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    Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness
    Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness
    Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness
    Ebook32 pages26 minutes

    Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness

    By David Brin

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    About this ebook

    How can we harness the vast potential of the internet to actively solve problems? Picture a venue where adversaries can no longer get away with just screaming past each other, but must actively answer each others' accusations, criticisms and complaints. A place where one group's vision -- or model of the world -- can be tested, dented, appraised... and possibly improved under the watchful gaze of an interested public. A site where the disprovable can be disproved, the ambiguous can be pinned down a bit more, and good ideas may get deserved attention just a bit sooner.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Brin
    Release dateJul 14, 2011
    ISBN9781465985606
    Disputation Arenas: Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness
    Author

    David Brin

    David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international-bestselling novels include Earth, Existence, Startide Rising, and The Postman, which was adapted into a film in 1998. Brin serves on several advisory boards, including NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, or NIAC, and speaks or consults on topics ranging from AI, SETI, privacy, and invention to national security. His nonfiction book about the information age, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award of the American Library Association. Brin’s latest nonfiction work is Polemical Judo. Visit him at www.davidbrin.com.

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      Book preview

      Disputation Arenas - David Brin

      Disputation Arenas

      Harnessing Conflict

      and Competitiveness

      for Society’s Benefit

      By David Brin

      Smashwords Edition

      Copyright 2012 David Brin

      ***

      Table of Contents

      I. A New Kind of Dispute Resolution

      II. Toward a New Dispute Resolution Process

      III. A Concept for Implementation

      Phase Zero: Developing the System

      Phase One: Inviting Disputants

      Phase Two: Structured Participation

      Phase Three: Presentation and Critique of Manifestos

      Phase Four: The Paraphrasing Challenge

      Phase Five: Let the Battle Begin!

      Phase Six: Decision-Making

      Conclusion

      ***

      I

      A New Kind of Dispute Resolution

      We frequently hear how the Internet is going to transform society and people’s lives more than any innovation since the printing press. Beyond all the trendy applications in art and commerce, the electronic realm is seen as a vital locus for developing new kinds of dispute resolution, and even law. Some enthusiasts perceive it as a way to bypass older systems of social authority, allowing users to create their own self-organizing structures. Indeed, the Internet's rapid development seems only surpassed by its potential.

      Still, far too many enthusiasts focus on just one side of the equation...the technology. The other half -- the human half -- is far more important.

      How do real people behave, when confronted by opportunities and capabilities they never imagined? History shows that new media don't always liberate. At first, printing enflamed Europe's 16th Century religious hatreds. In the 1930s, burgeoning exposure to radio and loudspeakers helped consolidate the power of tyrants. Only time, and the development of user maturity in a competitive environment, eventually made these media capable of fostering cooperative citizenship.

      In the long run, the Internet will serve us best if it enhances two seemingly contradictory traits -- individualism and accountability. This may seem an odd blend, but their synergy brought about nearly everything we cherish about the modern era. Exploring ways to utilize this synergy, in order to create new systems of dispute resolution, will be the aim of this article.

      The Fecundity of Chaos

      First, if you want to see clues about our future, step away from your computer screen. Go outside and stand near a four-way intersection that's

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