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… › Linkage: If it were observed that: “Reported conflicts migrate to sp…

Linkage

If it were observed that: “Reported conflicts migrate to spouse accounts and private partnerships, leaving the total number of conflict complaints unchanged”, it would significantly weaken the conclusion that: “Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain” 0.50

Type: Prediction · Direction: Weakens · Used on: Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain.

Argument XReported conflicts migrate to spouse accounts and private partnerships, leaving the total number of conflict complaints unchanged.Truth 0.50
Conclusion Y (or the interest, when Type is Interest)Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain.Truth 0.50

Linkage ArgumentsLinkage scores →

Reasons to agree that X bears on Y

#Reason (pattern)TruthConfLinkImpUniqScore
1NecessityComplete substitution is exactly the way the belief fails.0.500.001.000.501.00+0.00
2MechanismIt measures the load-bearing component directly.0.500.001.000.501.00+0.00

Reasons to disagree that X bears on Y

#Reason (pattern)TruthConfLinkImpUniqScore
1Missing stepComplaint counts measure attention as much as conduct, so an unchanged count is ambiguous.0.500.001.000.501.00-0.00

Total agree 0.00 · total disagree 0.00 · linkage score 0.50

Every reason here is about whether X bears on Y, never about whether X or Y is true (each has its own page for that). The Pattern column names the shape of the reason; the four per side are starters, not fixed content.

Check table

1Exact wording of Y, read from its pageBarring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain.
2Exact wording of X, read from its pageReported conflicts migrate to spouse accounts and private partnerships, leaving the total number of conflict complaints unchanged.
3How X bears on Y, in one sentenceWould this observation tell the two sides apart, or do both expect it?
4Computed linkage score0.50 from 2 reason(s) to agree and 1 to disagree
5Flag if below 0.7 (a working rule of thumb)Flagged: the action is to find better evidence for Y, not to reach with X.
6Bottom line, typed by the author after the tables aboveHigh diagnosticity through a noisy instrument.

The five steps, answered from the pages above. Only the one-sentence bridge and the bottom line are typed.

DefinitionsThe full explanation →

Where This Page Is Used

PageTableAsIts truth
Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain.predictionsthe linkage of a row0.50

Every page that reads this one. One claim, one home, every use visible.

Scoring EngineTruth scores →

QuantityValueHow
Reasons to agree, total0.00sum of the agree side
Reasons to disagree, total0.00sum of the disagree side
Linkage score0.50(agree + weight x starting point) / (agree + disagree + weight), starting point 0.50, weight 1.00
ReasonRank0.0000how much of the site depends on this page: rank 1924 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 value0.0000ReasonRank x (1 - confidence): how much settling this page would be worth to everything above it
Completenessyesat least one scored reason on each side (an importance page: at least one interest; an interest page: both readings filled)

Cite this page If it were observed that: “Reported conflicts migrate to spouse accounts and private partnerships, leaving the total number of conflict complaints unchanged”, it would significantly weaken the conclusion that: “Barring members of Congress and the president from owning or trading individual stocks would reduce the use of public office for private gain”. Idea Stock Exchange, linkage page pred-reported-conflicts-migrate-barring-members, 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: pred-reported-conflicts-migrate-barring-members.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.