I’ve started two essentially equal Mastodon social media sites: Karl Marx Social & Ayn Rand Social. They’re open to everyone to join. I’m admin for both and if I post things on one, I’m going to post the same thing on the other. I don’t know yet whether I want to participate in discussions there, or if so how much and in what capacity. I am not adverse to peppering each site with a post now and then — but the same post (at least for now, that’s what I have in mind). Similarly, if I follow people in the #fediverse, I am going to try and follow them twice, once from each site.
Those are the control variables: same structure, same approach, same rules, same treatment. Potential outcomes? Will one site lead to more insight into the question of human value? Will one site have more compelling arguments? So many possibilities. I’m even thinking of a second experiment at this point and that would involve debate teams. Tangential to that might be one that would include judges or arbiters; more on that later.
Feel free to comment and suggest either a more serious academic experiment or a more playful one (not sure why I’m assuming that the two types would be incompatible).
