the Wikipedia of debates is here
Introducing Project Gruff
liquid democracy, debate and the end of internet trolls
For the past few years, I have been a fan and follower of the Democracy Earth Foundation in its many forms. For me, it all started with a TED Talk by Pia Mancini, one of the founders, which highlighted many of the problems we face with our current forms of democracy. Her description resonated perfectly with what I had been feeling up to that point. More profoundly, she put words to a solution to the problem that I had been thinking for some time:
If internet is the new printing press, then what is democracy for the Internet era?
Representational democracy was created as a best solution for a world in which information traveled at the speed of a horse. We are in a new age, with much better tools. It's time to design a better solution.
A New Democracy
Back then, the Democracy Earth Foundation didn't exist in the form it does today. In the last few years, they have had a lot of time to work on the vision for this new form of democracy, and to begin work on fundamental tools to make it possible.
Their flagship project, Sovereign, is an interface for managing proposals, delegation, and voting within a context of various forms of direct democracy and delegative democracy, including Liquid Democracy. The goal is to put the power of decision-making back into the hands of the people the system represents. This would fulfill the principle of, as Pia Mancini put it,
No representation without a conversation
This is a fantastic opportunity, but also a daunting challenge. In this era of “post-truth” politics, there has been a major erosion of trust in the quality of our public conversations. There is serious concern over the online tendency towards Filter Bubbles, which limit the variety of perspectives each person sees. At the same time, the President of the United States is in a tug-of-war with mainstream media over ownership of the truth. Even without these complications, the Internet presents us with more information than we can handle, and no clear way to access it. We, the people, are not getting the information we need.
The Missing Tool
Although some would say there's no hope for the Internet, the problem with online discourse is structural. With the right tools, it can be fixed. A few months ago, I met with Democracy Earth core teams members Santiago Siri, Paula Berman, and others. The encounter rekindled my interest in direct democracy, and sparked a desire to revive my own personal project I've been nurturing on and off for the last several years.
Since the encounter, I have become an active member of the growing Democracy Earth community. After much discussion, they have agreed to accept my project as an experimental side project within the Democracy Earth community.
I have described this project as the Wikipedia for debates. That's an oversimplification, but captures some of the main aspects of the idea: we need a central place on the Internet that enables constructive debate and decision-making.
Principles
The solution will try to uphold the following principles, all of which play an important part in creating an environment for constructive online debate. Each principle here deserves its own article, but for now I'll be brief.
The arguer must be removed from the arguments
Motivational speech has a place, but it is a mistake to base decisions upon who was the most eloquent, or who "won" a debate.
Emotion is for motivation; logic is for decisions
Both are important (this may come as a surprise to those of you expecting me to believe decisions should be based purely on logic), however each serves a purpose. Emotion should bring people to the table for discussion, but should not get in the way of seeing all sides the issue.
Knowledge should accumulate; don’t repeat arguments
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This is very much the DRY principle applied to debates. This, in my opinion, is the most critical piece we miss in our current mode of discussion. In just about every conversation, you can be sure that there is more and better information available on the subject than the information actually being used for argumentation. The problem is that this information was made available somewhere else, in some other discussion. The solution must be able to easily and quickly provide the best information (supporting arguments, counter-arguments and evidence) for the arguments being made.
A short statement is only weak if it stands alone
Twitter is sometimes criticized for promoting superficial debate by forcing messages to be extremely short. There is nothing wrong with brevity, as long as the statement being made can be backed up with serious argumentation and proof. Good arguments can be stated in the length of a single Tweet, as long as we make it possible to see the entire history of supporting and contradicting arguments when needed. In order for the solution to be accepted and usable, it must be possible for someone to grasp the main points of a debate, on both sides, in under a minute.
There is no right answer; only trade offs
If the right solution to a problem could be calculated with logic, there would be no need to involve humans in the debate at all. Fortunately for us, once all the information is in, we will always be necessary to make a trade off between benefits and costs, based on our own personal values.
Beliefs are personal opinions regarding unresolved debates
Since debates generally cannot be resolved in a final manner, each individual must make up their own mind before they are able to use the result as a basis for further arguments. We call these personal decisions "beliefs".
Decisions can and should be revisited as knowledge changes
In present forms of democracy, the engine moves so slowly that it may take years for a solution to be structured and voted on. Very often, these "solutions" (e.g. legislation) include a minimum time before they can be revisited in order to avoid the whims of political changes. They also may include an expiration date in order to require a body to revisit the issue. These are very crude mechanisms used to ensure the decision remains correct and relevant. We can definitely do better than this.
Everyone, even a troll, has a point that should be discussed (constructively)
Online discussions may not always be productive, but that doesn't mean the debaters don't have something important to say. The debate platform should provide a way for anyone to state their mind, then witness their argument being refined into the best statement possible of their case. Debate should be an inclusive and educational event, rather than one that results in resentment and exclusion.
Debates bring people together, rather than pulling them apart
With all the concern that social media and customized results are creating information bubbles around everyone, debate is the one activity that can still naturally bring sides together without requiring companies to work against their own bottom line, or forcing people to "eat their vegetables" and read articles they don't like.
Through contact with constructive debate, people will become better at debating constructively
There are many known human biases and cognitive dissonance in human reasoning. People need to learn about these and how to identify them. They also need to learn what makes for a good argument. The platform should be a tool that can be used for that purpose.
We must protect the identity of individuals while guarding against bots and fake accounts
In a shared, public debate forum, people may be afraid to propose unpopular arguments, or to vote according to their beliefs when they are unpopular or it is dangerous to do so. Unfortunately, pseudonymous or anonymous systems lend themselves to attacks by bots and fake accounts. The solution must find a way to prevent the latter while supporting the former.
The debate must be free and open
The debate cannot be in the hands of a private company. Any ulterior profit motive raises privacy concerns, and will make people question the integrity of the debate. Ideally, the debate platform should not even be in the hands of a centralized non-profit entity. The information should live beyond the lifetime of any single entity. The solution itself should be free and open-source, so that anyone can verify the integrity of the tool, and can help to shape its future.
Project Gruff
The very humble beginnings of this project can be seen at https://gruff.org. I am now in the process of writing a white paper to more fully explain the need for this platform and to provide details on the design of the solution. As with all Democracy Earth Foundation projects, it is an open process, and we welcome all comments, criticisms and ideas. You can start by joining the Democracy Earth Slack team.
We are specifically looking for software developers (the project is currently being written in Golang and Vue.js), UI/UX experts, designers and Blockchain experts at the moment. Come join us and help us make the Internet (and the world) a better place!
[Update] The group working on the project has grown! We are now calling ourselves the Canonical Debate Lab, have our own Slack team, and are working on the white paper.
[Update 2] The white paper is out! We are now working together in the Slack Team to build out solution. We are also working with the Great American Debate and #Truth2020. Come join us!
