The mutual exclusivity test - how to untangle invalid arguments

I have spent lots of words talking about and asking how we might be able to solve some of the tougher problems on steemit, and Occam's razor suggest that there should be a simpler way to deal with what appears to be rather complicated issues.

Here I want to present a strategy that I have used to untangle arguments that I have been involved with (and seen others tangled up in) because I think it helps to clarify some of the problems that have plagued the platform since the beginning. But first the explanation:

The mutual exclusivity test is used to work out if two related problems need to be solved at the same time or separately because they are not really related even though there is a clear overlap. The test is applied in the form of two questions, such that you ask if A can exist without B, and if B can exit without A. If the answer to both questions is YES, then you essentially have two things that are unrelated (or can be addressed individually).

Let's take a look at an example. Many people who believe that marriage is a sacred institution that is the ultimate and complete commitment to love. If we ask the questions: "Can love exist without marriage, and can marriage exist without love?" you will come to see that there are certainly married people who don't love each other and people who love each other that are not married. That's not to say that you can't be married and not in love, or not be in love and not married (probably a good idea in fact). In fact love has evolved in a way that somehow has been associated with the law and business, such that we need laws to define what marriage is just so it is clear that it doesn't have to involve love (at least to my knowledge based on The Marriage Act in Australia).

There is another variation of the mutual exclusivity test, which is to ask if one statement is the equivalent/complement of another statement. Many people believe that the law serves to protect people and provide justice so that ethical and moral behaviour can be upheld in society. If we ask the questions: "Can you do something legal and immoral/unethical, and can you do something illegal but moral/ethical?" I think you'll find that the answer again is YES, and this is why there are constant debates around abortion, euthanasia and issues that seem to fall in the grey area of laws & ethics.

How do some of these concepts and ideas apply to Steemit?

Let's take a look at one of the more contentious issues on Steemit, which is around the use of bots for automatic upvoting. If we ask the questions: "Does upvoting abuse exist because of bots, and do bots exist for the purpose of gaming the platform?" Hopefully you can see that bots don't abuse the system but people do, and eliminating bots will not solve the problem. Designing a system that is less prone to abuse means that neither people nor bots will be able to easily game the system for their personal benefit.

Another issue of concern by the community is the unequal distribution of power between minnows and whales, and in some ways between the creators and investors of the platform. If we ask the questions: "Should whales protect the minnows because it protects their investment, or shouldn't minnows not support the whales because their work isn't rewarded?" Again by asking the question in such a way we can see that investors protecting investment is a different issue to creators getting rewarded for their work because both scenarios co-exist on the platform, and any attempts to address both issues at the same time causes a lot of conflicts because both sides feel threatened by potential changes AND staying with the status quo.

Any improvements to the overall platform must come from the community, and if we can become more rational and educated about what really happens better, either through investing time in digging through the information available on steemit (such as the work done by #blockchainbi) or trying to verify the claims made by people who post things that cause conflict and debate then we are at least less prone to being influenced or manipulated by those that seek to profit from the chaos and disorder.

There are many people doing great work to try and make this a better place but don't necessarily get the recognition ( @lestatisticien and @edward.maesen just some of the people who are not well known but have been very helpful in my journey on these types of issues), I believe we will get there one way or another so I hope you'll also hang around long enough to see these changes :)