Disputation Arenas:

Harnessing Conflict and Competitiveness for Society's Benefit

an article by David Brin, Ph.D.

This unusual article looks at how truth is determined in our four "accountability arenas" -- science, democracy, courts and markets. It was lead article in the American Bar Association's Journal on Dispute Resolution (Ohio State University), v.15, N.3, pp 597-618, Aug. 2000.

Copyright © 2000 by David Brin. All rights reserved. No duplication or resale without permission.

A Parallel With Nature

There is a parallel for the process we just described -- one that may be much more than a metaphor.

Evolution.

As a mechanism for drawing order out of chaos, evolution has no known peer. This natural process produced the vivid and wonderful creatures we see around us, as well as bringing into existence beings like us, capable of contemplating the universe and ourselves. True, the concept of evolution draws little warmth from the heart, even from those who appreciate its copious creativity, because of the inevitable image it evokes -- relentless competition by tooth and claw. But recent studies have shown that the general principle goes far beyond mere "survival of the fittest."

Even some of the benign processes that take place within our own bodies seem to utilize or emulate evolution, as cells compete with other cells while differentiating into a myriad sub-types, such as muscle or nerve tissue. Countless minuscule contests take place under prim rules that keep things from getting out of hand. The upshot of all this micro-opposition somehow benefits the whole. Overall cooperative synergy seems to arise out of jostling rivalry on the cellular level, resulting in something that is both robust and potent.

In any event, evolution is how species on Earth became complex, adept and adaptable over time, arriving somehow at solutions that are 'correct' for a given ecological time and place. So it should not be surprising that civilization stumbled into problem-solving techniques that emulate nature's.

Biologists know that evolution operates in two steps:

1. A rich variety of organisms is generated, most often through dispersal and separation of genetically different subgroups. While they are apart, unable to interbreed, their genetic uniqueness grows until each group becomes new species.

2. Nature selects. Often this happens when new species come back into contact with each other. The better-adapted flourish. Others fail. Many millions more species have appeared on Earth than ever managed to thrive.

Isn't the same thing true of commercial products, policies, theories... and ideas?

You can see the parallel between evolution and our civilization's four great testing grounds -- our accountability arenas -- science, democracy, courts and markets. In each case, the centrifugal phase allows groups to consolidate and prepare in relative safety, much like the variety-generating step that nature provides through isolation and speciation.

A centripetal phase then draws together adversarial groups, pitting them against each other, in a manner much like natural selection.

This parallel offers a somewhat bloody image. But the evolution metaphor does focus attention on the class of thing that's evolving. What is evolving in our four accountability arenas?

In the market system, clearly, it is saleable goods and services. In science it is models that enhance our understanding of the world around us. In democracy -- policies and practical ways to balance individual needs and living as a member of a community. In the justice system, beyond winners and losers, it is also the law itself that evolves.

What might a fifth accountability arena test? What type of thing should it be good at both generating and winnowing at the same time?

Judging from what already fills the Internet today, it might be opinions, memes, schemes... ideas themselves.

# # #

How would you design a new accountability arena? One that utilizes the raw information-handling power of the Net, its capacity for memory and relentlessness. One that's worthy of a rambunctious civilization filled with joyfully argumentative individualists.

How might we draw a myriad adversaries together, to face-off under rules that foster fair competition without squelching any of their righteous passion? Into arenas that compare opinions just as well as science, markets and the law handle their own fractious debates? Into realms where the ultimate punishment for being proved wrong would be to lose our attention, as we turn away from dull rants toward the next riveting argument?

Sound like wishful thinking? Like aiming to both have your cake and eat it too?

Well, as a child of this culture, I expect to have, eat, and share the cake... and to see it grow!

Why not?

It's called "positive-sum" thinking. And yes, that very concept is another emergent property of this new society we're forging, even as we shake off countless old tradeoffs and limitations that our ancestors thought intrinsic to the world.

Like the notion that individualism and accountability don't go together. A notion that our descendants will chortle at, like maps of a flat Earth.

# # #

It's said that we are plunging toward a future beyond all our powers to predict. That may be. And yet, perhaps it doesn't matter. What counts is whether we create conditions that work with our natures-- that make cheating futile while encouraging diversity, harnessing the vast human potential to solve problems and discover errors before they explode in our faces.

The way to do this will not, and cannot, resemble top-down hierarchies or hoary old ideologies, because no human brain can model or encompass the complexity of our problems, or our true potential to address them.

But the systems that do emerge -- if we foster them -- may engender wisdom and civilization far greater than any of us individually deserves.

# # #

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.

Until recently, this kind of role was performed (albeit shallowly) by the Press, whose code of professionalism dictated that news articles should present fair capsule summaries of both sides in any issue. For all the flaws and lapses we have seen during the last half century, journalism served this function pretty well overall, partly because many issues were simple and their latency times were long enough for leisurely debate. But lately, even some professional journalists such as James Fallows have suggested that the accelerating pace and complexity of modern life renders newspapers and television much less effective at midwifing public consensus.

An answer may be found in the 21st Century's tool kit. If the Internet has proved helpful to advocacy groups bent on marshalling their forces, there might also be hope for it to provide the venues for bringing factions together for argument, comparison, negotiation, and even accord.

# # #

In the European middle ages, there was a tradition of holding occasional disputations between Catholic and Jewish theologians. Though these events were seldom fair, and were often rigged in advance, they nevertheless shed a little light in a dark era.

Since then, the art of debate has gone through many changes; for instance, we've come to expect that presidential candidates will have face-to-face encounters, and we complain when candidates for other offices won't agree to do the same. Yet, the art of direct and open confrontation seems only to have been refined in the one place where decent folk loathe ever finding themselves -- the courtroom. Outside of the justice system we live awash in opinions, savoring caricatures of our opponents and seldom use the truth-telling power of adversarial accountability to cut through stubborn clichés.

Now some philanthropist might endow a series of televised debates concerning some of the major issues of the day. Say, abortion, or gun control, or the drug war. Speakers would be chosen not for their passionate radicalism, but for an ability to accurately paraphrase their opponents' positions, showing that they listen well enough to at least comprehend the other side's deeply felt concerns. Each party would then pose questions, with the answers judged by an expert panel for specificity, not polemical appeal.

A few isolated efforts have been made in this direction. In Europe, Citizen Juries have attracted some attention. In the U.S. there have been widely televised Town Meetings of thirty or more respected sages, journalists and intellectuals who mull an issue together, guided by a roving moderator with a microphone. But these attempts all suffer from many of the same old problems -- limited time, rambling discourse, and comments left hanging in the air, that never get the follow-up attention they deserve. Similar drawbacks dog Internet-based discussions, such as HotWired's "Brain Tennis" program, and Slate's "Committee of Inquiry."

Might new technologies offer a key to taming today's bilious arguments into useful criticism and debate? Current Internet discussion technologies are inadequate for several reasons. For example, they have weak mechanisms for filtering good ideas from noise and huge numbers of posts can quickly drown the quality ideas. (The so-called "death of Usenet.") In addition, they have little structure to support task-oriented debates or value-added discussions, putting a large burden on moderators to keep things moving.

Above all, there is an imbalance on the Internet, between the centrifugal and centripetal forces we discussed earlier. Safe and complacent within walls of self-drawn isolation, leaders of radical movements may concentrate on group consolidation through polemics, spinning dramas to preserve the fervor of their followers, without ever having to support their assumptions, programs or goals. This lack of criticism may be satisfying, in the short-term. But it doesn't help the advocates of a cause to refine their arguments or eliminate flaws in their proposals. Moreover, there is no organized venue for onlookers to observe a fair dispute and draw conclusions by comparing the evidence in an organized way -- as juries, voters and consumers do in markets, elections, courtrooms and scientific journals.

This is a terrible deficit in a society that counts on Mutually Enforced Accountability (MEA) as its principal mistake avoidance strategy. Unfortunately, today's Internet takes us down an old road, toward the quasi-religious fervor of the Nazis' Nuremberg rallies, in 1936, when in-group solidarity was also reinforced by new communication technologies -- radio and loudspeakers.

Clearly, something more is needed. Something tomorrow's Internet might easily provide.

# # #

We need some way to thoroughly critique ideas, plans, opinions and policies, letting good ones rise while fallacious ones lose repute. The Internet seems to offer potential for a new style of debate, by establishing disputation arenas for truly extended and meticulous appraisal of a topic, moderated by groups or individuals whose passionate avocation is for neutral intellectual rigor. The more interesting the arguments, the more attention each arena would receive, and the less likely that adversaries could turn down invitations to take part.

How to prevent the artful evasions we see so often in political debates? Superficial and brief, these pointless glamour shows reward charismatic prevarication more than argument, and evidence plays almost no role at all.

One of the internet's great virtues may be its potential for relentlessness. Unlike debates in the real world, there would be no two-hour time limits. Extended online confrontations might last weeks or months, shepherded by proctors whose picky personalities (we all know the type) won't let go of a logical inconsistency on this side of frozen hell. Ideally each side would doggedly pursue its opponents, forcing them to relent and give real answers -- while reciprocating the favor.

If people in the world at large were ever to gain confidence in such a system of well-mediated confrontations, the events might acquire the kind of moral force that men used to invest in duels of honor, incurring shame upon those who do not show up or fight by the rules. The most important enforcement tool in any arena will be credibility.

Moreover, the Net can also provide many of the implements of science, e.g., analytical projection software and statistical tools drawing on vast databases, enabling advocates to create detailed models of their proposals -- and their opponents' -- for presentation in the arena. This will be crucial because, as UCSD Professor Phil Agre has pointed out, much of the so-called "data" being bandied about on the Net these days is of incredibly poor quality, often lacking provenance or any discussion of error bars, sensitivity, dependency, or semantics. These problems can best be solved the way they are handled in science, by unleashing people with the personalities of bull terriers -- critics who could be counted on to slash at every flaw until they are forced to admit (with reluctance) that they can't find any more. Discrepancies might be minimized if arena managers developed standard kits of modeling subroutines, improving them under strict scrutiny, so that both sides in the debate must compare apples to apples... not oranges.

An early example of this kind of extended Internet-based discussion was the Sustainability Hyperforum experiment performed jointly by Caltech and the Rand Corporation, led by Professor Bruce Murray, in 1996. Participants used a range of analytical and graphical tools, provided as common resources by the organizers. Since then, a number of standardized modeling programs have been developed by some Rand scientists.

It may all sound rather dry. But polls show large numbers of people actually enjoy watching the dry charts and graphs of U.S. Senate Budget Committee hearings, every year on C-SPAN. The popularity of games like Sim City suggests disputation arenas might become fashionable attractions... among the demographic segment that loves to watch a good fight. There would surely be an audience when more passionate participants display vivid graphics and feisty style in the debate arenas of tomorrow. The important point is that this process won't need majority participation to work -- just the involvement of nit-pickers from all political persuasions. The rest of us will thrill over the fireworks in plenary sessions.

Naturally, early versions will inevitably seem self-serving and tendentious. The intricate procedures used in science, markets, courts and democracy did not evolve overnight! But initial transgressions and faults would be laid bare swiftly, allowing this new accountability arena to develop much more swiftly than its predecessors.

Anyway with so much riding on our decisions in the years ahead, what is there to lose?

Next... crafting an arena for change!

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