From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Fri Apr 11 2003 - 00:26:38 MDT
As Extropians, I hope that we can strive to avoid falling into the same
tired patterns of debate which can be found in virtually every forum on
the net. The recent argument about policy towards Iraq is a good example
of how not to conduct online debates, in my opinion. We saw name calling,
we saw heated back-and-forth arguments, heavy drawing of ideological
lines, hardening of positions, all the typical side effects of hard
fought political battles. These discussions took up a tremedous amount
of time and effort and largely monopolized this list for months at a time.
And it wasn't even a particularly Extropian topic, except in the broad
sense that the politics of the future will affect many aspects of our
lives. It's not like our discussions made any difference in the world.
No one involved in the U.N. debates or the national decision-making
apparatus checked to see what the Extropians thought. We were just
blowing off steam, filling the world with more hot air.
As I watched these arguments (they don't even really deserve to be
called debates - fights might be a better word), I kept wondering if
there couldn't be a better way, some approach which would incorporate our
Extropian values. Even if the topics were not particularly Extropian,
couldn't we at least go about things in a distinctive way? Could we do
something that said, this argument is among Extropians, people with a
certain unique perspective. Could these threads of discussion acquire
traits which would distinguish them from the identical arguments about
Iraq which could be found all over the web?
I don't have a full answer to this question, and I certainly didn't want
to raise the topic while everyone's blood was hot and their thinking
dulled by ideology. But now things have calmed down a little, and I
think we could all look back at that frenzied period and consider how
we could have done better.
We have had many discussions in the past on ways to understand the world,
mental toolkits which offer the possibility of reduced error and deeper
understanding. E-prime, pancritical rationalism, meta-rationality, and
many other ideas have been discussed. But in the face of the intensity
and vitriol of the recent arguments, it's hard to see how to begin to
apply such techniques.
I'm thinking of something simpler. It goes back to Eric Drexler's
advocacy in Engines of Creation of what he calls a Fact Forum,
http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_13.html. This is a variation
on the invention of Arthur Kantrowitz which was dubbed a Science Court.
But it's a complicated procedure and requires an expert jury, a
judge/referee, and a fairly formal process.
I also thought of Robin Hanson's paper on Futarchy, his proposal to
use an Idea Futures market to make predictions which would guide the
electorate as it set policies. http://hanson.gmu.edu/futarchy.html.
It too is a complicated system and not one we could incorporate.
But all of these proposals start the same way, and it is this starting
point which I think would be a good step forward for us. The idea
is simple: separate facts from values. We see this in the title of
Robin's essay: "Futarchy: Vote Values, But Bet Beliefs", and in the
title of Drexler's chapter: "Finding the Facts". These proposals, and
the Science Court, start with the premise that we must separate out our
disagreements on matters of fact from our disagreements about values,
about how we judge those facts.
The theory is that when people disagree, there are two relatively distinct
components to the disagreement. One part is their disagreement about
factual matters: facts in the past, present and future. What happened
before? What is happening now? And if we take various actions, what
will happen in the future? Based on their differing understandings of
the world, people will typically have many disagreements about factual
matters like these.
Then, logically independent from factual disagreements, are differences
in values. What situations are good? What outcomes should we strive
to attain, and which ones should we avoid? How much better is outcome
A than B, and how does that compare to the differences between C and D?
We can all recognize that both components come into play to varying
degrees in disagreements. Sometimes people may largely share values but
disagree strongly on a factual issue. Other times people may expect
roughly the same factual state but disagree on whether that is a good
or bad result. And sometimes they will disagree both on the facts and
on how to value them.
The reason this decomposition can help to make for more productive
argumentation is that factual matters are, in principle, subject to
verification, while values are not. Thinking about problems in this
way helps us to identify the areas where discussion can be productive.
There's not much point in trying to change someone's values. Those are
generally relatively fixed, and while they may change to some degree
it is likely to be a slow process. Factual differences are much more
amenable to argument and discussion.
As I watched some of the Iraq debate, it was often very difficult
to identify which disputes were based on facts and which were based
on values. Everything was all mixed together as the (roughly) two
ideological camps went at each other with every memetic weapon available.
I doubt that even the participants were aware in most cases whether
they were arguing facts or values, or whether their differences with
the other side were more in one category or the other.
The lesson I take from this, and from people like Eric Drexler, Arthur
Kantrowitz and Robin Hanson, is that the first step in beginning a debate
ought to be identifying areas of factual dispute. It might be that the
factual differences are much less than you think! Or maybe there are
huge factual gaps, which suggests the hope at least that the argument
can come to some kind of conclusion. In some cases it might even make
sense to set up an Idea Futures claim about a factual dispute, at the
online site for the Foresight Exchange game, http://www.ideosphere.com.
This can give a relatively objective estimate of the likelihood of a
future outcome. Maybe someday we'll even have real money Idea Futures
markets that could really help to pin things down.
So that's my proposal for improving our argumentation. Next time we
fall into the trap of ideological battle here, let's step back and ask,
what are the factual differences? Let each side list the facts which
they see as most important. Then they can identify areas of agreement
or (more likely) focus on where they disagree. But at least they'll
be arguing about facts. That opens up the possibility for many other
strategies for getting at the truth. And we know that at least there
is a truth to get at, which isn't the case for value disagreements.
I hope that the hostile tone of many of our recent discussions will
motivate us to look for a new way to manage disagreements. As Extropians,
we shouldn't be satisfied with debates that are just like everyone else's,
on the same topics that everyone else is fighting about, and with the same
kinds of unproductive argumentation tactics. We should try something new.
We could hardly do any worse than we have.
Hal
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