The LitmusTest
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  <h2><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Meta XRepublic</font></h2>

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<td class="Normal">Litmus Tests</td>

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  <div align="right">August 2002</div>

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The idea of a LitmusTest

with respect to Identity is to allow newbies to give themselves a kind of MeyersBriggs

shorthand as they enter the space. however LitmusTests are by their very nature,

slanted. they are created by InterestGroups (i’ve got to think of a catchier

name) as devices to gain membership and adherence.



but in opposition to this there should be a neutral ValuesHierarchy - the difficulty

will be in assigning some reconciliation by ‘objective’ computation of the self-selected

valueHierarchy, and a fully Deliberated/LitmusTested Sleeve. one of the ambitions

of this (yet unnamed space) is to provide Citizens with some accounting of the

values they claim and the Arguments they find attractive in practice, therefore

the Policies they support as a consequence. if the space works well, then it

will achieve the ‘Fred Friendly Effect’ which makes the pain of decision making

so acute that one can only escape it by thinking.



so I imagine a newbie Citizen walking into the first Agora and taking a ValueHierarchy

test and then taking several LitmusTests, maybe becoming a Partisan (aha, that’s

better than InterestGroup member) and working in concert on polishing an Argument.



in addition, we should be able create historically accurate Citizens and their

arguments into the space.

A Litmus Test has 3 dimensions

of credibility.