from Hacker News

I’m building a small web app where users post falsifiable conjectures and others respond with refutations, inspired by Karl Popper’s idea that knowledge grows through bold claims and critical testing.

How it works (MVP): • Users submit a conjecture (e.g. “UBI reduces non-violent crime”). • Each conjecture must include clear falsification criteria — what would prove it wrong. • Others post refutations: counterexamples, critiques, or better hypotheses. • Conjectures can be revised in response to valid criticism. • Future features: prediction markets, citation formats, version histories.

Why I’m experimenting with this: • Most online platforms reward persuasion, not falsifiability. • Forecasting platforms (like Metaculus or Manifold) focus on probabilities, not explanations. • This is meant to support idea evolution, not just outcome prediction.

Early stage: Built with Rails 8 and TailwindCSS. Still private, just validating whether this concept is useful or pointless.

Looking for feedback on: • Would you use something like this? Why or why not? • Is this meaningfully different from a smart blog comment section? • What is the smallest useful version of this? • What would make this fail completely?

If you’re interested in trying it or think it’s a terrible idea, I’d genuinely appreciate your thoughts.