In order to configure a Decision, you will need to learn the basic building blocks that comprise it. Below are the key concepts that make up an Ethelo Decision.
See example Decision
Issues or Topics
Issues refer to a general breakdown of a Decision into topics. Issues can be thought of as buckets within which specific proposals or “Options” are contained. For example, Issues might correspond to the chapters or sections in a treaty. If the treaty were aimed at clarifying what constitutes a Crime of Aggression, for example, the Issues might be “Cyber Warfare,” “Armed Aid,” and “Counter-Terrorism.”
There is no limit to the number of issues Ethelo can accommodate, except the practical limit of time required for the evaluation
Options
An Option is a specific action, policy or proposal, which can be implemented as a part or facet of an overall decision. They are not whole decisions in themselves, but discrete and possibly abstract components that are candidates for describing some aspect of a final decision. “Options” are categorized as “belonging” to an Issue.
For example in the Crime of Aggression Decision, options under the Issue “Cyber Warfare” might including specific policies such as “Planning and Preparing a Cyber Attack,” and “Aiding and Abetting a Cyber Attack,” Options can be described with varying levels of abstraction, from a title consisting of a few words to a short summary to a detailed description which might include supplementary materials.
NOTES:
- If there is disagreement about what Options should belong to which Issue, the Ethelo algorithm can support each participant having their own, unique organization of Options into Issues.
- From a procedural perspective, it may be preferable in some cases to start with an exhaustive list of proposed Options, and then develop a structure of Issues that categories them in a sensible way. The end result is the same.
- In some cases, the list of Options is so long that it is difficult to work with. In that case, it is possible to impose a second or even third level of organization, where Options are grouped into “Categories” and Categories grouped into “Chapters.” The naming convention is not important; the point here is that Ethelo supports the hierarchical nesting of Options.
In practice, Options are often determined — or at least approved —by a decision-maker who carries final authority. However, the ideas which become Options can come from anywhere and it is usually a good idea to cast a wide net. The Ethelo platform can be configured to allow participants to propose “suggestions” which can be converted to Options by a decision-maker.
Options are the building blocks of decision-making. An Outcome or Scenario can be expressed as some combination of Options.
Scenarios or Decision Outcomes
A Scenario is some set of options that satisfies all the decision constraints; essentially that it be both logically and practically possible.
The set of Scenarios for a given set of options are all the potential combinations of options. When there are many options, there can be huge numbers of potential Scenarios. The relationship is a power relationship: if there are n options, there are 2^n potential Scenarios before constraints. For example, 20 options will generate more than 1,000,000 Scenarios. 1048576 to be precise. (2^20).
A real-world example of Scenarios could be about available flavors of ice cream: banana, chocolate, lemon, and strawberry at an ice cream shop. How many different ways can we have them? The answer is 16 (2^4).
Even after constraints, the set of Scenarios for a given set of Options can be extremely large.
Characteristics or Attributes
Each Option can be associated with a set of measurable, quantitative “characteristics” which further define the Option. For example, an Option might have a financial cost; an amount of money to execute the Option. Characteristics can be relatively abstract, such as the “feasibility” or “benefit” or “difficulty” of an Option; as long as they can be expressed as a quantity.
Along with discrete characteristics such as cost, Options can also be assigned continuous characteristics that change according to other characteristics. For example, an option “rice” may have a characteristic “quantity,” and another characteristic “price",, where price varies continuously relative to quantity.
Constraints or Rules
Constraints are rules which limit which Options can appear together in a decision outcome. Constraints can be of various types;
- Logical Constraints
Logical constraints refer to relationships between Options that can be described using boolean logic. For example, “exclusions” where two Options cannot appear together in a decision outcome, either for logical or practical reasons. In the Crime of Aggression example “Air Pollution is not a Crime of Aggression” and “CO2 Emissions are a Crime of Aggression” would be two exclusionary relationships; both Options cannot appear in the same treaty without creating an internal contradiction. Other logical relationships include necessary (B therefore A) and sufficient (A therefore B).
- Set-based Constraints:
It some cases, arriving at a decision will require choosing a discrete number of Options from a set of Options. For example, if we are to decide which individuals will compose an elected body of participants may vote on different proposed sizes for the body, and also vote on the various candidates who are nominated. Assuming there are many candidates, a set-based constraint would ensure that the Ethelo process returns (a) the size of the body and (b) a list of candidates. The set-based constraint, in this case, would ensure that the number of candidates on the list is the same as the approved size of the body. Ethelo supports set-based constraints such as “equals” “less than” “greater than” between # and #”. Scenarios for which these set-based constraints are not met would be excluded.
The list of Options which are the inputs to an Ethelo process can be divided into any number of overlapping or non-overlapping sets, each of which can be subject to its own set-based constraints.
- Calculated Constraints:
The Ethelo process allows the identification of decision outcomes that must obey quantitative restrictions such as budget, etc. These Calculated Constraints are generally tied to one or more Outcome Characteristics. A Calculated Constraint is defined by creating a boundary condition that is used to determine whether a Scenario is valid. Boundary conditions are expressed as relations, for example “total cost < total budget” which are true or false for any given Scenario. Combinations of options for which the Boundary conditions are not met are excluded from the set of potential Outcomes.
Similar to above, characteristics and boundary conditions can be subject to the Ethelo voting process.
Criteria
Criteria refer to frameworks of evaluation, or values, that will be applied by Participants to the different options. These Criteria are expressed as polarities that translate to a numeric range, generally the range of [-100, 100] or [0, 100]. The default criteria is simply “Oppose v. Support”, where “totally oppose” equals -100 and “totally support” equals 100. This numeric range can equivalently be expressed as a [-1, 1] or [0, 1] range.
Often a single criteria is used to evaluate Options. However, multiple criteria can also be used. A set of multiple Criteria that might also be relevant to Options in the Crime of Aggression example might be “Unenforceable v. Enforceable” “Inexpensive v. Expensive” “Negative Social Impact v. Positive Social Impact”.
Each participant can identify a set of criteria or objectives that they wish to apply in evaluating the Options. Different Criteria may be used with different Options or Issues. Participants can select as many criteria as they wish, and these criteria do not need to be shared with other participants.