Benjamin Davies

  Benjamin Davies commented on idea #4141.

Apparently, stocks have fallen since the dot-com bubble when measured in gold instead of dollars: https://x.com/elerianm/status/1976237139185574170

Some comments suggest measuring stocks in gold is arbitrary, others say this development is simply due to inflation.

Are they right or is this development a deeper sign that the economy is in trouble?

#4141·Dennis Hackethal, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies commented on idea #4141.

Apparently, stocks have fallen since the dot-com bubble when measured in gold instead of dollars: https://x.com/elerianm/status/1976237139185574170

Some comments suggest measuring stocks in gold is arbitrary, others say this development is simply due to inflation.

Are they right or is this development a deeper sign that the economy is in trouble?

#4141·Dennis Hackethal, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies revised idea #4063. The revision addresses ideas #4064, #4065, and #4134.

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #4137.

Drugs are a net negative for society.

#4137·Benjamin DaviesOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #4058.

All drugs should be legal because people have a right to do what they want, as long as it isn’t violating the rights of others.

#4058·Benjamin DaviesOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies revised criticism #4104.

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #2892.

The purpose of the reaction would be to record a kind of agreement or acknowledgment.
That way, Veritula could show ‘pending’ criticisms to users, say – ‘pending’ in the sense that they haven’t responded to those criticisms. So in addition to revising or counter-criticizing, they get a chance to accept a criticism without it remaining in a ‘pending’ state.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

#2892·Dennis HackethalOP, 3 months ago

  Benjamin Davies commented on criticism #4102.

Posting arbitrary emojis doesn’t achieve that purpose.

Maybe it does. Any kind of reaction is a response that turns a criticism from ‘pending’¹ to not ‘pending’ anymore.

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1. ‘Acknowledged’ vs ‘unacknowledged’ may be better terminology here, to avoid overlap with the current notion of pending criticisms.)

#4102·Dennis HackethalOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #4043.

How many times need something be replicated before the term 'replicator' should apply? If it's a matter of reliability, what defines reliable? Is "replicator-ness" on a continuum?

#4043·Tyler MillsOP, 10 days ago

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #2114.

[Veritula] does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

If Veritula shows me whether an idea is problematic or not, and then expects me to adopt or reject the idea accordingly, how is that not telling me what to think?

#2114·Dennis HackethalOP, 4 months ago

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #3049.

How Does Veritula Work?

Veritula (Latin for ‘a bit of truth’) can help you live a life guided exclusively by reason.

To reason, within any well-defined epistemology, means to follow and apply that epistemology. Unreason, or whim, is an undue departure from it. Epistemology is the study of knowledge – basically, the study of what helps knowledge grow, what hinders its growth, and related questions.

Veritula follows, and helps you apply, Karl Popper’s epistemology, Critical Rationalism. It’s a continuation of the Athenian tradition of criticism and the only known epistemology without major flaws.¹

Critical Rationalism says that ideas are assumed true until refuted. This approach leaves us free to make bold guesses and use the full arsenal at our disposal to criticize these guesses in order to solve problems, correct errors, and seek truth. It’s a creative and critical approach. Critical Rationalism is a fallibilist philosophy: there is no criterion of truth to determine with certainty whether some idea is true or false. We all make mistakes, and by an effort, we can correct them to get a little closer to the truth. Rejecting all forms of mysticism and the supernatural, Veritula recognizes that progress is both possible and desirable, and that rational means are the only way to make progress.

Veritula is a programmatic implementation of Popper’s epistemology.

Veritula provides an objective, partly automated way to tentatively determine whether a given idea is problematic. It does not tell you what to think – it teaches you how to think.

Consider an idea I:

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              I

Since it has no criticisms, we tentatively consider I unproblematic. It is rational to adopt it and act in accordance with it. Conversely, it would be irrational to reject it, consider it problematic, or act counter to it. (See #2281 for more details on rational decision-making.)

Next, someone submits a criticism C1:

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              I
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              C1

The idea I is now considered problematic so long as criticism C1 is not addressed. How do you address it? You can revise I so that C1 doesn’t apply anymore, which restores the previous state with just the standalone I (now called I2 to indicate the revision):

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                   Revise
              I ------------> I2
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              C1

To track changes, Veritula offers beautiful diffing and version control for ideas.

If you cannot think of a way to revise I, you can counter-criticize C1, thereby neutralizing it with a new criticism, C2:

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              I
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              C1
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              C2

Now, I is considered unproblematic again, since C1 is problematic and thus can’t be a decisive criticism anymore.

If you can think of neither a revision of I nor counter-criticism to C1, your only option is to accept that I has been (tentatively) defeated. You should therefore abandon it, which means: stop acting in accordance with it, considering it to be unproblematic, etc.

Since there can be many criticisms (which are also just ideas) and deeply nested counter-criticisms, the result is a tree structure. For example, as a discussion progresses, one of its trees might look like this:

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              I
           /  |  \
         C11 C12 C13
         / \       \
       C21 C22     C23
                   / \
                 C31 C32

In this tree, I is considered problematic. Although C11 has been neutralized by C21 and C22, C12 still needs to be addressed. In addition, C23 would have neutralized C13, but C31 and C32 make C23 problematic, so C13 makes I problematic as well.

You don’t need to keep track of these relationships manually. Veritula marks ideas accordingly, automatically.

Because decision-making is a special case of, ie follows the same logic as, truth-seeking, you can use such trees for decision-making, too. Veritula implements unanimous consent as defined by Taking Children Seriously, a parenting philosophy that builds on Popper’s epistemology. When you’re planning your next move but can’t decide on a city, say, Veritula helps you criticize your ideas and make a rational decision – meaning a decision you’ll be happy with. Again, it’s rational to act in accordance with ideas that have no pending criticisms.

All ideas, including criticisms, should be formulated as concisely as possible, and separate ideas should be submitted separately, even if they’re related. Otherwise, you run the risk of receiving ‘bulk’ criticisms, where a single criticism seems to apply to more content than it actually does.

Again, criticisms are also just ideas, so the same is true for criticisms. Submitting each criticism separately has the benefit of requiring the proponent of an idea to address each criticism individually, not in bulk. If he fails to address even a single criticism, the idea remains problematic and should be rejected.

The more you discuss a given topic, the deeper and wider the tree grows. Some criticisms can apply to multiple ideas in the tree, but that needs to be made explicit by submitting them repeatedly.

Comments that aren’t criticisms – eg follow-up questions or otherwise neutral comments – are considered ancillary ideas. Unlike criticisms, ancillary ideas do not invert their respective parents’ statuses. They are neutral.

One of the main benefits of Veritula is that the status of any idea in a discussion can be seen at a glance. If you are new to a much-discussed topic, adopt the displayed status of the ideas involved: if they are marked problematic, reject them; if they are not, adopt them.

Therefore, Veritula acts as a dictionary for ideas.

One of the problems of our age is that people have same discussions over and over again. Part of the reason is widespread irrationality, expressed in the unwillingness to change one’s mind; another is that it’s simply difficult to remember or know what’s true and what isn’t. Discussion trees can get complex, so people shouldn’t blindly trust their judgment of whether some idea is true or problematic, whether nested criticisms have been neutralized or not. Going off of memory is too error prone.

Veritula solves this problem: it makes discussion trees explicit so you don’t have to remember each idea and its relation to other ideas. Veritula therefore also enables you to hold irrational people accountable: if an idea has pending criticisms, the rational approach is to either abandon it or to save it by revising it or addressing all pending criticisms.

Many people don’t like to concede an argument. But with Veritula, no concessions are necessary. The site just shows you who’s right.

Using Veritula, we may discover a bit of truth.

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1. Popperian epistemology has some flaws, like verisimilitude, but Veritula doesn’t implement those.

#3049·Dennis HackethalOP revised 3 months ago

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #2528.

It’s an understandable concern. I subscribe more to the insight from BoI chapter 10. Open societies inadvertently give their enemies more access than closed ones, but they also gain so much more knowledge and strength because of their openness that they can deal with their enemies better than if they were closed.

(I went back and forth on whether to label this as a criticism. I decided to do so but I want to be clear that it doesn’t mean I’m trying to tell you how to live your life.)

#2528·Dennis Hackethal, 4 months ago

  Benjamin Davies submitted idea #4068.

  Benjamin Davies commented on idea #4061.

Define legal, please.

#4061·Ben GK, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies revised idea #4064 and marked it as a criticism.

  Benjamin Davies commented on idea #4063.

Drugs are a net negative for society.

#4063·Benjamin DaviesOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies submitted idea #4063.

  Benjamin Davies submitted idea #4062.

  Benjamin Davies addressed criticism #4059.

People on drugs violate the rights of others way more often.

#4059·Benjamin DaviesOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #4058.

All drugs should be legal because people have a right to do what they want, as long as it isn’t violating the rights of others.

#4058·Benjamin DaviesOP, 9 days ago

  Benjamin Davies started a discussion titled ‘Legality of drugs and other substances ’. The discussion starts with idea #4058.

  Benjamin Davies revised criticism #4008.

  Benjamin Davies criticized idea #3991.

Can shorting be a mechanism of error correction?

I've also noticed incumbent advantage in business. Unless a competitor offers a better product, a company can be as corrupt and lazy as possible.

#3991·Zelalem Mekonnen revised 13 days ago

  Benjamin Davies commented on criticism #4006.

I could indeed have been clearer. The point isn’t that using creativity to re-establish direction is the distinguishing feature. The distinction is the method of conflict resolution.

In a non-coercive, rational resolution, you take the distraction or impulse seriously, examine its content, and form a theory of what problem it’s signaling. Then you conjecture candidate solutions and select one to try. A common solution is to acknowledge the distraction and explicitly schedule it for later, which removes the unfinished business feeling it creates in the moment. Direction returns because the conflict got resolved.

In self-coercion, the method is irrational and coercive: you don’t examine the content of the distraction at all. You steamroll it or swat it away. You may regain direction, but the underlying problem remains unresolved.

Both methods cost creativity, but the coercive one causes more downstream problems (maybe even suffering), which then requires further creative expenditure to be resolved in the future.

#4006·Edwin de WitOP, 13 days ago

  Benjamin Davies revised criticism #3145.