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<title><![CDATA[Comments for entry "Fact Bubbler" at Dilbert.com Blog]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/806]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Regular thoughts and updates from Dilbert.com]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from gnutenator]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1750037]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Idea for srip: True story, just happened the other day. My customer's customer just took credit for my idea. I suggested that the input terminal strips be on the left and the outputs be on the right. This kept the cables from crossing and created more room in the panel and made logical sense. I got an atta boy from my customer. Quite funny to here it suggested to me by the panel builder as their idea. I mean, I know it was mine, I already got the atta boy. WTF? lol]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from TheRedSnifit]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1740909]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[This Fact Bubbler sounds interesting indeed, but I have one problem: the voting system.

A great example of why up-voting and down-voting should be left out is that horrible, horrible place known as &quot;Reddit&quot;. Basically, Reddit allows users to up-vote and down-vote; obviously, up-votes carry posts to the top of the page, and down-votes take them to the bottom. The problem is, whenever a political issue comes up, any posts that go against the popular opinion will get buried beneath five-hundred other posts, no matter how accurate or well-reasoned. Apply this to your &quot;Fact Bubble&quot;, and menial facts could end up burying more relevant ones.

To avoid this, the website would need some sort of dedicated moderators and admins who could filter the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. Perhaps there could be two fact-lists, one for the average users to submit to, and a decidedly more accurate one composed by those running the site.



Someone else, said this before me, but you should really go for it. Create the site, gather some moderators, and create this Fact Bubble. We can argue about how successful it would be all we want, but it doesn't matter as long as it remains nothing but an idea.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from PhilHowell]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1740451]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Scott, your 'Fact Bubbler' sounds a lot like an idea put forward in Jay Rosen's keynote address, titled 'Covering Wicked Problems' to the UK Conference of Science Journalists.

He calls his concept 'The Wicked Problems Beat'.

You can read it at: http://pressthink.org/2012/06/covering-wicked-problems/

But briefly he defines wicked problems as having the following features:

  &quot;It is hard to say what the problem is, to define it clearly or to tell where it stops and starts. There is no â€œrightâ€ way to view the problem, no definitive formulation. There are many stakeholders, all with their own frames, which they tend to see as exclusively correct. Ask what the problem is and you will get a different answer from each. Someone can always say that the problem is just a symptom of another problem and that someone will not be wrong. The problem is inter-connected to a lot of other problems; pulling them apart is almost impossible. In a word: itâ€™s a mess.

  &quot;But it gets worse. Every wicked problem is unique, so in a sense there is no prior art and solving one wonâ€™t help you with the others. No one has â€œthe right to be wrong,â€ meaning enough legitimacy and stakeholder support to try things that will almost certainly fail, at first. Instead failure is savaged, and the trier is deemed unsuitable for another try. The problem keeps changing on us. It is never definitely resolved. Instead, we just run out of patience, or time, or money, or political will. Itâ€™s not possible to understand the problem first, then solve it. Rather, attempts to solve it reveal further dimensions of the problem.&quot;

He goes on to imagine ten ways 'The Wicked Problem Beat' would operate. Below are just the headings:

1. It would be a network, not a person.
2. The beat would be pattern-based.
3. A classic narrative stands at the heart of the beat.
4. The beat would be global because wicked problems are a global phenomenon.
5. The wicked problems beat canâ€™t rely on the experts.
6. The â€œstarsâ€ of the beat would be people all over the world who seem to be good at wicked problems.
7. The beat would treat denial as a news story.
8. The wicked problems beat would have to be a learning machine.
9. The beat would have a goal, a mission.
10. The wicked problems beat implies a view from somewhere.

Well worth a read. Cheers, Phil]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from rxpete]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1739685]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I applaud and support this idea but unfortunately many political policy debates revolve more around belief than fact.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Therion]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1739030]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[One problem with Wikipedia is that it provides no insurance against &quot;madness of the crowds&quot;. Any belief system which is sufficiently popular grows its personal, sophisticated theology. People with reputations will write papers and undertake studies, and pretty soon some manifestly irrational ideas will be hidden behind a thick emulsion of intellectual respectability.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from misadventures213]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738879]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[http://xkcd.com/285/]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from 3dBdown]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738560]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[And then I realized, to what end is this fact bubbler?  So we can feel informed?  Or so we can have a valid way of comparing government (in)action vs. the best known facts and opinions?  How will this help?  If a website with user-provided data sources and opinions makes it glaringly obvious when government fails or which direction government should take, does it make a difference?  We already have many government watchdogs, both from the left and the right.  Unfortunately, I think government does what it wants anyway (e.g., TARP, PPACA, etc.).  Write all the letters you want to your congressman if it makes you feel better.  Yes, I know politicians will pander to whomever they think they can get the most votes, but this is mostly lip service.  If our only way to promote change in government is to vote, then we've already lost.  How many of you feel like you are voting for a leader vs. voting for the least-likely-to-do-more-damage?

And we all saw the Occupy &quot;fill-in-the-blank&quot; protests.  Remember them?  Misguided sheeple as many of those people are, I have a feeling we are going to see a lot more protests coming.  Even if people are protesting for the wrong thing (because they didn't have a nice website to refer to), massive civil unrest with swarms of angry mobs may be the only action that will raise any government attention.  Personally, I'd rather have a way to hit 'em where it hurts, the pocketbook, since that is usually the only way to make those in power notice, but I think the average person does not have that power, even en masse.

Sorry to be a Debbie Downer (or is that Bob Bummer?), but an awesome website will not fix our problems.  I think Phantom II is on to something, especially the last two paragraphs.
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from aaror2]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738522]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I am honored to be singled out in this post, but I respectfully argue that a crucial portion of my original idea has been lost.
Why did I require everyone to vote for both sides of an issue (even at a 2-1 ratio)?  Because the best way to reach compromise or to change an opinion is to be exposed to new ideas.  Now sure, lots of folks will just vote at random on the opposing side, but the folks who are most intelligent will read what they are voting up, and look for arguments they can support.  I suspect that the items voted up would be more likely to be compromise/consensus positions, instead of radical ideas.  Meanwhile, both sides of the issue are exposed to both sides' arguments, in a way that they are most likely to think instead of just reacting.  Also, alternative ideas will find an especially fertile ground since folks are forced to support something other than their starting position!
I wanted an idea that pushes us to find common ground and seek new solutions, which I argue my original method would do better than your proposed change.  
That said, inserting that one missing piece of code into your proposal would be trivial.  What say you sir?]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from 3dBdown]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738501]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I immediately thought of stackoverflow as another similar site.  What I wasn't aware of was that stackoverflow was generalized so that the format could be used for other topics.  They even have an area where people can propose new stackoverflow-ish type sites.  I don't think it's a complete match to Scott's requirements, but it does have some good elements to it.  One plus in particular is the use of moderators (which can be appointed or voted on from the community) and that contributors earn a reputation (which makes it easier to separate weasels from the well-intentioned).

See here for the proposed site about politics:
http://area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/25906/politics]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from EdCondilbert]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738483]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Seems like it's worth a try.  Is this what you have in mind?

Fact Bubbler Test Case â€“ Global Warming

This is an attempt to organize the relations between carbon dioxide and global warming in a â€œfact bubbler,â€ as described in Stott Adamsâ€™ blog post, â€œFact Bubbler,â€ July 4, 2012.  The idea is to list only facts and to state each fact simply and concisely.  Supporting data and a more conventional description of the facts can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Warming.
Is this organization less controversial, clearer and/or more convincing than other presentations, e.g., the Wikipedia article mentioned above?  If not, why not?
â€¢	Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a product of the combustion of organic fuels, such as wood, coal, oil, and natural gas.
â€¢	Unless itâ€™s trapped near the site of combustion, carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere.
â€¢	Carbon dioxide gas absorbs and re-emits infrared radiation (IR).
â€¢	Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere primarily absorbs IR emitted from the earth, below, and emits IR both back toward earth and up toward space.
â€¢	Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere decreases the amount of IR emitted by the earth that escapes into space.
â€¢	Atmospheric carbon dioxide has a negligible effect on radiation from the sun reaching the earth, since most of that energy is non-IR.
â€¢	The earth is heated by radiation from the sun and cooled by radiation of IR into space.
â€¢	Carbon dioxide is not removed from the atmosphere by rain but may be reduced by reaction at the earthâ€™s surface, e.g., by production of calcium carbonate.
â€¢	Carbon dioxide is trapped when water freezes to form ice and the carbon dioxide content of ice reflects the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere when and where the ice was formed.
â€¢	Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere by plants and used in plant metabolism.
â€¢	Reducing total plant life on earth by reduction of forest area increases carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
â€¢	Increasing total plant life on earth by planting crops and decorative landscaping reduces carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
â€¢	The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere changes is a quantitative result of changes in all the factors that increase and decrease CO2.
â€¢	Estimates of future atmospheric CO2 concentrations are made by models that incorporate all known factors that add or subtract CO2. 
â€¢	Increases in average global temperature increase ice melting in glaciers and polar ice caps.
â€¢	Reduction of ice in glaciers and polar ice caps causes increasing sea levels.
â€¢	Burning of organic fuels increases (a) as the human population increases and (b) as industrialization and prosperity increase.
â€¢	World average air temperatures are estimated by combining data from all sources.
â€¢	Atmospheric temperatures are measured by ground stations, balloons, and satellite sensors.
â€¢	Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are measured by chemical sensors at ground level and in balloons.
â€¢	Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations are measured by radiation sensors on satellites.
â€¢	Historic carbon dioxide concentrations are estimated by measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in â€œold ice,â€ that is, water frozen in the past.  
â€¢	The time when water was frozen to form â€œold iceâ€ is estimated from the depth of ice in relatively undisturbed areas, such as the polar ice caps.
â€¢	Estimates of global average air temperature and global average carbon dioxide are more accurate for recent times when more data is available.
â€¢	[Facts needed for how CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning are measured.]
â€¢	The International Energy Agencyâ€™s observed CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning have increased from 21 billion tons per year in 1990 to 31 billion tons per year in 2010.
â€¢	Atmospheric CO2 measured a Mauna Loa, HI, has increased from 315 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in 1960 to 385 ppmv by 2010.
â€¢	The NASA global land-ocean temperature index shows an increase of about 0.9 degree centigrade between 1910 and 2011.
â€¢	A Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis has shown that, between 1980 and 2010, global average temperature increased by about 0.5 degree C, the hottest areas on the North American land mass increased by about 2 degrees C, and the fraction of the North American land mass experiencing extremely high temperatures increased from 1% to 10%.
â€¢	The World Glacier Monitoring Service has measured a decrease in average glacier thickness of 14 meters between 1955 and 2005.
â€¢	The annually averaged sea level at 23 geologically stable tide gauge sites with long-term records increased by 20 cm from 1885 to 2005.
â€¢	Estimates of future CO2 emissions are made by models of population growth, economic growth and the balance of various energy sources.  E.g., estimates will be higher if fossil fuels continue to be the main source of energy and lower if nuclear, solar and or wind power become more important.
â€¢	Estimates of future atmospheric temperatures are based on models combining estimated future CO2 concentrations with the known absorptive and emissive properties of CO2.  
â€¢	Models of all kinds contain some uncertain terms that are estimated by !$%*!$%*! until the model matches previous data.  That is, data is needed to calibrate models.
â€¢	Models of all kinds are tested against existing data.  A valid model must agree with many more data points than there are adjustable parameters in the model.  A valid model must agree with the shape of trends, e.g., linear changes with time, or quadratic, cyclic, or exponential.
â€¢	Uncertainties in the model of temperature vs. CO2 lead to an estimated temperature increase of 3  /- 1.5 degrees if atmospheric CO2 doubles.
â€¢	The Goddard Institute for Space Studies surface 3D air temperature model predicts that increasing average temperature will increase the amount of moisture stored in the atmosphere and increase both weather extremes â€“ hot dry summers and unusually heavy rainfall and floods.
â€¢	The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses its models to predict a range of future climate conditions based on different possible future CO2 emissions and a range of possible sensitivities of temperature to CO2.  The models predict an increase in sea level of 0.18 to 0.59 meter between about 1999 and 2099.

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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from farney]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738444]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[OK Scott. 

Quit doinking about and pull the trigger. Set up the website. Pull together some moderators.

You have been fishing in this lake for years, pulling ideas and commentary out of us. Just friggin do it. Sure it will be bumpy at first and lots of things could go wrong and it could be highly criticized â€¦ but if you pull it off it could actually have a huge impact. From what I read, most of your many readers think this would be an amazing idea even if many see the goal of being unbiased as unrealistic. And you obviously believe you are capable of sitting in the middle of this debate and moderating and be the emperor of data vs opinion in politics. Hey, you could be the Jimmy Wales of politics. Of all the entertaining but ridiculous thought experiments you have floated over the last 10 years, this is the idea that could truly have an impact. So do it. Weâ€™re behind you. This could be the beginning of the end of sh*t slinging in politics and the path to your Nobel Peace Prize.

Do it.

What are you waiting for?
]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from GLK]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738439]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Lots of naysayer's here. Bottom line, despite potential imperfections this is definitely worth a try as I cannot imagine it being worse than the vacuous political black infohole we have to put up with now. 
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from rambis]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738410]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[I was going to write that this sounds like a terrible idea and went to wikipedia and searched 'abortion debate' as an example to back up my claim.  

I was pleasantly surprised to find I was wrong and that it was as reasonably neutral as that topic can be.    I think you may be on to something.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from PeterJ57]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738371]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Here in the UK my ex-wife is a councillor. Yet she polled fewer votes than I have as Twitter followers. At this level the vote can be manipulated by getting the loyal followers out and hoping the other lot fail to get their supporters to vote.

Voting only works when it is about something that matters enough to get large numbers.

We all come out and vote for president, but who cares enough for local politicians?

This is the flaw in this plan. On big issues you'll get consensus and useful results.

On smaller ones you'll get skewed results simply because only those close to the issue will know enough to make comments, amend etc.

For proof, look at the more obscure topics on Wikipedia.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from SonofRojBlake]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738312]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Elected politicians are essentially the middlemen between the public (who, in theory, should be able to dictate policy to some extent - government of the people, by the people etc.) and the civil service, who do the tedious business of actually getting the laws codified, enacted and enforced. The politicians ONLY VALUE is as a filter for those policy ideas.

Record companies are essentially the middlemen between the public (who just want to hear the music they like) and the musicians, who do the tedious business of actually learning to play music and getting the songs codified, enacted and performed. The record companies ONLY VALUE is^h^h was as a method of distribution for those songs.

And then, the internet made the latter's redundancy transparent. Did they go down without a fight?

And how much MORE of a fight will two or three generations of career politicians put up against a technological solution to making them redundant? They'll make the Recording Industry Ass. of America look like compliant puppies by comparison.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from RavenBlack]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738309]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[The problem with Phantom II and delius's idea is that the people who control what children are taught don't benefit from children learning critical thinking skills. Proposing that as a solution is thus similar to proposing &quot;kill all violent people&quot; as a solution to war. Yes, it's a solution that would work if you could do it, but there is no way to make it happen.

The &quot;idea bubbler&quot;, on the other hand, is something that could potentially be created by a single person, and managed by a small team, without any input from &quot;the powers that be&quot;. As such it's a practical contribution, in that it's something that can be implemented - the problem with it being instead that it probably wouldn't help.

The hard thing is coming up with a solution that's both practical *and* successful.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Wiki_evolution]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738301]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[The Wikipedia's formal and informal rules weren't all available at launch.  They evolved with time.  So I suggest a process in three steps:

1. Recruit and handpick around 50 initial contibutors to write about the first five topics.  Their main goal is actually to define the pages layout and to write the first rulebook along the way. The wed site would be viewable only by the members who log in with their email adress and password.  Half of them will become the powerful moderators in the next phase:

2. Use some of the fist five pages to illustrate what you intend to built and open the registration process to all.  At this point, most of the work would be only viewable by the members.  Let them create 25 topics or so.  The rulebook should evolve.  The moderators interventions should become progressively less arbitrary as the rules get completed.  When you think it's ready, then:

3. Make the web site viewable for the whole world.  Add one topic per week based on suggestion by the users.

I expect that the individual pages will look bad for at least a few days after their creation.  You don't want to show to the public 5 decent pages and 100 spontaneously created half-baked ones.  The process make sure that at any point in time the majority of the content viewable by the public is presentable.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from delius1967]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738248]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[&quot;each policy debate would have a list of facts from the most credible sources available&quot;  I think you are already in trouble right there.  Who is determining a source's credibility?  What happens with facts that are nominally true but misleading or besides the point?  Even the simplest &quot;fact&quot; needs so many attendant definitions that putting it into one sentence would be virtually impossible.

Here's an example:  &quot;The income gap between the wealthy and the non-wealthy is increasing.&quot;  Is that true, or false?  It depends on at least four different definitions:  the units being used in the gap; how you are measuring it; what time period you are making the claim for; and what dividing line is used to separate the two groups.  ANY AND ALL of these can (and will) be argued about vociferously.  Should the gap be measured in absolute dollars, relative sizes of income, or percentage of total wealth?  Should we measure total wealth or income?  If the former, does that include things such as trust funds or IRAs that cannot be accessed?  If the latter, is that just take-home pay, or does it include interest income, stock gains, etc.?  And so on.

On any issue which should be of concern to the voters, it is virtually impossible to make simple statements that are (a) useful and (b) universally agreed upon, which I think would be the two main criteria for inclusion in your list.  There is simply no substitute for doing your homework.

&quot;What's really needed, IMHO, are people to teach children how to think critically.&quot;   Phantom, I could not have said this any better, so I'm doing the next best thing, repeating it.  I've actually thought about what would go into a high-school-level class in critical thinking.  I'm convinced it really wouldn't need to be that long.  There is a non-trivial amount of math involved, but it isn't anything too advanced.  You would also have to cover topics like understanding the motivations of a speaker, and efficiently diagramming sentences to catch weasel phrases.

Still, I don't think it would take too long.  How much better off would we be if we substituted even just a couple of weeks of one a required subject with content like this?]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from fawn247]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738212]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[This is excellent!  Now that iGoogle is heading out to pasture, it would become my home page.]]></description>
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<title><![CDATA[Comment  from Jengineer]]></title>
<link><![CDATA[http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/1738193]]></link>
<description><![CDATA[Hi Scott

Unbiased knowledge is almost impossible to find these days.  Most serious studies need funding, and this funding is always provided by some interested organization.

This organization expects the study to show the facts in the way that suits its goals. Since nothing is neither black or white, all these facts are subtle interpretations of figures taken from these studies and it will not fit in one short sentence so the participants of your website will end up arguing on details without enough data to prove it.

For example, try this one: &quot; Pot should be legal and the money presently spent to fight marijuana traffic should be used instead for better education&quot; . Try to find unbiased figures to support pro and con opinions....good luck!]]></description>
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