User:Woozle

I originally created Issuepedia as a way of dealing with the confusion (shall we say) I and a lot of other people felt after the 2004 presidential election. How could a man be so clearly dishonest and still get elected? Or were we the ones who were wrong, and he actually wasn't that bad?

Issuepedia's first project, then, was to collect information relating to George W. Bush, his past performance, his views, the views of his party, the issues upon which I and my friends are at odds with his party, and so on. If we were right, this would make it clear to his supporters just what he was supporting. If we were wrong, it would become clear as the facts accumulated. This methodology could then be used to help resolve (or at least understand) all kinds of contentious issues.

Issuepedia was at that time (early 2005) living on another wiki (and was named "Encyclopinion", because the wiki's then-sysop didn't like the way "issuepedia" sounded), and unfortunately most of it got wiped out when that wiki's data was accidentally deleted. I have printouts of a few pages, but haven't had time to reconstruct them on this wiki. In fact, I haven't had much time at all to work on issuepedia, as evidenced by how sparse it is so far.

I seem to be picking up slowly, however, and I see no reason why it can't become the resource I originally envisioned.

My main home page is on The Hypertwins Wiki. Visit early and often.

Writings

• 2005-09-06 Thoughts on the Red-Blue Divide
  • 2005-09-09 More Thoughts on the Divide
• My Position Statement on a number of issues

Notes to Myself

• Need to respond to this
• For transparency article: "Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants." -- Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Brandeis
• Interesting quote from Jimmy Wales: "...one of the interesting things about Wikipedia is that people assume ... particularly on controversial topics that the big debates within the Wikipedia community would be somehow roughly the party of the left versus the party of the right. It turns out on those types of topics it�s actually the party of the thoughtful and reasonable people and the party of the jerks. And those aren�t left or right, they can come from all sides." [1]
• Need to write a backgrounder article on how web sites always had the potential to allow cross-referencing of news articles and thus to become more like a library, how news web sites (e.g. CNN, Slashdot) fail to use this potential, and how wiki sites enable it. article arguing that wiki is superior to the e-forum model
• Perhaps a page on lessons to learn from history, starting with how Hitler rose to power in a Democratic country even though his party were very much in the minority
• http://www.davidbrin.com/neocons.html has a number of opinions on other issues regarding which I didn't happen to be working on pages at the time I was reading it, but which should later be mined (yes, I use a lot of Brin quotes and links on this site -- because he's one of the few really rich sources of cogent arguments I've been able to find, on either side of the political spectrum -- though I do plan to pay Orson Scott Card (and The Ornery American) a visit, when time permits.)
• A KDE developer joins the US military: http://funkyshizzle.com/?q=node/114

Morality Quiz Notes

A deadly natural disaster (hurricane, tsunami, whatever) is about to strike. A man goes swimming in the ocean, despite all warnings to leave town and especially to stay away from the water. He is arrested by the police. Is this right, or wrong? (Source: http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/?id=110007328)

Same natural disaster. A teenage boy steals a bus, picks up refugees, and drives them to safety. He is arrested. Is this right or wrong? What should the boy have done? What should the police have done?

...I wanted to have a scenario involving missionaries, but I find it difficult to phrase in a neutral-ish way since the concept of missionarying bothers me all by itself.