Jack: The idea of having citations everywhere is nice but unpragmatic. It would slow down conversation and dialogue tremendously.
One possible alternative is to have nested dialogues. Each sentence that makes some sort of claim links to another which explains the idea more thoroughly if that is what you disagree with. If you do not disagree with that point, then you can continue reading the main chain. This is similar to the idea of hypertext dialogue: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.40.3246 , and it is similar to what Eliezer has done at OB by being so self-referential.
I think the idea of a nested dialogue is a great one. You could also incorporate reader voting, so that weak arguments get voted off of the dialogue while stronger ones remain, thus winnowing down the argument to its essence over time.
I wonder if our hosts, or any contributors, would be interested in trying out such a procedure as a way of exploring a future disagreement?
Jack: The idea of having citations everywhere is nice but unpragmatic. It would slow down conversation and dialogue tremendously.
One possible alternative is to have nested dialogues. Each sentence that makes some sort of claim links to another which explains the idea more thoroughly if that is what you disagree with. If you do not disagree with that point, then you can continue reading the main chain. This is similar to the idea of hypertext dialogue: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.40.3246 , and it is similar to what Eliezer has done at OB by being so self-referential.
I think the idea of a nested dialogue is a great one. You could also incorporate reader voting, so that weak arguments get voted off of the dialogue while stronger ones remain, thus winnowing down the argument to its essence over time.
I wonder if our hosts, or any contributors, would be interested in trying out such a procedure as a way of exploring a future disagreement?