I would like to reform the way we come to conclusions, and try to promote our beliefs through arguments and politics. Basically the format would fix the functionality of bad debates.

This format that I propose, would have beliefs at the top of a page, with room for items that support these beliefs on one side of the page, room for items that oppose our beliefs on the other side of the page. There are many types of items that can be said to support a belief. These items would include reasons, books, videos, people, songs, interest, etc. With the power of crowdsourcing, good algorithms, and programming we can find ways to award points to the items that support or oppose a belief. The goal would be to compare the total points for a belief to the total points opposing a belief.

I have come up with algorithms for each type of item that can be said to support or oppose a belief. For instance people can post reasons to agree. Of course other people could come along and evaluate those reasons on a scale from 1 to 10 with regard to the use of logic, verifiable data, etc. However, something I can’t stop geeking about is counting the number of reasons to agree with an idea vs. the number of reasons to disagree. But, you say, the number of reasons to agree with an posted by an online community, doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of an idea. Yes, but I iterate my algorithm, so that arguments are re-used, and each reason that someone gives, has its own score. So ultimately each argument has a score, and so conclusions with the most good arguments that support it (and the fewest good arguments that oppose it) will be considered a good argument. For instance, if you have a conclusion that we should build wind farms in Wyoming, a reason to agree might be that wind energy, in Wyoming, is less expensive than coal. So people would argue the 2nd point separately. If it turns out the 2nd point is true, then its positive score would strengthen the first point. If it turns out the 2nd point is false, its negative score would hurt the first point.

To see my attempts at better explaining this idea, or create examples, please visit the following awesome websites:

Explanation of the Idea (mostly technical):

http://code.google.com/p/ideastockexchange/ Idea Stock Exchange This is an open source website I made to advance my idea

Me on other Forums

Create Debate is cool in that it counts reasons to agree and reasons to disagree. It doesn't do any cool math with this to determine the strength of an idea. I have made a couple of suggestions but it seems like they view them as criticisms.

A discussion forum that I created for all the people that are fascinated by my idea

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gooddebate/

One of the 1st groups I created for this idea

http://myclob.pbwiki.com/

I figured people would get sucked into how great the content was, and then be converted to the format… This content has to do with Mitt Romney, and I have tried to use the reasons to agree and disagree

Favorites Books

David’s Sling by Marc Stiegler This book is a great example of what could happen if my reasons to agree and disagree websites works

Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich Great books. Tells you to not trust the school system

Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain Daydreamed much of my life wondering what I would do if I was brought to a primitive time, with my modern knowledge, and could help history.

I Robot by Isaac Asimov Way different than the movie