Blackout
January 18, 2012
“Better the government shut down than Wikipedia go on strike. That would be like part of my mind going on strike. Just give them [Wikipedia] whatever they want — we don’t even need to hear what it is.” — Ray Kurzweil
“Better the government shut down than Wikipedia go on strike. That would be like part of my mind going on strike. Just give them [Wikipedia] whatever they want — we don’t even need to hear what it is.” — Ray Kurzweil
Comments (16)
by DirkH
Ray, wikipedia does not consider itself a reliable source. And they’re right. In controversial areas like Global Warming, people like William M. Connolley – who later got temporarily banned from editing because he changed biographies of climate skeptics in ways that were considered biased – try to redefine the NPOV into something very biased. If wikipedia died tomorrow, I would say “So what”. Sometimes they are useful; but they are never deserving of trust.
by Editor
Re Wikipedia: Citation needed. :)
by Bastiat's Ghost
This issue is not about money, it is about control.
Through the use of the internet, social media could mobilize and coordinate over night a well-armed ground army in the United States numbering in the 10-20 million range. This social media militia would outnumber U.S. military ground forces by an order of magnitude. In short, there would be nothing the Powers That Be could do to stop such a force.
The potential of these citizen’s militias will only grow as cybernetic augmentation and genetic enhancement become mainstream technologies, necessary for economic progress. This is what the elite fear more than anything, and this is why the elite feel increasingly desperate and pressed for time to perfect their world government police state. Without their control over traditional media and communications technologies, the elite will no longer be able to shape public policy and cultural trends, for at a moment’s notice a “flash militia” rebellion could end their existence forever.
by Jonathan
Well-armed ground army overnight? Come on. First, please also go study what causes rebellions and why one isn’t going to happen in the U.S. Second, please go study military tactical maneuvers and training and what it actually takes to run an Army. Good conspiracy theory post though… Thanks for the laugh!
by Anonymous
Problem, as I see it, is we now live in a age where only a dollar can buy information or entertainment. The wholesale locking up of information will achieve the reversal of progress. I do believe this is exactly what SOPA/PIPA are designed for. For the sake of a buck, colleges, software companies, music industry, motion picture industry, even journalist, are entirely trying to corner the market on all knowledge and entertainment. They allot for no further progress and shall only bring regress with time of their failed business model.
by Jake Witmer
Quite right, Giulio!
by Giulio Prisco
I read Ray’s comment as stating that the new, developing open and participative culture enabled by the Internet is much more important than established institutions and practices. I think the new and the old world should continue to co-exist for a while, to give society the time to embrace the new world and forget the old. But if one of the two has to disappear, it is the old world.
by eldras
To sum up: I haven’t a clue what this case is about, but I’m with you all the way and when I find my scarf will start smashing shop windows with my umbrella.
let’s all make a list now:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fq7DeZRL7U
by eldras
I’m buying a book for the first time in 15 years.
I want one anyone can edit like most of the works in Birkbeck .
preferably with irrelevant, lude and heavy felt-tips pens, highlighting parts that must have been revelations to the reader.
I should then like to keep up traditions by ripping out pages I find particularly useful for my assessments and forget where I put it, having to buy a later edition next January.
It shouldn’t be difficult to buy a robot to attach to the page and read the text aloud to me, though it would obviously add the talented comments.
Jake it is often difficult in your position not to agree with Ray.
as for Jimmy Wales, Might I suggest the US starts knighting people like him.
It doesn’t cost anything anything, and if they do any stunts like this you can withdraw their title.
by Jake Witmer
Jimmy Wales is an austrian economist. He studied at Mises in Auburn, AL. He’s a super smart guy. I wish him all the best, and agree with him fully in his protest. Dick Clark writes some amazing things about Jimmy, and you can find the link on my blog http://jcwitmer.blogspot.com
by Jake Witmer
As usual, I agree with Kurzweil. What a great comment! :) I love it when smart people say smart things, and don’t whimper like collectivist serfs.
However, what if WIKIpedia asked for the DEA, ATF, IRS, FDA, AMA, and IRS to be abolished? Would Kurzweil still agree? If so, great: he and I are in complete agreement. The government exhibits evil traits because it is involuntary. We need to switch to a voluntary form of government, with consent of the governed.
If we don’t, worse things are in store for us.
I favor a return to properly-selected, proper jury trials. I know the legal system will not simply give us back these things, we must force their return. There is a legitimate strategy toward this end, if anyone cares to discuss it. 312.730.4037. Very generally, that strategy can be summarized as “organized jury rights activism”
See also: http://www.fija.org for the core information that’s necessary, if not the activism structure that’s necessary.
–Jake
by Khannea Suntzu
You can’t know everything. And even at that know more without wikipedia on, after years of having had wikipedia access. Having had the prosthetic I now know what it is to have it offline.
But what’s more important is the plain old message of service providers and agencies of free flow of information going to these extreme measures to eludiate that the US system of doing business (which is commonly labelled “governance”) is utterly unable to come up with results that make sense.
Change, now. Or else.
by Giulio Prisco
@melajara – evolution means trading less useful skills for more useful skills in a changing environment. So what is wrong with trading memorization for search ability over the net?
by melajara
Power off and, hmm, “Houston, we have a problem”.
I’ll love to have organic brain augmentation, i.e. well targeted stem cells differentiated in new neurons enhancing my cognitive abilities but not a partly externalized thought emphasizing dependance on “cognitive” artefacts.
By the way, people being what they are, you’ll always face the principle of minimum effort, hence technology is dumbing down a majority of us.
Check e.g. how basic innumeracy develops now that most people can rely on a (smart)phone to perform basic calculations.
by melajara
This is the danger of thought delegation.
I’m saying that because we already know that more and more (mostly young) people are trading memorization for search ability over the net.
Another neglected effect of this constant intercourse with computational artefacts is the drift from abstract thought to concrete, operational, thought driven by a cascade of selections on modal interfaces.
This is mutatis mutandis akin to a regression from a 14 year old teenager to a 10 year old kid.
by kilgatron
“thought delegation” is exactly what it is. This thought puts no strain on the learner to know. I tell my students that what they can discuss is what they know, and what a person knows and acts on is who that person is. If you don’t know much, who are you?