Discussion forums for strategic issues

Asking questions and getting answers works extremely well for tactical subject matter, i. e., activities involving skills, techniques, methods or procedures. This is because answers are usually of a type that have a recognisable best solution.

However, when it comes to strategic issues, there is often no definitive answers or right solutions. In such cases, discussion often results in much disagreement and antagonism as different people try to put their own particular point of view across. This is readily observable in forums where there is competition between several subscribers to be recognised as "the authoritative voice". In order to protect their reputations, they will argue most forcibly, even though there can be no certainty that they hold the only correct answer or solution.

After writing "Magical A-Life Avatars", I set up an e-mail discussion forum for readers who might be interested in exploring the ideas presented in the book. The principle theme of the book was that software agents could be created as extensions of human capabilities. In other words, intelligent agents would be constructed as systems that included a human as part of the system rather than as separate autonomous entities. The theme proposed for the forum was that many of us could work together to create such a system of intelligent agents, based upon the programming environment provided by Macromedia's Director run time engine.

It would have seemed that an e-mail discussion forum would have been an ideal framework within which to facilitate this cooperative project; unfortunately, it proved to be a total disaster. Instead of a cooperative effort, it produced a confusion of irreconcilable different view points. Some people wanted to use programming environments other than the Director run time engine. Others wanted to create autonomous agents that were independent of human controls. It disintegrated into a confusion of animosity.

However, what emerged out of this was the idea of creating much smaller groups, which contained people with compatible thinking. By selecting specific people from the main forum discussion, who were more attuned to the idea I had in mind, I could have more productive discussions that might make more progress.

It wasn't long though before I realised that this method of creating discussions was seriously flawed because I was deliberately choosing people who were attuned to my own way of thinking. The larger discussion forum may have been unproductive but I'd benefited considerably by being made aware of the different ways people looked at the kind of problems I was trying to solve.

This presented a dilemma. I needed people who had the same train of thought as myself to make progress with a project, but, I also needed the input of the people who would disrupt progress because they could introduce contradictory thinking that would prevent the project becoming biased or too narrowly focused.

I then began experimenting with the creation of small groups that included a mixture of people with conflicting view points. Unfortunately, these small groups had no more success than the large discussion forum. They also quickly disintegrated into irreconcilable arguments.

It was then that I turned to evolutionary biology for a solution. At an abstract level, mother nature had solved this very problem. Biological organisms make progress through the simple expedient of creating many different groups of genes (individuals) that come into existence for short periods of time (lifetimes). At the end of each period (generation) the genes are reorganised to create different groupings (birthing new individuals). In this way, combinations of genes that make progress are preserved, but, it also allows new combinations to be created that could prompt alternative evolutionary directions to take place.

Looking at a discussion forum as a biological system, this strategy of nature could be adopted by dividing the forum up into many small groups which come into existence for short periods of time. At the end of each period, the people in these groups could be changed around in much the same way as genes are changed around in a biological system at the end of each generation. In this way, the discussion could be allowed to make progress yet allow for the continuous input of fresh ideas and influences.