[ExI] Proposal for collaboration with Wired Magazine and Canonizer.com

[Adrian Tymes]

1) Get to the point FASTER.  I read over this, assuming the mindset of
a typical overworked editor who's used to dealing with dozens of
crackpot suggestions from outsiders that turn out to be of no benefit to
the magazine, and yea, this came off as too long by midway through
the third paragraph, so I didn't read the rest (until I came back to being
myself).  If Betsy doesn't even read the meat of your proposal, that's an
automatic rejection.

2) Use shorter paragraphs.  This is a subset of point 1.

3) Get to the point at the start of a paragraph, not in the middle as you
do here.  Speed reading to see what you're actually suggesting skims
the first sentence of each paragraph.

4) Clearly state what exactly you are proposing.  Put bluntly, this draft
does not do that.

All of these can be accomplished by clearly detailing exactly what you
are suggesting after a single short paragraph.  Delete everything
starting with "My name is Brent Allsop..." (which is unnecessary: if
you're sending this, the email system will say that you are Brent
Allsop - and even if it doesn't, you'd better be signing it Brent Allsop
anyway), and IMMEDIATELY outline the partnership you propose.

Only after you have outlined it, do you go into why this would be a
good idea.  This should be your third paragraph.

Paragraphs four and beyond can be the history, and explaining
unusual stuff.  For instance, in paragraph two you might say, "We
believe an article about Canonizer would be of interest to your
readers", and wait until paragraph four to explain what Canonizer
is.

But yeah.  Scrap almost all of what you have here: it's worse than
useless for your intended goal.

On Sun, Nov 27, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
>
> Extropians,
>
> We’re working on a proposal to take to a popular magazine like perhaps
> Wired, Scientific American, or something.
>
> Googling seems to indicate that Betsy Mason is the current science editor
> for wired. I’m wondering if any of you know her, or anyone else at wired?
>
> Below is a draft of a proposed cold call e-mail we were thinking of sending
> I’d be very interested to know what any of you would think, if you were at
> wired, and received a cold call e-mail something like this. And what do you
> think our possibilities of success, or not, would be with all this?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Brent Allsop
>
>
>
> =================================================
>
> To: Betsy Mason (Science Editor, Wired Magazine)
> Subject: Collaboration proposal with wired magazine and Canonizer.com
>
>
> Hello Betsy Mason,
>
> If you have a minute, we have a proposal for a possible co-operative venture
> between Wired and Canonizer.com that we believe could be very mutually
> beneficial.
>
> My name is Brent Allsop, one of the volunteers working on a wiki system that
> solves the communication problems plaguing Wikipedia, and the internet as a
> whole. This is a consensus building open survey system enabling large crowds
> to communicate with everyone concisely and quantitatively. It can do things
> like eliminate edit wars by creating wiki camps, and provide a measure of
> expert consensus on the reliability of any controversial information. This
> method of enabling crowds to work to communicate concisely and
> quantitatively amplifies and educates the wisdom of the entire crowd in many
> significant ways.
>
> Science works best when theoretical scientists make testable predictions, as
> Einstein did, so the experimental scientists can get funding and then do the
> test for and thereby validated or falsify them. The problem is, most
> theoretical fields aren't this cut and dried. If a theoretical field is very
> ideologically charged such that people's entire religious view of themselves
> and their ability to survive well into the eternities could be drastically
> effected; If there are thousands of diverse theories; If most people
> struggle to get a handle on even one or more of these theories, let alone
> the majority of them. If there is no way to determine which of the thousands
> of theories are the best, which are fading, having been falsified for most
> experts, and which are new, emerging ones, dramatically approaching and
> possibly surpassing any currently leading ones - making it impossible for
> anyone to avoid wasting critical time on the huge number of primitive or
> crazy theories; If experimental researchers have no objective evidence that
> their proposed experiment is the most important experiment to be done in
> their effort to receive funding; If all the individual experts describe
> their current working hypothesis using their own custom contradictory and
> subtly different in critical ways terminology; there is little chance of any
> good scientific discovers coming out of such fields.
>
> As an experimental proof of concept test of what this amplification of the
> wisdom of the crowd system can do, we started the Consciousness Survey
> Project to see if we could get any kind of a good unbiased survey on this
> theoretical field that arguably suffers from all these problems more than
> any other. Clearly, very smart people have been struggling to produce any
> kind of consensus or anything experimental scientists could test for, for
> centuries, with little to show for their work. Most people, including
> experimental researchers, ridicule the field as mere "Philosophies of Men".
> The exponentially exploding volume of information coming out of this field
> continues to do little but lead everyone, even the experts, to believe that
> most everyone is only critical of their own theories, and that nobody can
> agree on anything.
>
> This consciousness survey project started out with only a few hobbyists,
> computer programmers with no philosophy training, including high school
> students and so on participating and doing the bulk of the wiki work in
> their spare time. Along the way we've picked up some real experts such as
> Steven Lehar, Stuart Hameroff, John Smythies, and a growing number of
> others, confirming and accelerating what we were all learning and developing
> by communicating in this manner. Watching the various theories start to
> emerge, and seeing where early leading groups of consensus are forming, has
> been exciting and surprising. Unlike the nobody agrees on anything results
> coming out of the ivory tower, the internet, from Wikipedia, in the name of
> "neutral POV", and everywhere, we're seeing dramatically different results.
> The early results seem to be hinting that there could be a huge amount of
> expert consensus, after all, on a great many critically important things in
> this field.
>
> Despite all this drama, this canonized data is just that - raw scientific
> survey data that isn't very approachable to the general public. All that is
> missing is some good science reporting of all this drama. In sports, you
> have callers reporting on the exciting drama, as it unfolds, one team
> surpassing another, as the crowd watches and cheers. Our thinking is that
> such front row, understandable to all, seats to these competing theories
> being developed would be far more interesting to intelligent people than any
> other 'reality show'. So what the volunteers working on this project are
> seeking is a partnership with a modern, wired, news reporting publication
> company such as possibly Wired, Scientific American, Discover, or whatever.
> We are dreaming of having at least an introductory article describing this
> open survey process, and the surprising consensus results we have achieved
> so far, along with our solicitation of any interested Wired readers to
> participate.
>
> Many of the participators, having experienced firsthand, this amplification
> of the wisdom of the crowd, are now in the camp that believes even a general
> crowd of readers, most of them not necessarily affiliated with the
> established academia, could quickly surpass what the establishment has been
> able to produce to date. The predicted results being an easily digestible
> set of improving, state of the art, concisely stated theories, in a
> consistent language, along with quantitative historical measures of how well
> accepted each was and is by this growing crowd. The leading theories would
> have accurate descriptions of how to test for the predictions being made in
> such a way that specific scientific experiments could be funded to validate
> them - falsifying all competing theories or vice verse.
>
> The prediction is that, after this co-operative experiment between Wired,
> Wired readers, and Canonizer.com, the only remaining task would be for the
> nuts and bolts researchers to do the described tests, and validate or
> falsify them. If this experimental co-operation with a science news magazine
> is in any way successful, this could ultimately lead to what could become
> the most revolutionary scientific achievement of all time - the objective
> discovery of the subjective mind and its connection to the underlying brain
> matter. Obviously, as soon as all the experts start to abandon primitive
> falsified camps, and converge on any one theory, it will be the required
> proof that success has been achieved. The early consensus already emerging
> appears to indicate we might already be well on our way. If so, there is no
> telling where a collaboration between such a news organization and
> Canonizer.com could go from there.
>
> The growing crowd of volunteers from around the world, looking to expand
> this survey process, are excitedly looking forward to hearing from you, and
> finding out any thoughts you, or anyone at wired, may have along these lines
> or anything.
>
> Upwards,
>
> Brent Allsop
> Founder Canonizer.com
>
>
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