Problem you are solving:

Reasons to agree & disagree are not organized. Good ideas are not promoted. Bad ideas are not killed. Algorithms are not used to their fullest potential. Time is wasted on line. People have to start at ground zero when they want to find all of the reasons to agree or disagree with an idea, because you don't have websites with both sides, you tend to just have pro and con websites.

Text of your social invention:

Instead of having people rate an idea on a scale from 1 to 10 using current methods (Feasibility, originality, Humor, and Overall) we should let an algorithm do our dirty work for us. It would be similar to Google’s algorithm, but instead of just promoting good websites, it would actually promote good ideas.

A good idea has one of two things. It either has more reasons to agree with it than reasons to disagree, or it has better reasons to agree with it, that reasons to disagree.

An algorithm could solve the first problem very easily, if we created a system where the algorithm can count the number of reason that people submit as reasons to agree with an idea, verses reasons to disagree with that idea.

An algorithm can not tell if an idea has “better” reasons to agree with it than reasons to disagree with it. Or can it? I believe it can, eventually. What I mean by eventually is that on the first level an idea might have lots of stupid reasons to agree with it and just a few very good reasons to disagree with it. So in other words it is a bad idea. And so my algorithm would be wrong, if it just counted the number of reasons to agree vs. the number of reasons to disagree. However, if the algorithm took into account the reasons to agree or disagree with each of the reasons to agree or disagree, I do not think my algorithm would ever be wrong. Those “good reasons” to disagree would have good reasons to agree with them and relatively few “good reasons” to disagree with them. And if not the reasons to agree with them, would have good reasons to agree with them.

Well, has anyone else ever done anything similar to my idea before? Yes, a little company called Google, maybe you have heard of them. The use a very similar algorithm in that it counts all of the links to a website as votes for that website. And then websites that have lots of links to them are given more weight, so that the things that they link to will be considered good websites.

In my algorithm, good reasons will carry more weight, because they have lots of reasons to agree with them, just like with Google, good websites carry more weight because they have lots of websites that link to them.

Discussion forums would work better if they let users organize their post.

If the different aspects of debate were organized, an algorithm could be made to promote good ideas.

The algorithm would pay attention to the quantity of reasons that agree or disagree with the idea. The side with more reasons to agree would get more points than the other side. Just like when you fill out a list of reasons to or not to do certain activities, you tend to choose the side with more reasons to agree.

The algorithm could also pay attention to the number of people who agree or disagree with the idea. The hope of democracy is that the majority of people won't make terrible decisions. This would be more likely when people are rewarded for making "good" decisions.  The side with more people who agree should get more points. People could vote for or against ideas.

People could submit websites that agree and websites that disagree. The algorithm could take into account the percentage of people who agree that the website actually agrees or disagrees with an idea and the Google Rank of that idea to assign added points to the idea.

Ideas with more reasons to agree with them would get more points.

Ideas with fewer reasons to disagree with them would get more points.

Reasons that have more reasons to agree with them would get more points.

Reasons that have fewer reasons to disagree with them would get more points.

The goal of the algorithm is to put the best ideas to the top.

I think it would be cool if each user could say which things they want to pay attention to. That way if one user respects authorizes, like people with degrees.

 Eventually this will evolve into a form of artificial intelligence, which we will call 'Collective Intelligence.'  People will then be able to say that they have mapped out all possible reasons for agreeing with, or disagreeing with every moral, political, and economic decision.  Then when all of these reasons are mapped out, society will get to the work of evaluating the validity of each view.  These validities will be traded on a stock market much like the DJI, were if you buy an opinion for cheep (unpopular) and it gains in popularity, then you will be able to sell it at a profit.

The only way that AI will truly work to benefit mankind is when its developers combine the advantages of humans and computers.

First let me say explain my concept of a web page that I believe would obtain this merge of the benefits of mankind and computers.

We build this by building a debate forum called the Battle Field of Ideas. You then create a database that manages ideas and reasons for believing them. You then create an algorithm that will allow these ideas fight for survival. Survival of the fittest is what led to the first organic intelligence, and I believe it is what will lead to the first artificial intelligence.

Users could organize their post as "reasons to agree" or "reasons to disagree".

Users could submit "probable motivation of those who agree" or "those who disagree"

The idea stock exchange could become better than Slashdot.

1. It seems like Sashdot is mimicking the very worst part of conversations, in that every thing that someone says gets heard by everyone else, and then when anyone responds we all have to see the whole ugly mess.
2. Instead of the:

Post

1. reply
2. reply
1. reply
1. reply

method, we should use the:

post

    Reasons to agree #1 Reasons to disagree #1

    Reasons to agree #2 Reasons to disagree #2

    Reasons to agree #3 Reasons to disagree #3

3.      The problem with the way Slashdot works now is that progress is never made. A conversation string is recorded, but that is just one of infinite possible conversations that could have taken place with that subject. For instance, someone post something on Slashdot, and typically someone will post a reason why they disagree with the original idea, and then someone else will post a reason why they disagree with the second idea. After a few post some good ideas may have been brought up, but there is no way to keep it all organized, except chronologically.
 

But most people have more than just one reason for believing a conclusion. And just because someone brings up a good reason not to come to that conclusion, the original person probably won't change their mind. How could each of his reasons be evaluated independently.
 

The way Slashdot is currently organized this is impossible. However if they simply let people submit reasons to agree or disagree to an idea, and if they put these in different columns, the whole process of debate would improve. Eventually people could evaluate each reason to agree with or disagree with the idea, and the best reasons would go to the top.

I think that there should be one place where people submit an idea. Fine, slash dot does that. But what I would do differently people posting responses to my post, and then having them tacked on in a continuous string, that goes on for ever and never gets any where but away from the regular idea, I don’t know about you but most discussions that I have using the statement-response1-response2-response3 method don’t get anywhere. One of the main problems being that by the time you get to response3 you’ve already changed the subject 3 times.

The idea stock exchange could become better than the Foresight Exchange.

This website is severely limiting itself by focusing on predictions and trying to verify weather or not these predictions will be able to be judged as coming true or not.

With the real stock market their is not death to a stock that is based on a certain time.  The stock dies if the underlining principles are not sound.

And the whole purpose of my website is to implement the virtues of conflict resolution into online stock markets, effectively merging the online stock market with a brand new kind of discussion board.  A discussion boards that organizes the best reasons to agree or disagree with a prediction or just a belief. This involves listing the reasons to agree or disagree, the interest of the apposing sides, etc.

I also personally hate the navigational structure.  It is not intuitive.  There aught to be a more intuitive way to browse to the idea.

The idea stock exchange could become better than those stupid polls, where TV stations or other news outlets tell you to vote for or against some stupid question.

When we step back and try to compare this web site (Idea Stock Exchange)  to other things out there are lots of analogies come to mind. This web site is like a continuous poll that runs 24 hours a day. It is much like a discussion board, but more dynamic.

Also polls don't allow people to post reasons why they are for or against an idea.

The Idea Stock Exchange lets people post reasons why they agree or disagree, and lots other people post reasons why they disagree with their reasons to agree or disagree!

It's like a 21 century poll.

Who cares what people think, who don't have any reasons to think the way they think?

The idea stock exchange could be very similar to the regular stock market.

The Idea Stock Exchange is a hybrid of many things. My belief is that we should be able to invest money in an idea, just like we do in the stock market.

Gambling is sort of like like investing in an idea. When gamble on sports, you are investing money in the belief that your team will win. You are investing money in an idea.

The stock market isn't much different. Investing in the stock market is kind of like investing in the idea. You are investing in the belief that your stock will go up in price.

The Idea Stock Exchange is much like a stock exchange in that it tracks the rise and fall of the popularity of ideas, much like the stock exchange tracks the popularity of companies.

Like nature the Idea Stock Exchange promotes the survival of the fittest. To continue the theme of a stock exchange each position could get an Idea Executive Officer, who is in charge of maintaining the web site. His job would be to drum up support for his cause. Perhaps George Bush would become an IEO for the belief that we should lower taxes. I can see them on CNN talking about their position much like CEO’s talk about their stock, “I think we are going to be doing much better, in the 3rd quarter of this year, after people pay their taxes.”

Perhaps the IEO could get paid revenues from advertising on the site for his position. He could make editorial comments or make the categories for additions to his web site to go into.

There are many things that could be done to make this web site better. In the business world a major concern is a monopoly. Perhaps a business only succeed because it succeeds in the past, even though a different company may be better for consumer. It is foreseeable too that on our web site that some ideas will become popular, and stay popular. Much like a business with a monopoly, it may bee seen that it gets preferred treatment, because it is at the top. This could be overcome by having a section, much like the business world that talks about good new ideas.

However none of this is a new idea. For example the Foresight Exchange allows you to invest fake money in different predictions. Also Robin Hanson has been promoting such ideas for years http://hanson.gmu.edu/home.html. However, I do have something to add, so keep reading!

What I propose, that is different than anything else out there, is a system where the validity of ideas can be evaluated before you invest in them! We should be able to post reasons to agree or disagree with an idea. These reasons should go to two separate columns called "reasons to agree" and "reasons to disagree". An improvement would be able to submit reasons to agree or disagree with the reasons to agree or disagree! And so on.

If this system was implemented you would have an idea, with all of the best reasons to agree or disagree, on the same page, in descending order!

A website that organizes reasons to agree and disagree with an idea into separate columns, and promotes the best ideas to the top of each column, could eventually attain a sort of artificial intelligence.

The algorithm would be the key to AI. The rest of the formatting would just give the AI ways of evaluating information, just like Google's algorithm relies on the formatting of the internet (links) to figure out which sites are better.

You could say that our decision making capability is what makes us intelligent.

Humans aren't one entity, we are billions of brain cells, all acting independently. Our DNA has us programmed.

The ability to make decisions isn't something that only human's can do.

A good idea promoting algorithm could start its road to AI by promoting good ideas, then learning what a good idea is, and then coming up with it's own good ideas.

In the future, it could learn for itself what makes an idea "good".

There are lots of ways that, with some good formatting, and current technology that we could build an algorithm that promotes good ideas.

We could harness the power of education by letting experts have a louder voice on our website.

Each idea would get more points if it was submitted from the e-mail address of a professor with a degree in the subject mater that is being discussed. For instance if someone said that Abraham Lincoln was an idiot. And someone disagreed, and someone else agreed. If the person that disagreed had a degree in history and the idea was submitted to the history section, then the person who disagreed (the professor) would win. The more prestigious the school, the more points. Prestigious would be ranked by the US News report, or some other un-biased judge. I don't care about you people that say, "The smartest people don't always make the best decisions." We are talking about percentages. Of course the smartest people don't always make the best decisions, but they would tend to make better decisions that stupid or uneducated people.

Google groups, http://groups.google.com, should allow people to respond to an idea by submitting their comments to two separate columns; "Reasons to agree" and "reasons to disagree".

This would lead to more order.

This would allow Google to organize information better, which is their stated goal.

This would allow Google to have people evaluate the validity of the top reasons to agree with an idea, on a scale from 1 to 10 before they can submit a reason to disagree with the idea.  

This will allow Google to build the best ran discussion groups, where good behavior is rewarded.

For instance Google could build user profiles, similar to e-bay user profiles, but that would show the tendency of a user to consider the others side of an argument. For instance you could see the average "validity vote" or the validity assigned to a reasons to agree by the individual who is submitting a reasons to disagree with an idea. Some users might always assign a 0 to the validity vote of apposing ideas. If these people always said the reasons to disagree with them had absolutely now validity, these people would be considered narrow minded or close minded, and should not be given as much validity in a system that is supposed to promote the best ideas.

www.ideosphere.com/fx/

This page is very similar to what I want to create.  However I see some obvious problems:

This website is severely limiting itself by focusing on predictions and trying to verify weather or not these predictions will be able to be judged as coming true or not.

With the real stock market their is not death to a stock that is based on a certain time.  The stock dies if the underlining principles are not sound.

And the whole purpose of my website is to implement the virtues of conflict resolution into online stock markets, effectively merging the online stock market with a brand new kind of discussion board.  A discussion boards that organizes the best reasons to agree or disagree with a prediction or just a belief. This involves listing the reasons to agree or disagree, the interest of the apposing sides, etc.

I also personally hate the navigational structure.  It is not intuitive.  There aught to be a more intuitive way to browse to the idea.

Instead of the right to vote being an all or nothing situation, such as former felons who are not allowed to vote, we could "water down" (50%) the voting power of former felons proportionally to their crime or give increased voting power (150%) to who do well on a test given to determine a voter's knowledge about the candidates. This would result in discouraging illegal activities, while promoting activates that would result in a more informed public. Finally, creating a thoughtfully designed system giving added voting power to those participating in beneficial activities and decreased voting power for who participate in illegal activities, would result in more value friendly policy. Our founding fathers did not say, lets have uncontrolled democracy, and if the people are stupid, then the country will deserve to go down in flames. No they tried to set up a system with checks and balances, that would result in the best policy. We should want to find out what thoughtful members of society think, while ignoring all the "Jay-Walk All Stars" and raving lunatics.

So instead of removing former felons right to vote completely, their voting power should be affected proportionally to the crime. Lawyers and Judges have a pretty good idea about the relative gravity of each crime.  But if we believe our penal system to be just, I suggest that we make voting dilution be directly proportional to the criminals time spent in prison. This will take into consideration all mitigating factors, good behavior in prison, etc. Society already takes away criminals right to vote. What I am proposing is not new. All I'm saying is that we do it in a more PRECISE way (engineers who are familiar with the Japanese emphasis on precision after WWII will have added insight into the kind of rational & precise world I want to live in).

Surely those who contribute less, or harm society, should have their say deducted by an appropriate proportion. In fact you could set up a system or formula that mirrors the penal system. For instance their could be a certain percentage reduction of a vote's weight, based on time spent in jail, or fee paid.

OK, you say, this system is no worse than today's system, but why should we limit criminal's right to vote in the first place. Our actions speak volumes about who we are and what we value. As an example, if you have had a ticket for drunk driving, than it would seem that you care more about your needs than the needs of society. Perhaps each ticket should reduce the weight of your vote by a certain percentage. This would become an ethics quotient.

Inevitably when this type of system is proposed, there are those who will say, "Yes but WHO's ethics?" they say, with an accusation tone, as though we think our values should be implemented. Obviously which ever society implemented this scheme would apply their values/ethics. But lets not kid ourselves. No society says that all values are equal. Every society says that violent murder against innocent people is wrong. Every society believes that stealing is wrong. Every society has a penal system that has much harsher punishments than decreasing convict's power at the voting booth. If societies are comfortable with locking rapist away, then I am comfortable in limiting their right to vote proportionally to the amount of time they spent in prison.

In addition to discouraging illegal activities, we should also encourage some activities with the ethics quotient. We, in America, live in a culture that does not respect the educated. Kids who do well in school, are called nerds. This is not the case in other cultures, such as Japan, Germany, India, and China. These countries and cultures will annihilate us in the future unless we change. We often say that we need to give teacher more power in society. Some say that we need to make it more desirable for our youth to be educated. Because knowledge, in our society is free to rich and poor (my wife was raised in a trailer, but got a full ride scholarship to a prestigious school) we should not feel ashamed at giving those with more knowledge, more say in elections.

The first way we could give those with more knowledge, more say in an election, would be to weigh our votes proportionally to our knowledge about the candidates. People, who know nothing about candidates, should not be given the right to vote for those candidates. Why should they? On the other hand, the more you know about political candidates, the more voice you should have in getting them elected. Our current system is a Joke. Simply seeing an R or D by their name shouldn't be all you need to know to vote. You have to pass a test to drive a small motorcycle, but you don't have to know a single thing about a candidate to pick them. This is scary because these candidates go on to "drive a country" that has nuclear weapons, if you live in the US.

I believe, a test should be given, with the voter's score qualifying them for different weights assigned to their votes. Perhaps 50 questions could be assigned for each candidate. Some questions may do with their backgrounds, and others would represent their stances on different policies.

If you don't know anything about the candidate, why should you have any say in their being elected?

Of course, these questions would have to be standardized. Just because I don't do a good job on this site explaining what these questions are doesn't mean the idea is bad. If you don't believe in standards or quality, please read "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance".

However, I don't think that knowledge about a certain election's candidates should be the only factor that increases your voting power. Perhaps the following would be a starting place:

Education

High School Degree 5%
4 year degree 10%
Masters degree 15%
Doctoral Degree 20%

Test Scores

ACT Score above 25 5%
ACT Score above 30 10%
IQ above 130 5%

Lets assume that people with high IQ's are no less ethical than people with low IQ's. Would you rather have a policy instituted by those with higher IQ's or those policies instituted by those with low IQ's? It's a simple question. I don't have a high IQ. I don't dislike those who are smarter than me. I have a friend that got a 32 or 34 on his ACT's and I really admire him. I think he should get more of a vote than I do, because he KNOWS more.

Socially aware professions

Teachers 5%
Police 5%
Community service
80 hrs/ year 5%
160 hrs/ year 10%

Wouldn't it be funny, if you got so many tickets that you had a negative weighting? That when you voted for someone it had the affect of voting against them!

I got the idea when replying to "Weight Everyone's Vote Based on IQ"

Just because this would be complicated does not mean that it shouldn't be done. Einstein said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."  Their is no reason to punish all felons equally, when it comes to not having the right to vote.