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Re: [ba-unrev-talk] Connecting the Dots...


John Sechrest wrote:
> 
> Eric Armstrong <eric.armstrong@sun.com> writes:
> 
>  % I guess I'm just nuts. I feel a responsibility for my
>  % countrymen (and women), and I believe that the decision
>  % not to act will be responsible for thousands, if not
>  % hundreds of thousands, of future deaths.
> 
>  Does that responsibility extend to non-countrymen(and woman)?
> 
When there is no conflict, yes.    (01)

>  Do you feel responsible for the hundreds of thousands who have died
>  because of governmental actions in the last 50 years?
>
We feel responsible for those who died in Germany, because we
did not act sooner. It is right that we should do so.    (02)

>  If we carpet bomb Bagdad, hundreds of thousands will die.
>
At no time in history has any government acted with more concern
for the prevention of collateral damage, loss of life, or human
suffering. That is simply unfair.     (03)

>  Ok... Here we are... We have a pile of arguments and counter arguments.
>  Now what?
> 
>  Where is the pattern/methodology/tool/process that illuminates the
>  conversation and helps us get to a deeper understanding of the issues?
>
The conversation has helped me discern what *structuring* tools are
necessary to carry on the conversation. Those tools are a necessary
ingredient, though not sufficient. Given our email dialog, we don't
even have that necessary ingredient. But assume for the moment we
did, and we had a nested outline of argument and counter-argument
that was malleable enough to be refactored into a decent digest, of
the form Benja presented.    (04)

It occurs to me that the next step would SlashDot style ratings,
possibly of the form  "Agree", "Don't agree", "absoluteTruth!",
"brainDead!", and "maybe".    (05)

Then "anonymous coward" and his or her siblings (to use the
funny SlashDot appellation) or registered users, could respond
to different parts of the arguments. In effect, they would say,
that's a good thought, that wasn't helpful, and so on.    (06)

The potential results would then be:
  1) Filter for the "strong" arguments, as at SlashDot
  2) Reward well expressed, constructive additions
  3) Hopefully, provide disincentive for useless and/or
     rhetorical contributions.    (07)

It seems to me that the ability to rate individual arguments,
rather than simply conclusions (by voting on them), would be
a powerful tool that would help change the way we reach
conclusions. That's more of a feeling than anything I can
put my finger on, just yet. But it sure would be interesting
to know how many people liked or disliked such and such a 
point....    (08)