Interesting assessment.    Don't buy significant parts of it.   Completely agree with other parts.   Contradictions noted.   Won't elaborate unless invited.... because I already talk to damn much and I'm trying to work on that.  (a smile)   So, I think holding back a bit (more as I progress with self improvement) until invited is a constructive self improvement goal.   I offer that holding back explanation, because of my experience in the not too distant past where you criticize me for holding back .... suggesting that I am somehow deficient on that basis for lack of offering detailed and clear support for my views.   I am still struggling in life to find my way to a widely accepted balance between being responsive in discussion, while not imposing more on other participants than they have the pallet for.    My personal life experience has exposed me to (thankfully) to discussion with a vary wide array of people on the scale of consciousness, education, experience, and intelligence.   They don't all have the same "pallet" or taste for discussion.   Curiously, I find generally that the most intelligent are very much aware that their pallet or taste isn't necessarily representative of everyone else's .... and the less intelligent think their taste or tolerance is absolutely representative of everyone else's and very quick to criticize anyone who doesn't conform to their taste on those grounds.   LOL.... so it's a struggle to find the right balance.... and holding back for the invitation puts the monkey on the back of the other party.    (a smile)    .... and now... that's probably far more explanation of that than anyone wanted to know.... LMAO.

Hi Park,

You forgot the ‘still” as in “A representative sampling of “everyone” is clearly STILL nowhere to be found.”  And it’s not YET the final word on everything.

People, by default, are trained to think, hierarchically as follows:

1.    It is possible to perfectly know truth.

2.    Everything flows from the top down.

3.    Everything from the top is the truth/final word.

4.    What comes from the top is perfect truth.

5.    We, at the bottom, are not responsible.

6.    We wait for instructions and only do what is told.

7.    If we don’t get in line and do what is told, we will fail (go to hell, get excommunicated.)

It seems to me your criticism is all based on these types of assumptions.

Of course, in a perfect world, we would all be infinitely perfect, and Canonizer would be the final world on everything.  But all this kind of talk is simply aspirational.  I’m an atheist, and don’t believe in God.  But I do talk about of God, in an aspirational way, a type of goal, or what type of person would I want to push towards?  I believe we are Gods in embryo, and it is our responsibility to strive to first know what the perfect God would be, then to strive to become that.

It would be great if all of us could spend infinite amount of resources on an infinite number of topics.  But of course, nothing like that is yet possible.  Only a few “direct supporting” experts will likely be heavily involved in any one topic.  And there aren’t even an infinite number of people to even achieve one expert per topic on ‘everything’, let alone the final world on everything.

We, instead, need to make these assumptions:

1.    The closest we can come to truth is the fallible state of the art.

2.    What our trusted experts current think is truth is the best state of the art possible.

3.    None of this is ever complete and is always open to revolution and progress.

4.    Everything is everyone’s responsibility, if we see a problem, we should work to fix it, in a prioritized order.

5.    Always track whether you have consensus or not.

Hopefully, after we get a few experts on the most important topics, there will be a large number of people, not as interested in that particular topic, who will delegate their support to someone they trust on that topic.  However, for the foreseeable future, there will be a finite set of topics with a fractional number of people involved in that topic, even as only delegates.

Where Wikipedia is meant to be a concise reference work in process dictionary about consensus facts, Canonizer is more of a system to track the current state of the art of morality.  If someone is faced with a moral decision they must make, which they have not thought about before, nor do they have the time to become an expert on, they need a source of moral information with concise statements describing the best moral action or belief, or at least the closest thing to that we may have at any given time.

Hopefully more time will be spent developing and “fixing” [and measuring if everyone is on board or not] the most important moral shortcomings, first.

In the meantime, we all need a moral reference which concisely states the current state of the art of the best moral actions and beliefs, as we push towards building “the final word on everything” by participating in the constructive process of discussing and challenging or contributing to what is [the current state of the art developed by] participating the forging of defensible consensus.

Ah.   Interesting point.... which raises a question.   I understand (and understood) that the primary point of the Canonzer is not discussion.   It is, however, news to me that the primary purpose would be for people to come and find out what everyone thinks about a particular topic.   I realize that Jim's videos seem to make that point.... "The final word about everything".   But clearly that is not true..... and people are quite tired (I think) of marketing campaigns (hyperbole) that is obviously false and no where near the truth.   

A representative sampling of "everyone" is clearly nowhere to be found in either the camps or the discussion found on Canonizer.   Clearly, a representative sampling of "everything" is nowhere to be found, either (in the Canonizer).   So that part is obviously false, and likely to remain so in our lifetimes.   

That point aside, even where it might be true that the Canonizer is a place where people can come to learn what is being said, in the Canonizer, on certain topics.... it would sadden me to learn that simply learning what is said is the primary point of the Canonizer project, as opposed to actually participating in the constructive process of discussing and challenging or contributing to what is being said for the higher purpose (in my view) of constructively participating the the forging of defensible consensus.

Clearly learning what is be said is an ancillary benefit of the Canonizer project.    If, rather than ancillary, it is the primary purpose of the Canonizer, then that is very sad, indeed.... and, I would argue, an objective that has a fundamental working flaw built into its own achievement.  

Just saying'....   but what do I know?

The current agreement statement says:

"This topic is for discussion of The Book of Mormon"

But I think the purpose should be where people come to find out, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone thinks of the book of mormon.

Sure, people can discuss, in the forums, how to better concisely a quantitatively represent that, so people can come here, and best find out what that is.  Discussion is not the first purpose.

Ah!  With that understanding...  My notion of restructuring might not (doesn't?) make sense.   Also, my critique of your Korihor Stuff as it pertains to belonging in another section, might not either.   

My main issue with the Korihor stuff, is that I thought it was more an evidence of bad philosophy than of fraud.   But I see now that from a structural vote counting perspective, it might make sense to leave it where you have it and expand the 19th Century Fraud position to include all the various evidences and issues with the Book of Mormon than contribute to questions of authenticity.    

So, while I remain with my position on the objectivity questions, I withdraw my criticism of the Korihor stuff as being better placed elsewhere.   The notion, in my head, that the 19th Century Fraud camp should be limited narrowly to discussion of more direct evidences of chronological challenges to the actual writing, while other evidence of the fraud (philosophical problems) should be discussed elsewhere, doesn't make sense in view of my now corrected understanding of the vote structure and how that works.

Normally, you can't support parent or children camps of camps you already support (such is removed, when supporting a camp in most cases), resolving most of these issues.  But if you support sibling camps, yes, your support is diluted, depending on the order of the camps you support.

The Book of Mormon discussion tree raises some interesting questions (issues?) for this newcomer to the party.   

If I understand how this works, the way it is set up, supporting sub camps, under the Book of Mormon camp dilutes my support vote for the Book of Mormon camp.  Then, if I support the 19th Century words sub camp, under 19th Century Fraud, that will dilute my support for the 19th Century Fraud camp.   

If I set up a support a new sub camp, under The Book of Mormon, called Indefensible or Corrupt philosophy, I will be diluting my support for 19th Century Fraud.   

Is my understanding correct?   Because I support the position that it is a 19th Century Fraud, but I also support the position that it has indefensible philosophy (which is where I think Brent's Korihor argument belongs)

If my understanding is correct, I wonder if how this is being managed might be structurally discouraging for the discussion.   Whereas, if a Book of Mormon Topical Index was set up, and all topics pro or con were set up independently but included in the topical index with cross links, then people can support multiple positions on the Book of Mormon topics without diluting their support topic by topic.  

Am I understanding this correctly?  Am I making my thoughts clear enough to understand and respond to?   

Your thoughts?