How interesting is a site/community where you post unpopular ideas to get unbiased answers?

[Acorn Eyes]

A guy messaged me on Reddit a while ago basically interviewing me. I had created a thread asking the possibility of having minimal wage abolished, I have done the same here, but on Reddit I kept replying to irrelevant answers not by explaining my reasoning, but by simply saying it wasn't answering my question.

 

In the end I got 1 or 2 real responses, the rest were just questioning my thinking and avoiding the question.

 

Anyways this guy has an idea to make a site/community where you expand on deeper curiosities with completely objective answers, subjective answers being restricted.

 

How interesting is it to you? What would you think the popularity of it would be?

[kingkickolas]

That would be a pretty cool idea, I'd definitely visit it if it existed. I'm worried that it'd be really hard to do because the effort required to come up with supporting documents and sources is a lot higher than most people are willing to give. I mean for certain subjects, you have to get a Ph.D to know how to handle and consider the evidence. 

 

Edit: Thinking about it, probably the closest thing we have is the stack exchange network or Wikipedia since they're both peer reviewed (or at least moderated).

Edited January 29, 2017 by kingkickolas

[Albatross]

It would be interesting, but it seems like it would be very difficult to maintain.

[LAwLz]

Wouldn't work.

How would you make sure that there was no bias in answers?

 

Got a link to the reddit thread? I would like to see what answers you would have rejected. Chances are you yourself is biased and selective with which answers you think are "unbiased" without even realizing it.

[Misanthrope]

I am very interested....I don't believe it can be done at all...but I am nevertheless interested.

 

EDIT: Ok I guess I should expand a little bit: Such idea is difficult to achieve because there is no good way to achieve it. See what you're talking about is controlling a conversation and there's only a few ways you can do that:

 

1) You control the conversation unilaterally (think of this on the level of an atourney questioning a witness with the aid of a judge and the constant threat of perjury and contempt of court)

2) You leave it open but moderate some of the replies (this varies from very few rules to many rules)

3) You screen every response and basically censor irrelevant replies.

 

The problem is that if you look at it, all 3 options involve a human being with his own biases dictating what can and cannot be said.

 

You're gonna be surprised by this but the best we can get to approach a "free" exchange of ideas is something very close to 4chan /b/: Moderation only used to avoid legal issues like posting child porn and such but otherwise total and utter fucking chaos. Most people truly don't get the internet and thus would never bother to learn how to manage trolls and grow a thicker skin and thus there are some views that will probably never get explored under such conditions.

 

However I believe all other options of moderation or conversation formats are inherently more oppressive of ideas and thoughts.

[minibois]

Moderation would be a very hard to maintain.

[Atmos]

Sounds absolutely great in theory, but sadly that's not how humans work.

 

I know I have some *ehem* very, unpopular views and ideas that I would love to openly debate, however the subject matter is quite inflammatory for the overwhelming majority of people, so i just don't bring it up. 

 

As interesting a community as that would be, moderation as @Minibois pointed out would be a complete nightmare. Humans just aren't capable of keeping a completely objective view of all things. We're inherently greedy and self-preservative creatures, and some of the truly unpopular arguments out there are certain to provoke biased responses regardless of intent.

[Acorn Eyes]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Wouldn't work.

How would you make sure that there was no bias in answers?

 

Got a link to the reddit thread? I would like to see what answers you would have rejected. Chances are you yourself is biased and selective with which answers you think are "unbiased" without even realizing it.

I gave up answering "This isn't relevant eventually and just starting debating with others.

 

But the first comment is hilarious because I get downvoted hard for saying it doesn't answer the question.

 

[LAwLz]

36 minutes ago, Acorn Eyes said:

I gave up answering "This isn't relevant eventually and just starting debating with others.

 

But the first comment is hilarious because I get downvoted hard for saying it doesn't answer the question.

 

I think the first reply seems reasonable. Sure it is not a yes or no answer, but neither is your question. It is important to establish the other person's point of view before you can have a rational conversation.

You asked a question, and pizzapede was wondering why you were even asking it to begin with.

 

Your comment was downvoted because your response was childish. If you instead had said "Yes I understand that, but I am merely wondering about if it is even possible in this day and age".

Instead you went on to assume other peoples' opinions, copy/pasting replies and just seeming like an edgy teenager in general.

 

 

 

Side note:

Free market does not mean lawless market. For example anti-monopoly laws are necessary to create a free market because otherwise you end up with one mega corporation preventing everyone else from entering the same sector. That would lead to the price of goods and services are no longer determined by supply-and-demand and in turn the consumers (which is one of the core pillars of a free market), it would be determined by the monopoly in charge.

 

Side note to the side note: You said that Nordic countries don't have minimum wages. That is not exactly true. While Nordic countries don't have minimum wages, we do have very strong collective agreements which guarantees a certain minimum wage. Judging by the comments I see from people in the US, us Nordic countries have far stronger unions which ensures we get a fair wage as well as worker benefits.

You can't just look at Nordic countries and say "they don't have it, so we don't need it" without looking at what we have instead.

[Acorn Eyes]

2 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

I think the first reply seems reasonable. Sure it is not a yes or no answer, but neither is your question. It is important to establish the other person's point of view before you can have a rational conversation.

You asked a question, and pizzapede was wondering why you were even asking it to begin with.

 

Your comment was downvoted because your response was childish. If you instead had said "Yes I understand that, but I am merely wondering about if it is even possible in this day and age".

Instead you went on to assume other peoples' opinions, copy/pasting replies and just seeming like an edgy teenager in general.

 

 

 

Side note:

Free market does not mean lawless market. For example anti-monopoly laws are necessary to create a free market because otherwise you end up with one mega corporation preventing everyone else from entering the same sector. That would lead to the price of goods and services are no longer determined by supply-and-demand and in turn the consumers (which is one of the core pillars of a free market), it would be determined by the monopoly in charge.

 

Side note to the side note: You said that Nordic countries don't have minimum wages. That is not exactly true. While Nordic countries don't have minimum wages, we do have very strong collective agreements which guarantees a certain minimum wage. Judging by the comments I see from people in the US, us Nordic countries have far stronger unions which ensures we get a fair wage as well as worker benefits.

You can't just look at Nordic countries and say "they don't have it, so we don't need it" without looking at what we have instead.

I'm not sure what world you live in where "Why would you want to?" is an answer. And to continue on, he starts talking about his stance on minimum wage, when that wasn't the question. 

 

And I don't see how saying "Why would you want to?" isn't an answer is childish. I think its perfectly normal to say it isn't answer considering that they used a distraction question as an argument.

 

And I don't believe you understand the power of small businesses. Monopolies are only increased through government regulation, not decreased.