Decision Duels

post by Josephine · 2021-07-23T09:22:13.294Z · LW · GW · 3 comments

Contents

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(Crosspost from my more casual blog.)

Decision duels are a feature of David's Sling, a novel by Marc Stiegler about technology, nuclear suppression and human rationality. They're used as an organizational means of decision-making, not dissimilar to the double crux - they're not quite debates or policy meetings or games, but they have elements of all three. This is a description of them as they appear in the novel, so that any useful marrow can be extracted. 

• Duels are best at resolving problems that seem political but are actually engineering problems.
  • This means that there are, in principle, crisp answers separate from the human element.
    • Good for: whether a budget is appropriate, which programs to fund, whether to continue a project or stop it, which avenues of research will be fruitful.
    • Bad for: who deserves a promotion or a leadership position, what an organization's public-facing message should be, which solutions are more ethical.
• Duels are always between two alternatives, which are stated outright.
• Both sides are displayed on a screen for an audience, with each side taking up nearly half.
  • A grey section is left to run down the middle for third suggestions.
    • Duels that settle on third suggestions tend to produce the best policies.
    • In some duels third suggestions are prohibited, especially when the question is vulnerable to being redefined or slipped out of.
  • At the top of this screen are the words "LET ACCURACY TRIUMPH OVER VICTORY"
    • Winners are not recorded at the end of a decision duel, but whenever possible both sides are judged based on whether decision that results was the correct one.
• Each alternative has a representative, called a slant moderator or, informally, a decision duelist.
  • Each may receive suggestions from the audience, and decides whether to use them.
  • Duelists chiefly create text boxes of various colors and draw lines between them.
  • There are no turns taken, and each duelist acts at their own pace.
• At the start both sides are written as statements, and under these statements are a list of assumptions, placed in amber text boxes.
  • Assumptions can, and in many cases should, be multi-part.
  • Zooming in on these amber boxes shows an explanation for why the assumption is needed.
  • Most of the duel consists of the duelists each challenging these assumptions.
• Under the assumptions are the opening arguments.
  • Any overly popular, bumper-stickerish slogans are usually listed first, even when the decision duelists don't agree with them, just to get them out of the way.
• Arguments can be colored in by the opposing side.
  • Purple means an argument exhibits a clear, labelable fallacy.
  • Red means the argument has another kind of flaw somewhere.
    • Zooming in on a red text box shows the opposing side's explanation of the flaw.
  • Other colors are possible but unlisted.
• Arguments are typically written and then reformulated after the opposite side's criticism.
  • Duelists can invoke probabilities, spreadsheets of calculations, multiple iterations on an idea, and any other means of reaching as correct a solution as possible.
• The duel continues until one side concedes.

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