| debategraph |
[Jan. 14th, 2009|08:19 pm] |
One of the problems with debates on the internet is that they tend to degrade into tangents and shouting matches, and one can easily lose the flow of the argument due to the noise.
A few years ago, I had an idea: build a website that would enable people to articulate specific arguments for or against a particular idea (e.g., Israel's recent actions in Gaza) and then break down those arguments into smaller sub-arguments and related ideas. By doing this for a large number of arguments, you could conceivably end up with some common sub-arguments -- a country's need to defend its citizens is always/never a justification for war, for example. After a while, then, you could construct a pretty large and detailed graph of common arguments and counter-arguments along with their respective origins. Some conclusion that was argued from basic moral principles could be shown visually as a chain of arguments, each one supporting the next until the conclusion is reached.
A site like this would hopefully tease out the arguments themselves, deferring the discussion of their validity to another time or place (maybe the site could provide a place for comments on each node in the graph). Aside from the obvious benefit of having the arguments cleanly articulated, this visual representation of an argument might help people to follow and understand arguments that are too complex to be explained verbally.
Somebody build a site that does this. It's available at debategraph.org. |
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| Remember this. You'll be quizzed on it later. |
[Jun. 21st, 2006|09:33 am] |
The trick to making web browsers not ask whether you want to save your password, vis-à-vis online banking websites, is as follows.
<form method="..." autocomplete="false" ...>
…
</form> |
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