There are certain roles in society that come with special training, powers, and responsibilities. For instance: doctors (can prescribe medicine), lawyers (client-attorney privilege), judges (can bindingly interpret law), etc.
Here’s my list of some weird but potentially really valuable roles in society that don’t exist but maybe should:
Role 1: Truth Teller
They wear a special, very noticeable hat. When wearing it, they are not permitted to say anything they know to be untrue (they are punished severely and may be suspended or lose their license if they do, plus the incident becomes public). They can also get punished for clear lies of omission or for making misleading statements. At all times when being worn, their hat records time-stamped, watermarked 360-degree video whenever it is worn. Anyone who is caught on camera can request the segment of the video (and accompanying audio) of the portion they are a part of.
Training: practicing telling people very difficult truths (e.g., breaking the news to parents of military vets that their child isn’t coming back), answering difficult personal questions fully truthfully, speaking very carefully about what they know and how they know it, etc.
Some uses:
• When you need an opinion, you can count on them being TOTALLY honest
• As an eye witness to prove what occurred (e.g., at protests or high-stakes negotiations)
• Observing voting recounts and lottery drawings
• When needing an eye witness to later prove to others very credibly (e.g., in court) that something did or didn’t happen
Role 2: Evidence Evaluator
They provide an impartial, apolitical, thoroughly researched, unbiased, and fallacy-aware perspective on any topic. When they use their official title in writing or speech (e.g., “Signed, Evidence Evaluator Jane Doe”), they can be suspended for falling into even minor fallacies or biases, and they can lose their license for significant ones.
Training: extensive practice with argument and evidence evaluation, avoiding rhetorical fallacies & cognitive biases, and calibration training for making predictions; extensive learning about Bayes’ rule, probabilistic and nuanced thinking, research best practices, statistics, summarizing evidence, scientific thinking, etc.
Some uses:
• When you want to know what’s known on a thorny topic, you can hire them to interview experts on all sides of the issue, or read papers on all sides, giving an impartial account of the evidence (e.g., what is known about how much human behavior is increasing global temperatures, and how certain this information is)
• When it’s helpful to find weaknesses or flaws in any perspective
Role 3: Unconditional Aide
They can be hired by the hour, and during that time, they are required to look out SOLELY for the interests of the person that hired them (as long as the health, property, or safety of anyone else is not at risk). In other words, they are fully and completely your supporter and your team member for the time you are paying them and will help you with ANYTHING you choose. They do, however, have the right to maintain a public list of activities they are not willing to do, to refuse clients who they would prefer not to work with, and to quit at any moment (by notifying you that they are quitting – in which case you would still owe them payments for any hours logged thus far). They also may have a price list (i.e., their hourly rate can fluctuate based on what you are asking for their help with). Credible reports that they are not acting on behalf of the client’s interests can lead to suspension or complete removal of their title.
Training: practicing active listening, practicing eliciting a person’s underlying goals, and real-world training where they have to help many different people with many different kinds of requests and goals (and then get assessed by the people they helped with qualitative and quantitative feedback).
Some uses:
• You are going into an emotionally difficult situation and would like a supporter there with you (but don’t want to ask friends/loved ones)
• You are trying to carry out a difficult activity and need someone’s help with it
• You are in a serious pickle and need another person’s help (e.g., your child had to suddenly go to the hospital, and you need someone to show a potential buyer around your house, then walk your dog, then bring something from your home to the hospital)
The established roles we have in society (doctors, judges, etc.) are very useful. Perhaps we could do with a few more of them.
This piece was first written on November 18, 2020, and first appeared on this site on October 21, 2022.
These are great roles indeed. But I fear that it might stop people fulfill these roles in their everyday life, i.e., trying to tell the truth as much as possible, being able to evaluate evidence without bias, being a good listener, etc. Surely these are skills that we could all benefit from practicing more ourselves in our lives, instead of having the possibility of delegating these to others.