Education

retflo is a map of political arguments: 66 of them, across 7 domains, connected by typed edges. It is free to read and works on a phone. This page covers two ways to learn from it: on your own, and in a classroom.

Self-education, one node at a time

Start with an argument you could not answer. Someone tells you markets are the only efficient way to allocate resources, or that hierarchy is natural and inevitable. Find the node. The argument is there at full strength, next to the response, with edges leading to the arguments it depends on and the ones it turns into under pressure.

Each node stands on its own, and one can fill a week: read the cited material, follow the edges, and come out knowing how the argument works and where it leads. Some of the material is dense. The Delian League problem is not common knowledge, and that comes with the territory. You do not need all 66 at once. Pick one and build outward at your own pace.

Arguing with the material

retflo is built to be read by language models. Point yours at the graph and you can argue with any node: question a premise, push back on the response, ask for a plainer explanation of a dense passage. Some people need to argue with a text before it clicks. That works here without a tutor or office hours. The quickstart guide covers setup.

In the classroom

For teachers, the visualizer is the place to start. It shows the whole graph at once: 66 arguments, 7 domains, and the typed connections between them. One approach that works: each student picks a node and goes deep, researching the argument, tracing its edges, and reporting how it fits the larger structure. That scales from a one-week assignment to a semester project.

The visualizer also works live. Put it on a projector, pick a domain, let students ask why two nodes are connected, and follow the answer together.

None of this requires agreeing with the framework. The case against each argument is in the graph too, and disagreeing with a node is one way of using it.