Re: Discussing to death

[Arne Babenhauserheide]

Hi, 

Am Sonntag, 13. September 2009 17:41:36 schrieb Sergiu Ivanov:
> > It's a trap into which groups often seem to fall (in my experience).
> 
> I've encountered this problem several times myself; it is one of those
> which make themselves known only after one has fallen into it.

Jupp. But I think after some time groups learn to recognize the trap and break 
out of it more easily. 

> My strategy is to try to fix some decisions which tend to appear in
> the flow of discussion and include them in some (temporary) roadmap.
> Thus all the way throughout the discussion items get into the plan
> and, even if some details generate an infinite loop, I can always
> implement the already included points.

That's a nice way to keep the flow. 

If the roadmap is public, you can then even point people tehre and say "Are 
there parts in here, we can all agree on?" and try breaking the loops that 
way. 

It's hard to do that, though, if the discussion is a prerequisite to beginning 
at all. I hope the suggestion for the wiki helps reducing the number of 
stopping points for writing texts (but doesn't increase maintenance load). 

> > That doesn't say I always manage to do it ;)
> 
> I can acknowledge a similar issue about my strategy :-)

If it weren't that way, we wouldn't have fallen into the trap ;) 

It's a similar point as point as the one with a random universe: To us it will 
always appear special because it allows life, but if it didn't allow life, we 
wouldn't be here to look at it, so saying that the universe is special because 
we can observe it is the same as saying that our strategies for avoiding the 
trap aren't perfect after we just crawled out of the trap together :) 
But it's interesting (and important) to keep in mind, nontheless. 

And it doesn't say we have to fall into the same trap again (all the time) - 
just like not every possible universe has to allow life to exist :) 

Happy hacking! 

- Arne

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