded people as individuals who are always within two points of each
other, we could come up with a confidence interval that two people are
"similarly minded". If it gets good enough people would pay for it.
People will be able to invest in ideas, similar to the way people
invest in stocks. We will make it like a game. People already bet in
weather or not athletic teams will win or loose, we should do the same
thing.
What are the objectives of this website?
To create a list of ideas or beliefs, and then to brainstorm:
reasons to agree and disagree with idea,
common interest of those who agree and disagree with the idea,
apposing interest of those who agree and disagree with the idea,
probable motives of those who agree and disagree with the idea,
best "things" that agree or disagree with the idea, such as books,
websites, songs, etc.
To create an algorithm that ranks ideas according to the the posts that
are mentioned above. This algorithm will advance the ideas that
have the highest ratio of reasons to agree vs. reasons to disagree with
them.
highest ranking things that agree with them. For instance, if someone
puts a link to a statement by the union of concerned scientist, it
would have a higher weight than some nobody with a personal website.
Clean Slate vs. Re-Inventing the wheal
In humanities classes I have been told that each person has to find
truth for themselves. I think this is true in the sense that no one can
or should tell anyone what to believe, but I don't think that we should
advocate that everyone re-invent the weal.
There have been great philosophers over the years, who have
pondered all of the great issues. I wonder if I could ever add anything
to what they thought. But I will never know, because there works are
not collected into one great whole.
What I would like to see is all the reasons to agree or disagree
with different ideas from the great thinkers. And, the present day
internet viewers could vote on the ideas, so that best ideas when to
the top.
For instance you would have reasons to believe that there is a God
from Leonardo Di Vinci and reasons to not believe in God from
Michelangelo. I guess they weren't really solly philosophers, you would
also have quotes from philosophers, and people from out day.
I do not think that each generation should have to re-invent the
wheal. I think that we should collect all of the great or original
writing over time, and have it all cross-referenced, and indexed, and
sorted out into reasons to agree or disagree with different positions.
The purposes of this website are to:
Reform online debate.
Make it so people never have to start a brainstorming session over from
scratch.
Collect all of the reasons to agree or disagree with each idea.
Organize all of the reasons to agree or disagree with each idea.
Put the best reasons at the top.
Force people to follow successful methods taught in dispute resolution.
Disputing sides should meet at a common table. This means that you
don't have a "pro" website, and an "anti" website. Both sides have one
website, with "pro" beliefs in one column and "anti" beliefs in
another. People should be able to see both sides.
Before you vote "anti" you should have to evaluate the best "pro"
reasons, forcing people to not just think about reasons that support
their side.
Reward people who think clearly.
Reward people who take un-popular beliefs that turn out to be more
popular, when more thoroughly investigated.
Track idea's popularity over time, similar to a stock's performance
over time.
Promote futures markets where people are able to invest real money in
ideas, similar to how they currently invest money in stocks and the
outcome of sporting events.
Build sophisticated algorithms that promote good ideas similar to how
Google promotes good WebPages.
Reaction by others
Timo Halonen
Dear Mr. Laub,
I read your idea with interest from Globalideasbank.org, as had thought
similar business idea as well. There will be a global downshift
movement (enforced by Internet) from macro to micro level activity,
while information is diffused to the individual level.
Thus this type of individual stock exchange, or individual
branding/individual marketability based on most recent as well as
cumulative individual abilities, certificates etc. (which changes on
daily basis) on a global level will increase as international business
will shift more to C2C level as well. Big corporations will purchase
individual skills, assets or services if these are extremely rare
globally.
Would be interested in discussing further about this matter in order to
start a very basic level business around your and my ideas. I lived and
worked in IT recruiting in Tokyo over the last 7 years, so our
skill set might fit well together.
BR,
Timo Halonen
Tim,
Thanks for the message. I would love to work with you in any way. The
ways that I see right now for making money on this would not come until
the website was established and working. However once it is up and
running and people are enjoying it I would allow people to start using
additional services at a price.
For instance, my idea of the sight's operation would go something like
this. People log in and post ideas, and reasons why they agree or
disagree with different ideas. Pretty soon you are going to have a
pretty good profile of who an individual is. After a while you could
offer a service that would match people with similar profiles. Maybe
the company could then be bought by Match.com or something.
Once I have spun that off, I would then develop other aspects of the
site. This would probably have to be done off shore, but I would build
an online gambling website much like any other online gambling site.
However I would incorporate the ideas that I have mentioned, and people
would not just be gambling about the outcome of sporting events. People
would invest their money (I would assume that people would start out
investing small amounts of money like $5) in ideas. If the ideas gain
in popularity, they could then sell that idea at a higher price. We
would make money by charging $0.1 or $.01 per transaction.
I have a lot of other ways of making money. Perhaps it would work much
like Google. How they make money off of every person who goes to one of
the sponsored links on the right of the page after a search. I would
have this giant website where people are able to post ideas about
anything. I would organize it into categories. I would have all sorts
of links to keep it organized. I could base it on the Dewey decimal
system. I would have a related topics section and subcategories, much
like Yahoo and other places organize data. Each idea would also have
reasons to agree or disagree along with a link to the profile of the
person who posted the idea. Much like E-bay maintains info about each
buyer and seller, so that if people do a lot of good transaction, they
have a better rating on E-bay. And their would be a business section
where people could pay us to place an advertisement buy the idea that
Shopco is better than Wal-Mart or Fords are better than Chevy. And they
could buy us like 1/100 of a Penney with every link that comes, but
with all of the possible ideas out there it could be a pretty steady
income.
People are very attached to their ideas. I can see people buying lots
of stock in an idea that they believe in, and them being satisfied,
even if the idea looses value in the long run because in their minds,
they paid to at least further the cause of that idea, and they didn't
have to pay a politician to do it. I look at this web site as a sort of
tug of war, where money invested in stock represents the hard work and
effort of those who invest in the ideas on the website. If people
believe in their ideas they will invest in their idea. And they will
invest more, if they are able to try and influence the outcome of the
war of ideas, buy listing the reasons why they believe in that idea.
Once they have invested in an idea, they will have an economic
incentive to increase that idea's standing. Perhaps they will tell
their friends to invest in that idea. Then when the idea becomes over
valued, then people can invest money against the idea. Smart people
will do this, and smart people will make money on this website. People
who see when an idea is over valued and when it is under valued will
make money, but everyone will enjoy the process. It is much easier to
get excited about investing in ideas, then investing in companies, I
think. Well I am sorry if none of this makes sense. I am at the library
checking my e-mail, but I need to go shopping now. I look forward to
talking to you.
Mike
Robin Hanson
I wrote the following e-mail to Robin Hanson rha...@gmu.edu
http://hanson.gmu.edu/
Assistant Professor of Economics, George Mason University. He was kind
enough to offer me some feedback. Here are the highlights of our
correspondence. I am in the process of getting permission from him to
keep this page posted.
Mon, 29 Jul 2002
Robin Dale Hanson,
I was told that you are the inventor of Idea Futures. I don't know if
you are involved in it now but I would love to become involved.
(I am he, and I am still involved.)
I believe that we both arrived at our ideas because we want people to
pay as much attention to what they believe, as the do the stock market.
Our differences main differences seem to that you see it as a way of
promoting scientific advancement, where I believe that it can apply to
general dispute resolution, and politics.
For each statement I would add two columns: Reasons to agree, and
Reasons to disagree. Then organize these reasons according to how many
people agree with them.
Weighting is dependent on the bettors certainty and the popularity. We
could also "weight" an idea by the:
Number of reasons to agree or disagree with it.
Certainty of the bettor (or evaluator) of the validity of his reason
for disagreeing with it.
I do not advocate that we should just bet on popularity alone.
Much like the the websites that offer places to do "research" on
particular stocks. I am suggesting that we add this research
information to the ideas that people are able to invest in. This
information would come in data that supports or discounts the position
being held.
I read on the website where some one suggested that this service could
be manipulated buy people with money. For instance, if government
policy was going to take into account the standing of a particular
idea. In this scenario it was suggested that an energy company could
invest in a negative position on the viability of alternative energy
methods...
I believe that my idea addresses this issue.
If you allowed for your website to became a place for information
research, and not just idea trading this could be addressed.
Please tell me what you think
Thanks again for the e-mail.
Michael Laub
Mike wrote:
I think it would be great to bet on different possibilities, but I
think people aught to be able to bet on the reasons for agreeing or
disagreeing with different ideas. But wait, you can't bet on reasons,
because reasons aren't events. With the reasons, you are only betting
on weather or not those reasons will gain in popularity, i.e. more
people buy stock in those reasons.
That is what gets me excited about online betting. I want a complete
list of all of the reasons to believe everything...
to which Robin Hanson wrote:
Slightly different, but familiar. Lots of people have proposed creating
discussion forums based on the format you have in mind, with
conclusions, reasons, interests, etc. (See "David's Sling" by Marc
Stiegler, for example.) The big question is: how do you induce people
to actually fill in these slots? The "if we build it they will come"
approach has failed for the vast majority of web discussion forums
people have designed.
I have some thoughts on the topic, but overall I'd say we mostly just
don't understand human conversation enough to design new forums for it.
What mostly works is what directly copies familiar forms of ordinary
conversation. People don't seem very interested in filling in
structured forms giving their reasons for claims.
Betting markets are a long standing institution, and I have more hope
there. The reason people bet is, of course, to make money.
Maybe this deserves more thought. Could you bet on what a jury would
say were good reasons for something?
to which Mike wrote:
Yes. That would give finality, because there would be an undisputable
outcome, either a jury would or would not think that some things was a
good reason for believing something. The bet would have an undisputable
conclusion.
It seems as though you believe it would be hard to get people to bet
for something, unless it has an outcome that is final, like a baseball
game or a courtroom decision. I have not thought about that
specifically and I would be interested in reasons why you prefer that
method.
However what I have always envisioned would work just like the stock
market. People buy stock in a company, even though there is no final
thing that they are betting on. They are just betting that the
popularity of that company will rise in the future. That is what I
would like to set up. A system where people can bet on weather or not
ideas will rise or fall in popularity (measuring popularity buy how
many people are willing to buy stock in that idea).
I had not thought of betting on the outcome or courtroom proceedings,
however it is a very interesting idea. I like how you adopted my idea
of betting on reasons to believe something,
to a situation where there is a final outcome, like a courtroom.
On a related matter, I have thought of putting government documents on
a site, and letting people click on a sentence or on the whole
document, and then be brought to a page that has
all of the reasons to agree or disagree with the law as a whole, or
part of the law. Then if you let your imagination go, it can really run
wild.
I would put the whole of the US constitution, tax codes, and other laws
on this site, and people could bet for or against every law or reasons
for having that law. For instance a smart person could have bought
stock in the idea that the patriot act was a good idea, and then know
that he wanted to sell stock in that idea after a couple of months if
no new attack was made.
Of course, this is just and idea. Maybe we would start with more simple
things, or things that would more easily gather interest of betters.
Maybe we don't need a revolution maybe we need an evolution, where the
betting industry starts to embrace these type of things one at a time.
I would get together with all of the current online betting people,
like people who do on line horse gambling. My understanding is that in
England there are less rules about gambling over the internet, and then
I would grow it.
Do you think that it would be a problem that there are just too many
ideas out there for this to work? For instance with so many ideas, each
one's worth would be more susceptible to manipulation. For instance if
you worked for Cape Wind you may be able to buy a lot of stock in the
idea that we should build wind turbines off of the coast of Nantucket.
But how is that any different than all of the back room deals that are
done in politics. I look at all the money that is given to politicians,
because people want their ideas to win. Why don't we give people an
opportunity to buy stock directly in the ideas that they want to win?
Billions of dollars are given to politicians...
Some people would give the money because they believe in the idea, and
other people would buy the stock in the idea because they think that
the idea with grow in popularity, so they can sell it. But in the long
run, that would make people more likely to invest in this stock
exchange over the regular stock exchange. Because no one is emotionally
tied to McDonalds or Burger king, but imagine if you could buy stock in
the idea that Abraham Lincoln was the best president. On a side not
this would be great for our culture. I think it would be a real
renaissance, because you could bet on the reasons for believing things
or not believing in them, there would be more focus on ideas...
I simply don't think that "the great quantity of possible ideas would
harm this web site." True, with a large quantity of ideas, that would
mean that fewer people would be exposed to each particular idea. So
lets say that we start off with 1,000 ideas that you can bet on. That
means that there are 1,000 separate markets. With my understanding of
economics, that would mean that each market would be more susceptible
to manipulation. When I say manipulation, I mean people trying to
forward their idea, buy stock in the market. They are people with
agendas. But in the long run, they will get what they want. They
increase the esteem of an idea, without having to pay off a politician.
But the market also wins, because if they are not smart they will not
make money. Their will be no economic rewards for people with agendas.
There will only be rewards for political scientist who understand
people and what they will bet on.
For instance if the idea is being voted on of weather or not Mormons
are cool, a Mormon could tell all of his Mormon friends about the idea,
and they would all think, "well yes Mormons are cool, I'm going to buy
into that idea!" But then after a while, someone would see the idea
that "Mormons are cool" is over valued, he would not buy stock in that
idea, and spend his money on something else, and be rewarded
economically.
I think of a great tug of war of ideas, where money represents time,
blood, and sweet, and people with agendas are able to affect the
popularity of ideas, but betting on them directly, and people with
brains, are able to buy and sell and make money like in any market. And
in the process we map out what we, as a society, believe, why we
believe it, and how much we are willing to put our money where our
mouths are.
So after a while, wherever there is manipulation that is caused buy
word of mouth or evangelism (talking up a stalk) then the smart people
can come in and see that a stock is over valued.
So no, I don't think that having too many ideas would be a problem, I
think the market would correct. I don't know about economics very much
but there must be a limit, or a reason for a limit to the number of
stocks that are listed in a particular market. However, I don't think
this would become an issue until a couple of years after the website
was created. You would probably start out with 100 different ideas, and
then let it grow, as you see fit. But you would have to be careful
about letting it grow too slowly, I guess.
Please forgive me if I am being presumptuous by writing all of this
stuff. I wish you luck, and I look forward to hearing from you when
ever you get a chance.
to which Robin Hanson wrote:
Well that is of course easier to set up, and in fact Ely Dahan has had
some success using this method to get students to predict what product
features people will like. But I don't trust it because once you
understand the incentives it is too easy to game - there is no clear
fundamental connection between who wins and who was right.
"Do you think that it would be a problem that there are just too many
ideas out there for this to work?"
It all depends on what the costs are for creating new markets, and
whether the trading mechanism used is one that encourages people to
focus on a few thick markets, avoiding the many thin markets.
to which Mike wrote:
You said, "there is no clear fundamental connection between who wins
and who was right" but in the stock market you could say the same
thing. Sure it would be nice if people invested in the truly good
companies, but they end up investing reflecting their understanding of
what companies are truly good. The point is to accurately reflect
societies understanding of truth, not discover an unknowable truth.
to which Robin Hanson wrote:
In real stock markets the connection to reality is that one can take
real assets and create a new company, and then sell shares, or one can
take an old company, buy up the shares, and then sell it for "scrap".
to which Mike wrote:
What I meant is that I think it would be viable to buy stock in an
idea, even if that idea is a belief, where someone may never look at
the bet and say for sure that they were right. I believe a stock market
of ideas would be viable, even if the "bet" had no conclusion. I
brought up the stock market to make the comparison that there is no
stopping of the bets on companies, that people buy stock in them
because they have faith that the stock will rise in value. I didn't
mean to assert that an idea had any marketable value in and of
themselves (unless you want to be really philosophical and say that
ideas are the only thing that has value).
to which Robin Hanson wrote:
Again, I'm skeptical, but I'd be happy to be wrong.
Unless you have the resources to create a whole site by yourself, your
real task is to find a team that is willing to include you, where you
together create a site with many
features, including those you want.
This back and forth method of debate or discussion is called a thread
discussion. The thread discussion method is a good way to have one of a
possible infinite conversations about a particular subject but it is a
terrible way to come to a conclusion because the subject changes so
often.
I do not think this is a good way to conduct debates. I would like to
replace this with a category debate. Where ideas are posted and
responses are posted to specific categories such as "reasons to agree"
or "Disagree" "web pages that agree" or "Disagree" "interest of those
who agree" or "disagree" "probable outcomes if the idea was adopted"
etc.
Sean Morgan
At 11:49 AM 29/07/2002 mailto:myc...@yahoo.com wrote:
Hi,
My name is Michael Laub. I have a similar idea to yours. Why not let
people bet on the popularity of every issue? And then to make it
better, I would let people list reasons to agree or disagree with each
position. Then I would organize these reasons according to the
percentage of people who bet (or
agree) on them.
It sounds simplistic and stupid, however I have a lot more to say. I
have been thinking about this idea independently for a couple of years,
and would love to talk to someone about it!
Mike
To which Sean Morgan responded
Hello Mike,
I would be interested in hearing more about your idea. It seems to be
quite different from Idea Futures. One of the strengths of IF is that
people bet on what they think will really happen, regardless of their
own opinion. The weighting (i.e., amount bet) is dependent on the
bettor's certainty (they aren't likely to bet on something they don't
feel certain of), popularity (political claims are played more than
scientific claims), and contention (if everyone agrees, no bets are
placed). So I don't see what betting on popularity alone gives you.
Sean
P.S. Idea Futures isn't my idea. It was invented by Robin Hanson, an
economics professor at George Mason University.
To which Michael Responded
Sean,
Hi, this is Michael. Thanks for e-mailing me back!
You said, "One of the strengths of IF is that people bet on what they
think will really happen, regardless of their own opinion."
I agree. People bet on what will happen, according to their opinion. In
other words people buy stock in Microsoft because, in their opinion,
they think that Microsoft stock will go up.
I see what your web site is trying to do, because I firmly believe in
the power of it. It would be great if we could bet people to invest in
ideas! People have no incentives to believe "smart" things right
now. I think that the people who came up with your website saw the need
for people believe smarter things.
I love your web site, and feel that I came up with the same idea
independently on my own. I have been working on this idea since 95,
however I have also been traveling around Tennessee and
getting my degree in electrical engineering. (There are not many people
in the electrical engineering department that want to talk about this
sort of thing!) However I am seeing the same
problem and opportunity with a slightly different twist. It would be
great if people had an economic motivation to invest in smart ideas. My
web site starts form the concept that people don't often think about
WHY they believe different things. We need your website, I would just
add another layer...
For each statement just add two columns: Reasons to agree, and Reasons
to disagree. Then organize these reasons according to how many people
agree with them.
You mentioned that the weighting is dependent on the bettors certainty
and the popularity. I would only add that you could also "weight"
an idea by the:
1. Number of reasons to agree or disagree with it.
2. Certainty of the bettor (or evaluator) of the validity of his reason
for disagreeing with it.
I was not advocating that we should just bet on popularity alone at
all...
Much like the stock market, there are places where you can buy stock.
Most of these places also offer "research" information. All I am
suggesting is that you add this research information.
This information would come in data that supports or discounts the
position being held.
I read on the website where some one suggested that this service could
be manipulated buy people with money. For instance, if government
policy was going to take into account the standing of a particular
idea. In this scenario it was suggested that an energy company could
invest in a negative position on the viability of alternative energy
methods...
I believe that my idea addresses this issue.
it shows that categories that I would allow people to submit ideas to.
Please tell me what you think!
Thanks again for the e-mail.
Michael Laub
Marc Vincent Irvin
Hi,
I read your AI posting on Yahoo. You asked if there is anyone out there
who would like to talk to you about your idea? Yes and No. What you are
talking about is something that is a forbidden and dangerous notion.
People are adverse to best or right ideas, because
they don't usually favor the powers that be.
I would challenge you to go a bit beyond the notion you put forth, and
see that there are much wider implications that can change worlds. AI
is much more than Intelligent Systems and once we figure it all out our
world will be a different one.
I am the kine, gene, meme guy who discovered the origin of the universe
can be explained through a deeper understanding of three words -
stability, probability, and relativity. Human good is any act helping
the many not hurting the few. In physical science it is any altered
state that perpetuates the majority of things not foresaking the
minorities of things. Nothing was the first something, and evolution is
a force that governs more than living organisms, it governs matter and
our thoughts. Kines the kinetics of matter.
Genes the genetics of life. Memes the memetics of thought. What you are
toying
with is memetic tampering and can be explosive, just like gene splicing
can breed an unstoppable influenza in the wrong hands. Make no mistake,
the Genie is in the bottle for a
good reason. Nazism was such an event, in case you did not know (it was
fueled by
a Darwinian derived memetics).
The hardest lesson for many of us to learn is that right is wrong when
the majority thinks
that all who are not right are wrong.
My deeper understanding began 20 years ago when I came up with an idea
similar
to your own (to solve the special interest and power broker monopolism
of world
power, especially our government) where people would submit there ideas
to a
clearing house which would publish them on a monthly basis. In addition
to sending
the ideas they would recieve ballots on which ideas were best. Then if
large
ballot support came they owners or volunteer champions could move to
a larger proposal size. The whole process would be financed by member
dues, that
were refundable because operational costs were limited to the interests
from
the dues.
God bless you on your journey.
Marc Vincent Irvin
Pitney Bowes Inc. 421-3422 or 203 739-3422
Pitney Bowes Fax. 421-3590 or 203 739-3590
Pitney Bowes Pgr. 800 483-4921
Stamford Home Tel. 203 327-4361
Stamford Home Fax. 203 967-3165
Personal Cell Phone 203 820-3013
To Which I responded:
Thanks for the e-mail. I believe that the internet can itself, with
some software, become a true form of artifial intellegence.
Just like the brain, which takes input from thousand of neurons, and
processes information from thousands of experiences, I believe that the
internet can be used to organize all of our reasons for doing the
things we do and believing the things we belive.
If we create an intuitive way of organizing all of this input, with
thousands of people all over the interent, this software program can be
said to become an artificial intellegence.
It is not thinking for itself, but the brain does not think for itself.
The brain makes decisions based upon past experiences and upon input
from thousands of nurons. If we create a
organized system where people can submit reasons why they believe or
don't believe different ideas, and then create an algorithem that makes
desions based upon all of this input, then I believe we have created
AI.
To which he responded:
Thanks,
Your site gives me hope. For two decades I have
been the odd man out. Maybe now is the time. Everything
begins with one. I did not see one idea at your site
that I did not agree with, and have not acted on myself.
Staying on your stream of thought, however, I have
done much work directly aiming at achieving the
goal you define. As much as I share your views
we have different realities, and as such my plan
which started like yours, differs now. One of the
goals of my work in AI, ES, and NL is to make
a dialog integrator. My vision is for the internet
machine to let a person spill their innards, with
some relevant and context sensitive queries
in between to keep them focus, and the system
A) records their views, then B) intergrates there
view automatically, using ES rules and NL
formulas I am in the process of building. I have
my own AI engine called REXRULES, and it
being tuned to the effort that I agree with you
is important, the manifestation of collective
thoughts to liberate ultimately the creative
process (it would start with political application
as well which I feel would result in the evolution
of DEMOCRACY into a higher order SYNOCRACY).
On my train of thought their are great dangers,
I again say. They were and have been hinted
at in ancient scripts (i.e. the Bible) that the day
would come. Another implication of what you
are working toward, (remember inventions have
a way of taking on their own life) is the era when
national citizenship of its own accord gives way
to world citizenship. The internet which systems
such as you envision can do that. Allegiance,
to the State no, imagine people in China, Iraq,
Brazil, signing on to the Bill of Rights that the
symthesis of thought mandates. World government
without sovereign municipalities. Think where
you're going, and remember Eistein point to you.
It is the cornerstone of my life.
"It is not enough that you should understand about applied science in
order that your work may increase man's blessings. Concern for the man
himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all
technical
endeavors; concern for the great unsolved distribution of
goods in order that the creations for our mind shall be a blessing and
not a curse for mankind. Never forget this in the midst of your
diagrams and equations."
Henry Lieberman,
I am looking for feedback for my idea. Could you tell me what you think
about it?
In a few words, I think that discussion boards can be re-arranged in a
way that, if they are combine an algorithm could promote advancements
In AI.
Google could make a decision making algorithm by looking at two
opposite ideas, and trying to promote the better idea. Google already,
sort of does this, buy deciding which websites are better, and we love
them for it. But lets take out the middle man. Lets let Google (or some
other search engine) not just organize/promote websites-with-ideas,
lets let Google promote specific ideas. For
instance I bet that you will get higher ranked pages for the idea that
"freedom of speech is good" than "Freedom of speech is bad."
Google, or maybe another search engine, could do this well for a number
of reasons:
Google currently has the best algorithm for figuring out which websites
have the most links to them. It is assumed that better websites have
more links to them. It is kind of like online democracy or a collective
soul of the internet. Google could use this technology to figure out if
websites that say "George Bush is an Idiot" or websites that say, "John
Carrie is an idiot" have a higher average "Google Rank".
Google already has the technology to allow for synonym search. Google
could include in it's ranking all of the websites that say, "George
bush is an idiot", "George bush is a moron", and so forth.
Truth
Of course you wouldn't promote this website as saying, "Come to Google,
we have the truth" you would say, "This is the collective soul
of the internet." These are the decisions the internet would make if it
was a person.
Transparency
To help maintain a transparent process, you should list the top 10
pages that agree, with and disagree with, the idea.
For more information, you could check out my site at:
http://ideastockexchange.com/
Do you have any feedback for me?
Henry Wrote this:
Mr. Laub,
Yes, this kind of idea can be worthwhile. There are have been a couple
of projects that have tried to extract "point of view" from text, by
trying to compare how different sources describe the same things. Here
are some references:
Warren Sack, "Indexing Multimedia by Ideology," in Proceedings of the
American Association of Artificial Intelligence Workshop on Indexing
and Reuse of Multimedia, Seattle, WA, July 1994.
W. Sack, Representing and recognizing point of view, in: Proceedings of
The American Association of Artificial Intelligence Fall Symposium on
Artificial Intelligence Applications in Knowledge Navigation and
Retrieval, Cambridge, MA, AAAI Press, 1995.
Warren Sack, "Actor-Role Analysis: Ideology, Point of View and the
News," in New Perspectives on Narrative Perspective, Will Van Peer and
Seymour Chatman, Editors (New York: SUNY Press, 2001).
J. Budzik, K. Hammond, L. Birnbaum, and M. Krema. Beyond similarity. In
Working Notes of the
AAAI-http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/budzik00beyond.html
That, combined with a Google-like populatity link analysis, could yield
the kind of thing you're talking about. Obviously, it wouldn't work
perfectly, but would certainly be worth a try.
Best of luck with your work,
Derek Rowe
I wrote the following to my friend Derek,
E-bay should have a website (don't they own paypal?) where people are
allowed to post ideas. Other people should also be able to post reasons
to agree or disagree with the ideas. I think it is very important that
the ideas go into two separate columns marked "reasons to agree" and
"reasons to disagree". Any ways the first person who post an idea
should be given 10 stocks in his idea, which he can sell for any price.
If someone thinks that idea will go up in value they can buy stock in
his idea.
The person who is trying to sell stock in his idea will be responsible
for putting his idea in a good place. He will also be responsible for
the marketing of his idea. He can tell his friends about it, and ask
them to post reasons to agree or reasons to disagree. E-bay could take
a percentage off of every transaction. Also if the idea is related to
business or products, they could get money for advertising buy that
idea. E-bay would be a good partner because they already maintain list
of people, they own pay pall, which would be a good way to invest in
idea.
Issuing stocks in ideas is a new idea in and off itself however I think
it could work. World Wide millions of dollars are spent on betting
about sports. Also billions are spent on the stock market. In America
billions of dollars are spent on ideas. For instance people will donate
to a politician, or to a PAC (political action committee) with a
specific purpose. Instead of using politicians as the middle men to
further your agenda, you could invest money directly in your idea. If
it really is a good idea it should increase in value for three simple
reasons.
Groups of people usually make better decisions than individuals.
Groups of people will usually make better decisions when they have a
financial incentive to do so.
Money represents effort. Just like a tug-of-war were apposing sides
pull their hardest on a rope, and for the same reasons that they may
pull harder if there is rivalry with the opponent, people will spend
money on ideas, if they believe that the increased price of their idea
gives legitimacy to it. These are the idealist who will put their money
into this website. The other people will be people who will get into it
for the same reason that they get into the internet. They think they
understand the system. They know when an idea is just about to get off
the ground and go sky rocketing up. Or then know when tides are
turning. These will be the realist who make money, and keep the stocks
representing the actual value of idea. Well, I guess my enthusiasm, and
pent up ideas about this have spilled over again.
Is there any one at E--bay that you know that might be looking for
something new to try? I think this could start small and start
evolving. I think about it all the time. Well I got to run.
Mike
Derek Responded with this:
LOBE:
Yes, eBay acquired PayPal recently.
Your ideas are good, but I don't know if they would be of interest to
eBay. I think you'd have more luck trying to start this on your own.
I think the idea of incorporating stock into the equation is good.
People are always looking for another way to gamble money. There are a
lot of people who have money to spend recreationally.
It's a good idea, Mike. eBay started very small - a man named Pierre
Omidyar was just making a stupid little site for his girlfriend to
trade her pez dispensers on. He wasn't even charging people to use the
site. And 5 years later eBay was a multi-billion dollar corporation,
and Pierre was a over-night millionaire.
I think your idea could fly, man. We should talk about it some more.
I'll give you a call sometime.
D.
As you can see Derek has been very supportive. He is the one who talked
me into starting this website.
What would a successful outcome look like?
Millions of users.
Users using this website to help them make decisions.
I would be making lots of money off of advertising.
People would modify the way they write essays. They would no longer
expect their essays to remain isolated from the rest of the
intellectual world. Their essays would have thousands of reasons to
agree and disagree with them. Every book will be accumulated into one
truth. Books, songs, poems, historical events, and artwork will all be
used as reasons to agree or disagree with different positions. All
logical links between items will be connected.
How will we know if this website is successful?
Number of ideas listed on the website
The alphabetical list of ideas currently only has 37 ideas.
Goal: I would like to have 100 ideas by January 2005
Number of people participating in submitting ideas.
I am the only person who has posted an idea, with any reasons to agree
or disagree with that idea.
Goal: I would like to get 5 people to submit things that they believe,
with reasons they believe them to this website by January 2005.
If the algorithm actually promotes better ideas
I would like to meet some people that know programming/database
management well enough to make a crude algorithm by January 2005.
Books
John Adams would like The Idea Stock Exchange
Books that agree:
John Adams by David Mccullough. On page 619 it says: Unlike Jefferson,
who seldom ever marked a book, and then only faintly in pencil, Adams,
pen in hand, loved to add his comments in the margins. It was part of
the joy of reading for him, to have something to say himself, to talk
back to, agree or take issue with, Rousseau, Condorcet, Turgot, Mary
Wollstonecraft, Adam Smith, or Joseph Priestley. "There is not doubt
that people are in the long run what the government make out of
them...," Adams read in Rousseau. "The government ought to be what the
people make it," he wrote in response.
At times his marginal observations nearly equaled what was printed on
the page, as in Mary Willstencraft's French Revolution, which Adams
read at least twice and with delight, since he disagreed with nearly
everything she said. Her claim that government must be simple, for
example, he answered, "The clock would be simple if you destroyed all
the wheels...but it would not tell the time of day."
These books show the importance of letting everyone make up the great
books of all time. We should be able to put our own thoughts in the
margin. Books should not be written only by one person, and that is the
end of all discussion about the ideas brought up in the book. All of
the parts of books that talk about similar things should be together.
Their should be a master index to all human knowledge, thought, and
reasoning. Every response to a written idea, should be grouped
somewhere with the original idea.
That is what I am trying to do with the idea stock exchange. I want it
to be an open source project where people gather all of the reasons to
agree with and disagree with each idea.
I would like for the ideastockexchange to be a place where the great
arguments of history are remembered. People aught to be able to add
their comments to anything on the web. This, of course, would become a
chaotic mess if an effort wasn't made to encourage only comments of
quality (as described in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance). An
effort should be made to put all of the great works of literature
(without copyrights of course) on the web. Their should be an open
source movement to analyze the writing, comment on mistakes, offer
improvements, etc. I have a vision of it, but it is so tedious to write
about. Especially without someone to collaborate with.
Who am I writing this to and for what purpose? I right it because I can
not help but think of the possibilities that are available with modern
technology. When I read that John Adams wrote in his margins, I want to
know what he wrote. Why can't this all be put on the internet? I want
to know what Bill Clinton would write in the margins of the books that
he reads. It would be easy to do, it would be cool, and from my point
of view, I don't see why we don't do it. I personally don't have the
resources. I have lots of student loans, I am in the begging of my
career, I have a child on the way. However, it helps sooth my over
active mind to just get my ideas out. I have always been like this. I
have written letters to teachers, giving suggestions of ways they could
improve their class.
Origin of this idea
When I was young, my parents taught me that when I wanted to make a
decision, I should make a list of reasons to agree or disagree with an
idea. With the internet we could organize all of the list that anyone
has ever made, on any subject, onto one website.
I believe that I arrived at the ideas for this website partly
because I want people to pay as much attention to what they believe, as
the do the stock market. Also I have seen the power of the concept of
investing in ideas.
For example, its easy to believe in something, but it takes it to
another level when you are willing to bet or risk some money on that
idea. For me, the stock market, and the stock market of ideas, is a
test of how much someone believes in a certain idea.
I think this website can promote scientific advancement can help
general dispute resolution, and politics. It would be great if we could
get people to invest in ideas! People have no incentives to believe
"smart" things right now. I think that the people who came up with
your website saw the need for people to believe smarter things.
It would be great if people had an economic motivation to invest in
smart ideas. My web site starts form the concept that people don't
often think about WHY they believe different things.
I would like to create algorithms that give an ideas a weighted
rank, much like google gives web pages ranks. In fact the create
formulas 1. Number of reasons to agree or disagree with it. 2.
Certainty of the bettor (or evaluator) of the validity of his reason
for disagreeing with it. I was not advocating that we should just bet
on popularity alone at all... Much like the stock market, there are
places where you can buy stock. Most of these places also offer
"research" information. All I am suggesting is that you add this
research information. This information would come in data that supports
or discounts the position being held. I read on the website where some
one suggested that this service could be manipulated buy people with
money. For instance, if government policy was going to take into
account the standing of a particular idea. In this scenario it was
suggested that an energy company could invest in a negative position on
the viability of alternative energy methods... I believe that my idea
addresses this issue. If you allowed for your website to became a place
for information research, and not just idea trading this could be
addressed. For instance if you go to my lame website at:
http://www.geocities.com/mclaub/Mike/Debate/MyProposal/Example/architecture.htm
it shows that categories that I would allow people to submit ideas to.
Before you agree totally with me that my web site sucks, look around
this address first.
http://www.geocities.com/mclaub/Mike/Debate/MyProposal/online_debate.htm
Please tell me what you think! Thanks again for the e-mail.
myclob
most schools, the wealthy kids all know who is "in" by who is wearing
the most expensive clothes.
myclob
experiment. They can try to figure out who they are. Freedom. It is a
wonderful thing.
myclob
uniforms.
myclob
school uniforms.