[lit-ideas] Re: The Beginning of the Digital Universe
- From: "Andreas Ramos" <andreas@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 13:52:18 -0800
What do I think of his project? Technically? It can be done.
But it's more an issue of the social implications.
Firmage's new project is the Encyclopedia Movement. The world's best information, freely
available to everyone. That will improve life, health, the enviroment, everything, of
course, because information and intelligence is good, isn't it? Or isn't it?
What's the danger in this? How about the French Revolution? The last two hundred years of
political turmoil came out of the 17th century's project of the Enlightenment and
Rationalism. The USA, the USSR, Nazi Germany, and Mao's Communist China all come from the
same mother.
Firmage's project will be difficult to manage: he wants to be in control as the enlightened
leader yet the project is based on everyone's participation. Like the wiki project, with
more money and better tools. The problem with wiki is that information not edited by experts
often is just not information. The wiki has too much personal opinion, prejudices, and so
on.
Information should be produced and vetted by experts. This worked. The Rationalist project
produced a tremendous amount of information through universities, research centers, and
major publishing houses throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s. We already have this
infrastructure; I don't see why it should be created again.
yrs,
andreas
www.andreas.com
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