Ask HN: Idea Sunday
I'd like to see a site that focuses on the construction of logical arguments supporting various political and non-political views.<p>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.<p>As an end product, if I'm discussing, say, gun control with someone, I should be able to give them a URL: <a href="http://www.xyz3323499.com/crusso/gun_control/" rel="nofollow">http://www.xyz3323499.com/crusso/gun_control/</a> and all of the arguments and important information that I have upvoted, added to, or edited would show up.<p>Most of this stems out of my frustration with the tedious nature of arguments on the internet.  New stories stir up old arguments.  Forums like HN tend to rehash all those old arguments with often little thought for the mountains of arguments/evidence already out there.  Rather than have new stories refine or even change arguments and their conclusions, most people on the internet just chase their tails in circles.<p>I'd view this kind of site as a "let's stand on each others' shoulders and provide our shoulders to others" kind of work.  With a decent web of trust, I should be able to look at the arguments of the most "respected" members of the site and mix-in their arguments with my own.<p>I think that a sufficiently complex web of trust would allow for fundamentally different viewpoints on a given issue to thrive because the spheres of supporters of those viewpoints have different value systems.  Even with those different value systems, it should be possible at some point to pick out the thought leaders across different spheres that transcend typical Republican, Democrat, Liberal, Conservative, Theist, Atheist labels with arguments that are acknowledged across the board as being internally consistent and factually based.<p>Yeah, I realize that I've rambled -- but if someone finds value in the idea and runs with it, I'd love to see it out there.