Perhaps the concern is that the reduction to a logical question, i.e. to the set of premises and axioms, was the faulty part? After all a valid argument from false premises doesn't help anyone, but I'm sure you know that.

Ghmm. To me it provides information about community's beliefs.

Interesting. I think popularity clearly plays a role and that policing can be an important mechanism to correct that. (the example you cite has drifted up to -1 now). The example from this thread was at -2 before policing and is now at +5. Would that have happened without policing? I don't know.

I guess the bigger question is how to make the policing worth everyone's time. I think this requires a more clever mechanism than one-person, one-vote. E.g. a referee system calls for judgments on an issue from "experts" and not for a popularity contest. This is just the beginning of the sorts of changes that are needed, though.

As an aside, here are the results of my experiment in which I left this thread alone (for many weeks actually) and waited to see what would happen. The main result was your post (which is now at -2, sigh.). I think I'll up vote it to -1. I share your concern for the role of popularity in the voting. I don't think the voting is as rational as the majority wish it was (even in net and even after time, though less so perhaps esp. with policing). I'm still looking for a website which wouldn't reflect popularity in its voting, but would still allow for an organic (i.e. self-organizing) ranking system. I've drafted some plans but I doubt I'll take the time to realize them -- too many other things to do.

This might be a mistake. Effectively leveraging the masses without being vulnerable to their whimsy could be a powerful tool for humanity.

Here's a new report that suggets that children who are exposed to bacteria transmitted by dogs may be protected children from childhood asthma, because they bring about changes in our immune system which protect from a virus or because they change our gut flora. They carried out experiments on mice:

The researchers fed mice house dust from homes with dogs. They then exposed these mice to RSV and found that the mice did not show symptoms of infection -- airway inflammation and increased mucus production. They also compared the intestinal bacteria of dust-fed mice to mice that hadn't been fed dust and found differences in the types of bacteria living in the GI tract. These differences were seen whether or not the non-dust fed mice had been exposed to RSV.

Thanks. Will fix it.

Wow! Excellent point, and excellent question! Updating. Thanks.

Hmm. That really should have been Addicted. Anyway, Thanks Vincent! (I had no idea either bbleeker, and I think that's exactly the right question.)

Thanks Again!

Perfect! What's a list?{serious}

When You're Driving, keep your Eyes on the Road, and don't Let Go of the Wheel.

What can we do to get some more Cultural diversity into this list of cultured food?

• Burmese: Tea Leaf Salad