Home › Topics › Government › Government ethics › Public office and private gain › Public office should not be usable for priv… › Barring members of Congress and the preside… › Equivalence: The belief: “Barring members of Congress and the president…
Equivalence
The belief: “Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain” makes the same claim as: “Members of Congress should be barred from owning any asset other than Treasury securities and diversified funds while in office” 0.50
Equivalence ArgumentsOne page per belief →
Reasons to agree that X and Y are the same claim
| # | Reason (pattern) | Truth | Conf | Link | Imp | Uniq | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Interchangeable in argumentsEvery argument on the page about removing conflicts applies to both. | 0.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.50 | 1.00 | +0.00 |
Reasons to disagree (X and Y differ)
| # | Reason (pattern) | Truth | Conf | Link | Imp | Uniq | Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Different scopeOne bars individual stocks; the other bars family businesses, farms and rental property, which is a far larger policy with different costs. | 0.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.50 | 1.00 | -0.00 |
| 2 | Different magnitudeThe candidate-pool objection is weak against the first and strong against the second. | 0.50 | 0.00 | 1.00 | 0.50 | 1.00 | -0.00 |
Total agree 0.00 · total disagree 0.00 · equivalence score 0.50
One page per belief. Reasons here are about whether the two claims have the same truth conditions, never about whether either is true.
Check table
| 1 | Exact wording of X | Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain. |
| 2 | Exact wording of Y | Members of Congress should be barred from owning any asset other than Treasury securities and diversified funds while in office. |
| 3 | What separates them | The broader version reaches every asset class rather than publicly traded shares. |
| 4 | Computed equivalence score | 0.50 |
| 5 | Verdict | Overlapping: keep both, name the difference on each page |
| 6 | Bottom line, typed by the author after the tables above | Same direction, different policy. Keep both pages and cross-link them. |
The five steps, answered from the pages above. Only the one-sentence bridge and the bottom line are typed.
DefinitionsThe full explanation →
- Equivalence score: this page's truth score. The Similar Beliefs table on X's page shows it as Equiv. Near 1 marks a merge candidate, not a new page.
Where This Page Is Used
| Page | Table | As | Its truth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain. | similar beliefs | an equivalence | 0.50 |
Every page that reads this one. One claim, one home, every use visible.
Scoring EngineTruth scores →
| Quantity | Value | How |
|---|---|---|
| Reasons to agree, total | 0.00 | sum of the agree side |
| Reasons to disagree, total | 0.00 | sum of the disagree side |
| Equivalence score | 0.50 | (agree + weight x starting point) / (agree + disagree + weight), starting point 0.50, weight 1.00 |
| ReasonRank | 0.0000 | how much of the site depends on this page: rank 2017 of 2173. The share of a walk that starts at the 162 beliefs and steps to the pages they read, with a 0.85 chance of stepping on each time |
| Work value | 0.0000 | ReasonRank x (1 - confidence): how much settling this page would be worth to everything above it |
| Completeness | yes | at least one scored reason on each side (an importance page: at least one interest; an interest page: both readings filled) |
Cite this page The belief: “Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain” makes the same claim as: “Members of Congress should be barred from owning any asset other than Treasury securities and diversified funds while in office”. Idea Stock Exchange, equivalence page equiv-barring-members-congress-members-congress, truth 0.50, confidence 28%, revision 42c8344 of 2026-10-04. The revision is what makes this quotable: these numbers move as the argument is worked on, and rebuilding that revision reproduces them exactly.
Every number on this page as data: equiv-barring-members-congress-members-congress.json. Constants: K = 1 · UNARG = 0.5 · DEFLINK = 1 · DEFIMP = 0.5 · DEFUNIQ = 1. A reason placed under a conclusion is presumed relevant until a linkage page says otherwise; the burden is on the challenger. The neutral start for importance, the wiki's own rule.
Every value here is computed from the tables above at build time. Nothing is typed.