Graphically facilitated critical analysis
My friend Brandon Hemenway has proposed a really big project to change the political debate in the United States. Instead of our shallow “Hard Ball”/”Crossfire”/”Ann Coulter” political debates, which are often not evidence-based, he has conceived of a way of using online tools to facilitate more logical debate — users on the internet will be able to participate in creating these graphs.
As an exercise, we decided to map out a current debate here in Humboldt County, the rail/trail debate. Here’s what we produced. I think it’s a pretty useful way of visuallizing information.
Download the entire rail banking debate PDF file (with two conclusions mapped out)
If you want to participate in this project — in brainstorming, developing the technical tools, art, visuals, marketing and promotion, or just watching it take shape, go to the “Our Country” Google group.
aaron :: Jul.18.2007 :: Information tech, U.S. Politics ::