Scientific knowledge and American government

The interplay between politics and science has shaped the United States. The rise of atomic power highlighted the struggle between transparency and secrecy. Politicians often choose secrecy and power over cooperation and trust. The public's role in holding politicians accountable is often diverted by daily life. Repetitive discussions and time-based nature of discussions hinder progress. Politicians present one-sided narratives, keeping the public in the dark. Governments should publish data and algorithms used in decision-making for transparency. Platforms enabling evidence-based decision-making should be established. Arguments should be organized into pro and con lists and ranked based on their scores. Secrecy undermines decision-making and fuels conspiracy theories. An open online platform for cost-benefit analysis and conflict resolution can reduce misunderstandings. Secrecy compromises the quality of decision-making within the government. The map of openness operates on the princi The interplay between politics and science has been a cornerstone of the United States. Enlightenment figures like Franklin, Jefferson, Adams, Rittenhouse, and Rush used scientific knowledge to shape the American government. The rise of atomic power reinvigorated this vision, highlighting the importance of scientists who also tried to highlight the importance of transparency in technical matters, nuclear agreements, and disarmament for ensuring security. The situation posed two different viewpoints or introduced two different viewpoints. There were two different viewpoints that had to fight to see what the path forward would be here in America. The clear dilemma, should we foster mutual understanding through openness or resort to secrecy and coercion, coercion or perhaps just the belief that we can control the situation or coerce or get our way with our enemies. The struggle between transparency and secrecy is far from new. Political leaders lured by the lure of power have often chosen the path of secrecy, justifying the creation of a staggering 32,000-some-odd nuclear weapons as a display of might because, you know, in actuality it feels good, ignoring both the financial burden and ethical implications. You have a group of people that all want power and feel justified in having that power and they're going to use whatever tactics they can to have more power. This quest for power has often eclipsed the more sustainable, albeit less thrilling, route of at least trying to build cooperation and trust. In theory, it's the public's role in a democracy or representative government to hold politicians accountable, you know, with the media. That is the purpose of democratic representation. However, the complexities of daily life, for instance, making a living, raising a family and our personal interests and goals often divert our attention, making it easy for politicians to operate without sufficient oversight, even if, let's assume, they were to make available all the things that they were doing and all of the issues that they were deciding. Another fundamental problem preventing our contribution is the repetitive nature of our discussions. Each time an issue arises, we find ourselves rehashing the same arguments or having to recreate the structure of the arguments and go through all of them over and over and over again as if they've never been debated before. This is the only way of getting everyone on the same page. This lack of progress is exasperated by politicians who present one-sided narratives, keeping us, the people responsible for holding them accountable, in the dark or unable to simulate and weigh all the relevant information, or when they are discussing a specific point because of the time-based nature of the discussion, if we're not in the room, we can't contribute. You don't realize how important the problems arising from time-based discussion are. There's no reason for time-based discussion. We have a country of 300 million people. If we outlined all of the pro and con arguments and just left them out there with all of their sub-arguments and sub-arguments of the sub-arguments, people who could respond without being in the same room or synchronized, someone could post something and then three days later, someone else could post a reason to agree and then someone else could post another reason to disagree and that way everyone can participate and respond and the pro and con list can keep it all organized. The lack of progress is exasperated by politicians who present one-sided narratives, keeping us, the people responsible for holding them accountable, in the dark or unable to simulate and weigh all the relevant information. So what path do our politicians and military leaders choose in this environment of public distraction, lack of transparency, and convoluted issues? Regrettably, they often lean towards secrecy and the illusion of control rather than embracing reason and collaboration. To address this, we need our governments and political parties to publish the data accepted and rejected and algorithms used to make decisions in a clear and accessible way so that the public can understand how they work and identify any potential biases or problems or mistaken assumptions. Just as students are expected to show their math, the public deserves this level of transparency from those in power because they're not in power, they're not in charge of us. They are our servants. They are there to do a cost-benefit analysis and do the things which will actually help our country, not just keep them in power, not just demonize the other side, not just help their party. They are there to help our country. They swore allegiance to our country and to her long-term interest. So of course, the focus should not solely be on the decisions made but also on the quantitative methods used to arrive at those decisions. The time for relying on one-sided propaganda is over. We must establish platforms enabling better, more rational, evidence-based decision-making. These platforms would present each policy's potential pros, cons, costs, and benefits and invite public input on the likelihood of specific outcomes and the reasons why those outcomes are more or less likely, why the pros and cons are valid or invalid, and all of that. Although this may seem overwhelming initially, a well-organized system can make it manageable. We can streamline the decision-making process by grouping similar arguments to eliminate redundancy. Algorithms can do that, synonym replacements can do that. For instance, saying that Trump is an idiot is the same as saying Trump is a moron and Trump is a blathering idiot because all of those are synonyms. So you group all of the statements and you cross out the words that are, you know, say very stupid, you know, very is a word that says how much, and so you can just cross that word out or have a continuum of how much. Trump is sort of stupid, Trump is stupid, to Trump is very stupid, and that's kind of a continuum from weak to a strong version of the same statement. Each argument, of course, would have to be rated and evaluated based on their logical coherence, factual accuracy, verification level, relevance to the issue, significance, and potential impact. So we would have separate arguments where you can classify an argument. Is your argument a pro or a con? Is it a pro or a con of the truthfulness? And so you tag every argument and you group all of the similarly tagged arguments. So arguments must be organized into pro and con lists and ranked based on their scores, accompanied by transparent assessments. This approach emphasizes reason and openness, creating a society where decisions are based on open feedback that produces quantitative, objective reasons rather than secrecy, coercion, or force. So you would have a list of reasons to agree and disagree, and each of those reasons would be sorted by the performance of their pro and con sub-arguments. Does it sound complicated? A good computer programmer could set this website up in a day. And really, this would solve all of our problems. Conspiracy in democratic societies undermines the collective wisdom of the public, leading to decisions being made in isolation that are prone to groupthink and confirmation bias. It also fuels conspiracy theories and erodes mutual trust between our own citizens and between the nations that our policy affects, increasing the likelihood of misunderstanding and miscalculations with other nations. An open online platform for cost-benefit analysis and automated conflict resolution would enable us to clearly articulate our interests and objectives, saying why those interests are important, why other interests are not important, and classifying all of these interests within Maslow's hierarchy of needs, reducing the risk of dangerous misunderstandings between us and other countries. As alluded to, secrecy also compromises the quality of decision-making within the government. When a small group makes decisions without public scrutiny or input from a broad range of experts, the outcomes are often less reliable. You get everyone in the room, and everyone's trying to please the guy at the top, and so everyone's going to tell the guy their thoughts on why what he has said is true. It's just a problem of groupthink, and it can be done like that, where the guy at the top is just hearing stuff because people are afraid of contradicting him, or if the guy at the top is a total jerk, he can actively try to destroy the lives of anyone who disagrees with him. I don't know, but I can think of some examples in our modern day that seem to do this. While it's true that not every citizen can grasp all the complexities involved, that's not the point. The map of openness operates on the principle that in a country of 300 million people, individuals can correct flawed assumptions if given the opportunity, and if our arguments are organized. Not everyone is going to follow every argument, but we need to ensure that every argument is thoroughly evaluated, and if one person takes this argument, and one person takes that argument, we can break the analysis into bunches of small little chunks with 300 million people, we can do amazing things. Why wouldn't schools, and institutions of higher learning, and schools and colleges, why wouldn't they all participate, and scientists, and economists, and experts from every field, why wouldn't they hone in on, oh, this is something that is important that we don't misunderstand, and correct all of the mistakes, and economists, every single person could contribute just like Wikipedia. By transparently organizing government insights on pros and cons, and ranking public comments based on their quality, we can tap into this collective intelligence to make better decisions.