About Ask Justina™

Our representative democracy is the greatest form of government the world has ever known. It empowers us while keeping tyranny of the majority in check via public representatives. But it's always lacked a critical component - a way to keep the actions of our elected representatives aligned with the will of the people.  Ask Justina gives us the final pieces of the puzzle: a transparent view of what Americans truly stand for, to hold up against the actions of our elected officials — and a public forum to weigh in on all decisions before they're made. Above all, Ask Justina reveals our true principles, the most important safeguard in any democracy.

Principles establish the rules and provide additional protection against tyranny of the majority. The problem is we make no effort to reveal what those principles are. We simply don’t behave in a way that’s conducive to the discovery and promotion of principles, because we spend all our time arguing in circles — or nowhere at all, instead.

Think of Justina (our justification inspection assistant) as an argument sorter and public forum, and HOT Society as the community of reasonable and fair-minded citizens who understand the need for rules and limitations. Other forums are just a landfill for your thoughts and upvotes—Justina sorts and organizes them into clarity and consensus to be used as democratically-accepted rules, objectives and assertions.

• Arguments are "mined" for basic logic and preferences.
• Proposals allow Americans to be innovative and come up with their own fundamental building blocks.
• Votes give weight to those building blocks; they're used to drive decisions, democratically.
• Comments are used to collaborate on and refine ideas and actions that rest on the fundamental building blocks we've established.

Why do we argue in circles?

To make a valid point, we have to establish a valid chain of logic. We have to establish what we want, why want it, and how we'll get it, and measure those objectives and actions against some rule or limit. Our first problem is we’re not consciously aware of what we need to do, so we do it poorly and our subconscious chain of logic is actually:

• We want to achieve A (objective), because B (reason), so we will do C (action) and this is okay because
• C (action) is justified by B (reason) because we want to achieve A (ojbective)

This isn't a chain of logic - it's circular logic at its worst. It makes sure the argument never gets to D: rules and limits.

The bigger problem is that rules and limits (D) don't even exist. We make them up on the fly, in the middle of our arguments. And because they're not established, we often end up breaking those same rules ourselves later on. This is double standards at its worst. Millions of people pushing for things they want with no support beyond circular logic and double standards. Is it any wonder we're so divided?

How Ask Justina keeps discussions on track

We identify and organize arguments into baseline components—Ideas (what to do), Ideals (why it matters), Actions (how we do it), Principles (rules/limits), and Assertions, and use them to enforce adherence to a chain of logic. Instead of arguing over who better represents a moral or a value, we estabish those morals and values as principles and ideals and measure EVERY idea/action against them. The result: clearer, more relevant, more productive conversations finally lead to consensus on what rules we should enforce, what we want to achieve and how we want to achieve them.

And what can we do with this?

Once majority consensus has been achieved, those rules, objectives and actions are made transparent on Ask Justina and we now have something we can stand behind besides just vague ideologies and arbitrary actions. We can add our input, let candidates know exactly what we want and how we'll be watching more closely than ever before. Go to any forum and you'll currently see people defending and representing our public officials and their policies. Shouldn't they be representing us?

The flow at a glance

HOT values

Guiding discussions can move conversations in the right direction, but being HOT is what makes them worth having in the first place. It’s the difference between “getting something” and “getting something we want.”

• Honest: value truth and integrity.
• Objective: the discipline to keep biases and ulterior motives from clouding our judgment.
• Transparent: the courage to share your conclusions - or else what's the point?

Stop getting drowned out by the loudest voices. It's the voice of mainstream Americans like yourself that will unite us.