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Ask HN: Idea Sunday

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Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#401

Post by danohuiginn »

danfrost wrote: post #16

Social Researching: Like social bookmarking, combined with joining comments so you can share and collaborate on your research. Think "trails" from V Bush's "As we may think" article, implemented so we can collaborate. As users start bookmarking things in their own trail, the app works out what other trails are similar and suggests you merge your researching efforts.

This idea has a /lot/ of use cases. I'm not sure how easy it would be to make a business out of it -- maybe you allow public collaborations free, and charge to take it private.

It'd sink or swim on the details of the UI, though, and I have frankly no idea how to get those right. Lots of painstaking user testing, presumably.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#402

Post by dsschnau »

A central hub for home improvement. I just bought a house and I don't know a damn thing about maintaining it. I can't find a good central resource on the internet. I'm stuck with random YouTube videos and Google searches.

I want a sort of wiki with examples for different home maintenance jobs. It must have good, reputable information and high-quality videos. I would pay a monthly sub for this kind of service.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#404

Post by crusso »

iambateman wrote: post #341
nileshtrivedi wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Breaking down a debate into arguments which have moral and factual premises will be useful. The logical validity of the argument can be automatically enforced. The system wouldn't allow you to make an invalid argument. Showing people exactly where they disagree would be a huge advancement. I think there are plenty of people who care about the truth and also care to have a consistent worldview in terms of mor…

For me and you, this is true. Unfortunately, INSERT_MAJOR_NEWS_NETWORK is proof that the vast majority of people don't give a shit about logical validity.

I think that the success of sites like Snopes indicates that a significant percentage of people DO care about facts.

We'll never have a situation where 100% of people are 100% fact driven in their belief systems, but maybe the needle might move in the good direction if more tools were available to help the transition.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#405

Post by marpalmin »

nanidin wrote: post #355
marpalmin wrote: post #168

A programming language equivalence site that helps you transition from one language to another. I mean it does not have to be perfect because full equivalence don't exist for many languages but just how you would do similar things.

You mean Rosetta Code[0]? [0] http://rosettacode.org/

Yes. That's more similar to what I expected. However, I don't like at all how information is presented in Rosetta Code. I would like to be able to chose two languages and filter by task.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#406

Post by crusso »

ggchappell wrote: post #289
crusso wrote: post #102

I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views. I'd like for the system to allow for continued refinement of arguments on various topics and to allow for various branching of thought. That is, I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular but logically consistent argumentation. As an end pr…

I appreciate the idea, but it needs some reworking. In particular, I see two big flaws. (1) The essence of the use of this site would be that one chooses a position, and then finds arguments to support it. In other words, "I've made up my mind; now show me why I'm right." Now suppose I'm the person discussing an issue with you. Why should I pay any attention to some page chosen based largely on the assumption that I'…

1) I'm sure some will approach it that way. Some of those will continue with it that way. Other people will learn from the ongoing debate and incorporate new learning in their positions. They will learn logical argumentation and some facts because thought leaders will emerge who leverage logic and facts. Those thought leaders can be incorporated into webs of trust as preferenced by individual users.

2) I'm not looking to decrease polarization, necessarily. If anything, different echo chambers would necessarily form as like-minded sets of users would agree with and upvote similar arguments. If user sammy upvotes weak creationist arguments made by weak creationist supporters, fine. Within the region of the web of trust of weak creationist arguers, sammy may be king. The site should allow him his due, but when sammy goes to upvote a new argument that crusso is following, it should affect the ranking/view of that argument little if at all -- since crusso tends to not upvote weak creationist arguments and creationist argument supporters.

Although mechanics that allow for increasing polarization sounds bad (I hear it), the conventional approach of decreasing polarization is to beat the crap out of outliers with monolithic, single-dimension voting systems that reward populism and emotional rhetoric.

I'd rather let some polarization thrive because different people have different value systems... but what I would envision as being a "good" for a site like this is to allow people to both have their polarization AND to allow them to transcend their echo chambers by viewing the arguments of other thought leaders in other echo chambers using similar tools and metrics for evaluating arguments.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#407

Post by crusso »

DanBC wrote: post #252
crusso wrote: post #102

I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views. I'd like for the system to allow for continued refinement of arguments on various topics and to allow for various branching of thought. That is, I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular but logically consistent argumentation. As an end pr…

I love this idea. I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments. (There is probably research showing that people's beliefs become more entrenched if you show them evidence to debunk or otherwise convert them). Using gun control as an example. I have a position. I'm in a discussion with soomeone. I think I'll use evidence to persuade them, so I visit your site. I find that…

I love this idea.

Thanks, it's one of those ideas that has been in the back of my mind for a while, but it's not an easy idea for me to even convey properly. I thought I'd just make a best-effort at it and see what HN thought of it. The feedback has been really interesting and I have a bunch of URLs for somewhat similar concepts that I plan to spend some time on.

I don't think most people -myself included- would be able to accept the rational arguments.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can name several major political/religious positions I've had in my life that I've changed my mind on because of discussion/debate and research.

   *I find that the argument pretty much demolishes my point*
   *Or I find that the argument supports my position*
Actually, I'd think that you could find arguments in support of either. I don't envision this kind of site as being the terminator of all debate, since different perspectives would be allowed to thrive in different spheres based upon the complex web of trust concept.

What it would allow you to do is say to someone on some random forum, "Look, I'm not interested in taking a trip on the merry-go-round with gun control in a Youtube comment. Here's the URL to my honest assessment of the issue, if you're wanting to do something more than just grandstand and create a bunch of strawmen about my arguments, there's a starting point for you. If you have a reference for your position, I'm more than happy to look at it. What's your URL?"

You can't reach everyone with logic and data, but I'd love to see a tool set that encourages people to explore their own positions in an environment that promotes really thinking about those positions rather than just going in with shields up and phasers set to kill.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#408

Post by NAFV_P »

blueatlas wrote: post #275
NAFV_P wrote: post #208

Online resource for hardcore computer science and other "headbanging" subjects, collaboratively written by, and for, people who haven't had a formal background in computer science or the equivalent "headbangology". EDIT: I made my sentences, make sense.

I like this, but rather than "hardcore", targeted at pre-CS, and possibly 1st year CS students. Computer Science programs are awful at introducing and reinforcing fundamentals. Examples are binary/hex, how data is stored in memory, compilation, basic system architecture (CPU/memory interaction), basic command line/shell usage, etc. - topics beyond a typical high school programming course, but prepares the student for…

> I like this, but rather than "hardcore", targeted at pre-CS, and possibly 1st year CS students.

Apologies, I should have explained myself better.

Being aimed at people with only their own wits to guide them, their knowledge is likely to be patchy. So filling in knowledge, even basic things such as mentioned by yourself would be included.

Trying to read up on a subject you often don't know which terms to look up, so some supermarket of info where you just wonder around (like a zombie) until you work what you need to get would be useful.

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#409

Post by anilgulecha »

Jemaclus wrote: post #351

* Hearing aids that run off body heat. They have watches that do it, why not hearing aids? Or at least helps recharge the batteries... I dunno. I spend a lot of money on hearing aid batteries... * A better credit rating system. The current one kinda sucks, no offense to Transunion, Experian, and whatever that other one is. Just because Joe Schmoe was unemployed 18 months ago and struggled to pay the rent, much less p…

> * A better job candidate review systems. Companies spend a lot of money hiring recruiters, but recruiters just spam the crap out of people and then send all the resumes in anyway. What if there were an app that could pre-qualify candidates? Cut out the middle man -- death to recruiters! (figuratively, of course)

A plug to something we build, specifically for technical pre-screening: http://www.hackerrank.com/x/

Re: Ask HN: Idea Sunday

#410

Post by rmz »

Detrus wrote: post #186
crusso wrote: post #102

I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views. I'd like for the system to allow for continued refinement of arguments on various topics and to allow for various branching of thought. That is, I'm not looking for a democracy that rewards majoritarian thought and punishes less popular but logically consistent argumentation. As an end pr…

This is along the lines of structured arguments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_map Doug Engelbart the creator of NLS and famous for Mother of All Demos talks about such systems http://youtu.be/xQx-tuW9A4Q and http://youtu.be/VeSgaJt27PM etc. The general principle is we won't make much progress discussing complex issues by simply recreating the print world with increased convenience of a computer like we do now…

hear hear. Won't happen in my lifetime, but if something like mathematica or ipython workbooks could become a common way to present an argument in a public debate then much would have been won.

btw: For presenting complex issues, journalism is dead. For uncovering hidden truth, not necessarily very complex ones, it's still very much alive.

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