All Sides Of The Issue

This idea has been brewing for awhile, but this article finally gave it some shape. Bob Lutz (big car guy formerly of GM, Chrysler, Ford, and BMW) insists that climate change is a bunch of garbage and Neil deGrasse Tyson (famous science communicator) tells him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Bob Lutz is not the only person who feels this way (though it seems he is in the minority), and Neil deGrasse Tyson is not the only one who feels the opposite.  From what I can tell, public figures fall upon party lines with conservatives saying it’s bunk and liberals being quite concerned about it. General polls of the public are more nuanced.

So today’s idea is this: a site that covers all the major topics of controversy with opinions from both (all?) sides of the issue represented.  Some ideas for how to accomplish this:

• You have to use your real identity to participate
• Recognized experts in the field can contribute a “primary opinion” to represent the different viewpoints on the issue (length limitations so the experts must really distill things down into a few key principles)
• Constructive comments are allowed on primary opinions to encourage dialog
• Neutral moderators summarize the opinion pieces from the different sides
• Participants can choose a side to support and only then can they vote on the best arguments and supporting facts for that side (you can’t downvote the opposition)
• Issues are presented in a simple format with the summaries from all sides visible up front and you can dive into individual arguments from there

Those who have not yet formed their opinions now have a resource of information where they can go and read the best arguments from each side and make up their own minds.  It’s like a political kaleidoscope.  Single issue in focus and you can see all the different facets.

Hat tip to @skitterphoto for the kaleidoscope image.