Nicholas Carr adds yet another post to his growing collection of wikipedia commentary.
I enjoy reading them, but I can think of many other things I’d like him to write about.
He notes…
It seems like we’re getting to the point where anyone who has gained deep enough knowledge of a subject to have developed a point of view on it will be unwelcome to edit Wikipedia
One section where I have found the Wikipedia entries to be extremely sound and well put together is the philosophy section. I dabbled in Philosophy as an undergraduate 20 years ago and I find Wikipedia a useful source of info to make me seem more widely read than I am. Sprinkle conversations with Popper and Pyrrho and soon you will have no-one to talk to.
I was going to comment on Nick’s site but his commenting feature was impersoning a French railway strike brilliantly. I’ll post it here instead.
I figured out why the philosophy bits are so good (this may be common knowledge but it only occured to me now) The other guy who helped start Wikipedia, Larry Sanger is a Philosophy PhD.
I’m not sure if he meant to be this witty.
Pyrrho is said to have been so seriously bound to skepticism that it led to his own unfortunate and sudden death around 270 BC According to the legend, he was demonstrating skepticism while blindfolded when his disciples tried to warn him of a dangerous cliff he was headed toward. He refused to believe them, and thus his life ended abruptly. Others are skeptical of this claim.
My request to all sceptics, you know who you are. Write a happy post today.
I wondered about the origin of blind man’s bluff. Now I know. I’ve been educated today. I’m happy.
I’m happy, too – thanks to this post.