lumrant
Friday, April 30, 2004
Transparent Opinion
One of the problems with this blogging thing is that it encourages a person to keep on cranking out new pulp without really refining any ideas to the point of usefulness. I definitely don't need that encouragement, but I tell myself that it's marginally better to write something (while not taking real action) than it is to write nothing (while not taking real action). To be clear, that "real action" would be anything concrete that affects other people's mindsets and produces votes against Bush this fall.
At any rate, here's the "new pulp" part of things: I had an idea today that I'm calling Transparent Opinion. In theory, it would combine my personal campaign against privacy (you're reading this blog, right?) with my hope that America can become more rational in the way that it forms its opinions about important issues.
Transparent Opinion would manifest itself as a sort of community Web site that focuses on presenting the opinions of real Americans. Pie charts would abound, but so would short opinion paragraphs--explanations that expand upon and clarify simple "for" or "against" positions. In principle, anyone could participate.
So far this doesn't sound so revolutionary. But here's the kicker: in order to participate, you must provide thorough demographic information, you must allow that information to be presented alongside any vote you cast or opinion you opine, and you must consent to background checks to ensure that the identify you claim is valid. Though your actual identify need not (but may, optionally) be exposed to the community, it would be exposed to an independent oversight group responsible for granting your membership and policing the system. In this way, I imagine that we could achieve some sort of Consumer Reports of Opinion.
Here is how a topic might appear in the community:
In the current Supreme Court case regarding the civil rights of individuals identified as Enemy Combatants by the Executive Branch of our government, do you side with the plaintiffs or with the government?
If you were interested in digging beyond the high-level percentage breakdown, you could click on the graph, slice and dice the responses by the various underlying demographics, and read the actual comments and opinions of the people who participated in the poll. This contrasts with current opinion polling, which often gives only the top-level percentages and doesn't give any insight into the specific reasons why people voted a certain way.
Of course, the two keys to making this successful would be:
- Developing a critical mass of participants who represent a reasonable cross-section of the population and who actually participate.
- Funding and operating the independent organization that ensures the validity of the demographic info and the privacy (to one another, at least) of the participants.
