The first day of the rest of nick's life

[Nick Thompson]

All,

So, today I resigned my tenure and as of 2007 will be living in Santa Fe as of Jan 1 2007.  I still have to finish a semester's teaching and get out there, so I wont have a lot of energy to spare before I get out there, but I would like to start thinking about projects.  

One project that seems particularly worthy, whose working name is the Purple People Project, seeks  to provide a web  "dating service" for people or web "chess club" who want to talk to, argue with, share views with, , people who disagree with them on major issues of the day.   I imagine a web interface which would help people find one another and then structure thier discussions to keep people away from unproductive discourse or perhaps to guide them toward productive discourse.  I think to get it rolling we would need web people, philosophical people, political people.  What I would love to think of is some way in which the site could build itself (or with the help of a Universithy professor with a flock of students looking for something to do) by tracking fruitless lines of argument and developing mechanisms for turning people away from them.  I have the political arrogance to suppose that if arguments can be kept on point, liberal democrats and moderate republicans will win them.  I dont know who would win the 2008 election if we got such a thing going but it wouldnt be Karl Rove.  

Has anybody out there had similar thoughts???  

Nick


Nicholas Thompson
nickthompson at earthlink.net
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[Louis Macovsky, Dynamic BioSystems]

Hi,

In the early 80's I appointed myself the Congressional lobbyist for an environmental group.  Uninvited I went door to door in the office buildings of Representatives (obviously no one can repeat that feat now).  I was well received and although I only got an occasional handshake from a Congressman, I did get time with legislative aides.  The aides were well informed and/or eager to become informed about my issue.  Recently I emailed my Congresswoman concerning an idea I had re: reimbursement or tax rebates for citizens uparming and/or providing additional protection for family member troops in Iraq.  I since have had two conversations with aides and now there is a bill for reimbursement introduced (not sure it was my email and phone calls that initiated the bill but until told otherwise I will pretend it was).

My point is that it would be meaningful to include the willing of the legislative aides in systems discussions like those being had here.  Individually invite them to partake in your dialog, arguments and debates about systems thinking, modeling, and simulations of important current and longterm issues.

These young people are eager to make a difference.  They educate their employers and make them aware of innovative ideas, methods, and issues.  Of course what their employers do with it is ultimately "political" but at least there becomes an awareness in the offices where it counts.  Who knows...perhaps some new funding will grow out of their education.

Lou
  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Nicholas Thompson
  To: friam at redfish.com
  Sent: Tuesday, August 08, 2006 7:31 PM
  Subject: [FRIAM] The first day of the rest of nick's life



  All,

  So, today I resigned my tenure and as of 2007 will be living in Santa Fe as of Jan 1 2007.  I still have to finish a semester's teaching and get out there, so I wont have a lot of energy to spare before I get out there, but I would like to start thinking about projects.  

  One project that seems particularly worthy, whose working name is the Purple People Project, seeks  to provide a web  "dating service" for people or web "chess club" who want to talk to, argue with, share views with, , people who disagree with them on major issues of the day.   I imagine a web interface which would help people find one another and then structure thier discussions to keep people away from unproductive discourse or perhaps to guide them toward productive discourse.  I think to get it rolling we would need web people, philosophical people, political people.  What I would love to think of is some way in which the site could build itself (or with the help of a Universithy professor with a flock of students looking for something to do) by tracking fruitless lines of argument and developing mechanisms for turning people away from them.  I have the political arrogance to suppose that if arguments can be kept on point, liberal democrats and moderate republicans will win them.  I dont know who would win the 2008 election if we got such a thing going but it wouldnt be Karl Rove.  

  Has anybody out there had similar thoughts???  

  Nick


  Nicholas Thompson
  nickthompson at earthlink.net





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[Jochen Fromm-3]

Good idea, but a lot of others had it, too. There is already a large number
of social networking sites with web interfaces that are building and
organizing themselves. For example, to name a few,
http://groups.yahoo.com/ 
http://groups.msn.com/ 
http://www.myspace.com/ 
http://www.friendster.com/ 
http://www.linkedin.com/
http://www.netrelate.com/
http://cluster.tribe.net/ 

More are listed at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_networking_sites

-J.

________________________________

From: Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2006 4:31 AM
Subject: [FRIAM] The first day of the rest of nick's life

[...] One project that seems particularly worthy, whose working name is the
Purple People Project, seeks to provide a web  "dating service" for people
or web "chess club" who want to talk to, argue with, share views with, ,
people who disagree with them on major issues of the day. I imagine a web
interface which would help people find one another and then structure thier
discussions to keep people away from unproductive discourse or perhaps to
guide them toward productive discourse. I think to get it rolling we would
need web people, philosophical people, political people.  What I would love
to think of is some way in which the site could build itself [...] Has
anybody out there had similar thoughts???