Ask HN: Would anyone be interested in a Hacker News to debate politics?
I am envisaging a platform that allows the community to structure and "type-check" (loosely) arguments.
The key I feel is to allow people to post as they normally would and then allow annotation tools to structure arguments. Essentially a super easy UX to carry out [argument mapping](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map).
The goal would be to find as much as possible that people agree on (definitions, evidence) and then to focus the arguments on the specific points of contention.
I can imagine a template of logical argument forms such a "X should do Y when Z" which would need to be filled in for an argument to be valid.
Its usually difficult to come to an objective truth when arguing, so another key point is tracking consistency of argument. This is a great way to invalidate an argument. If someone makes a claim like "X should do Y when Z", if they are caught saying "X should not do Y when something similar to Z" then its a great way to invalidate an argument and unearth bias without having to examine the rest of the argument.
I want to bring back the art of debate!
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[ 11.8 ms ] story [ 1453 ms ] threadI would. It should allow arguments from across the political spectrum to be heard and having their claims and evidence fact-checked from various sources whilst presenting their arguments.
I think you may be certainly interested in this platform: Arguman (an argument analysis platform), unless you have already looked at it. [0]
> I want to bring back the art of debate!
Good. This should be interesting.
[0] https://arguman.org
I'm not the biggest fan of the visual tree and would prefer people not to stray from plain text entry as much as possible - but maybe of course this is not possible!
Feel free to disagree with me, but it's a lot harder to lose your cool in person compared to online
But it's also much harder to argue about truths. People in my circles say things like "I did a lot of research and this new mRNA vaccine is dangerous."
And there's absolutely no way to disagree with that, because they can't present the research and you can't read for yourself what it was. You can't critique the author/organization, you can't dispute any "facts" in the article, etc.
I think in-person can be good for very high level arguments, like "I believe in personal responsibility," and figuring out "I like this person even though I disagree with them." And terrible for intricate arguments like "gun restrictions will save lives," covid policy, etc etc.
I would like to see a shift back to previous times, where nobody was outing their political beliefs, and everyone didn't pretend to be an expert on domestic policies, covid, foreign policy, minimum wage, inflation, and everything else that they feel inclined to chime in about.
My grandmother (RIP) said in her youth (1930s), they didn't know how their neighbor voted, how their teachers voted, and they might not even know how their spouse voted. I like that.
> I think in-person can be good for very high level arguments,
Its good for exploration. But there needs to be trust between the parties in that no-one is trying to one-up the other or win some argument - this makes people defensive. Also arguing in front of others can cause this defensive effect as well.
> My grandmother (RIP) said in her youth (1930s), they didn't know how their neighbor voted, how their teachers voted, and they might not even know how their spouse voted. I like that.
100%. You want to maximize as many opportunities for people to get along with each other as much as possible despite their differences. People's views will change and evolve over time and very rarely from intimidation or pressure.
If any Member be suspended under paragraph (1) of this order, his suspension on the first occasion shall continue for five sitting days, and on the second occasion for twenty sitting days, including in either case the day on which he was suspended, but, on any subsequent occasion, until the House shall resolve that the suspension of such Member do terminate.
I believe this can only be done in response to a motion and vote. The authority to unilaterally order a member to withdraw is only for one day see 43. So you are correct.
https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/commons/stan...
Conservative / libertarian ideas are mostly downvoted, oppressed, blasted, brushed away on left leaning sites and left leaning ideology the same on conservative / libertarian sites. The echo chamber and mob mentality problem.
I don't think it's possible anymore to have thoughtful, intelligent political discussions online with both sides. There is just to much standing on the pedestal of moral political and ethical superiority.
I agree. And that makes it a problem worth solving. I just feel deeply that there is the right UX, and moderation knobs to tweak that can bring it back from the brink.
I don't know. I really do want to understand the other side's ideas but we need a better method than debate because debate is fundamentally about winning. Try it with your partner: if either side wins everyone loses.
Where my wife and I find the love and communion is when we soften. And if we've been quarreling a lot often the thing for us is taking a psychedelic together and then crying our eyes out in a long embrace. Very healing and the furthest thing I can imagine from debate.
I don't know how to love someone who advocates for a country doing genocide. Or who says the satellite photos we see are not evidence of genocide. And I'm using this most extreme example to illustrate that there may not be a point of reconciliation: only people feeling good about winning.
In your CCP example: I gain nothing by getting convinced one way or the other, and neither does anyone in China gain or lose anything from me getting convinced. Unlike you and your wife's relationship, you and I don't even truly care if we sympathize with each other or not (us being internet strangers and all). Case in point, have you ever done anything for your nearest Falun Dafa crowd? Personally, I don't plan on getting involved with them, even if I have been convinced of the persecution claims (and the same goes for east africa, venezuela, abused puppies, etc).
The fundamental paradox of debating, IMHO, is that debating is inherently a selfish endeavor: a lot of people do it for self-satisfaction, not because they are trying to accomplish something. Personally, I just acknowledge the selfish motive and use debating as a tool for bringing out ideas from others that I might not have thought of myself, so that I can then incorporate those ideas into my own mental framework of the topic.
I think that is most people's motive though and it can be mutually beneficial. I think there is an innate satisfaction in acquiring new knowledge or a new perspective. And the applications of this can be very wide-reaching.
> "what would someone gain from getting convinced about some specific statement?"
If you can bring someone in from a political extreme then that is making the world a better place.
But its a difficult exercise to do without the proper incentive. You can't just say "congrats you won...because the side you had is right". You have to want to win. You would be forced to empathize with the other's situation.
For me, lack of understanding of the other side's argument is the biggest problem with discourse today.
What I really want is for more people to make good faith efforts to make substantive arguments against their own opinions, and learn to recognize the usage of fallacies (ad hominems, etc) and other forms of "pop politics" ("X said Y, which implies some character flaw!")
Argument maps are certainly a useful tool to have, but IMHO, one does not arrive at good charts through arguing in debates (especially heated ones!), but through dispassionate impartial curation. </two-cents>
Agree! A big cause of the divide is that people don't understand each other's arguments.
When you are in a debate club, the side you have to debate for is decided by a coin flip. And there is no better way to truly understand the other point of view than when you try your hardest to win a debate arguing for something you disagree with.
> and learn to recognize the usage of fallacies
Yep, this is exactly the driver behind the idea.
> dispassionate impartial curation
Could you please explain this?
Re: curation - In school settings, for example, the curation is done by the teacher (rather than the students who are actively trying to "win" the argument). Curation is needed to avoid redundancy and to ensure factuality.
Impartiality is needed in order to not alienate the parties: it undermines respect for the tool if one allows loaded keywords to be put into it. Debaters' choice of words are often "tainted" by their biases (especially if they believe in what they are defending), and there's usually a more neutral way to rephrase something someone said. More generally, though, sometimes the best arguments don't always show up at the heat of the moment, but upon offline reflection, or based on careful research.
What would be cool is something analogous to the "slowest horse" puzzle (given two people, race them to determine who has the slowest horse - the solution of which is to have them mount their opponent's horse), but in a sort of collaborative setting. I.e. people would be teamed up so as to collaboratively come up with the strongest argument against their own beliefs.
> people would be teamed up so as to collaboratively come up with the strongest argument against their own beliefs.
Awesome idea. Will definitely think on this!
I think that's for the best, there are places other than HN to talk politics. It also means, as you said, that HN is not the right place to ask.
Now if you just want to bring back the old art of rethoric instead of the negatively charged "political debates". You may have a bit more chance.
This is the idea.
> I think that's for the best, there are places other than HN to talk politics.
Such as? I struggle to find a neutral place to have an intellectual debate. Many reddits are very restrictive and because of the polarization of the US, its very difficult to find a place where mods can be neutral.
HN is such an intelligent and well-read community and it seems like there are a lot of people who would love to debate but plain text back and forth with ad-hoc moderation prevent it.
If you can solve those, I'm in
Good point. A lot of argumentation comes down to whether the arguments they make are consistent across similar arguments they make.
Knowing who they are I think is less important.
Want to debate? Do it in person.
> I am envisaging a platform that allows the community to structure and "type-check" (loosely) arguments.
No one should try to profit off political discourse.
Maybe post the Show HN after these have gone through a few iterations? Maybe not. Sometimes its good to see the early stages.