Saturday, November 17, 2007

Knowledge by Consensus: a Social perspective

I am not lying. I've seen with my own eyes, people doing the "Webster's dictionary defines blah blah as..." but using Wikipedia. We know how cliché that's become, so that when you attend a presentation and the speaker says, "Webster's defines leadership as.." you open your program and start to draw cartoon characters having sex. I'm pretty good at drawing the characters from Unshelved doing it.

So now that Wikipedia has become the de facto expert on everything, does the triteness counter get reset to zero? Are speakers now free to dust off old papers and replace "Webster's" with "Wikipedia"? When did Wikipedia become the boss of everything? If you base your loyalty on popularity then it's had the corner office with the private bathroom for about 2 years. So I guess Wikipedia is the boss of me.

And speaking of expertise by consensus, what up with the "I hear it's excellent" artards? Someone came in looking for the dvd for the movie Wristcutters: A Love Story (which, as of right now, is not available on dvd), and her reason for requesting that the library buy it was that she heard "it was excellent."
Again, I'm not a smart guy (or gal or dog), so saying that you heard that something is excellent means absolutely nothing to me. You'd sound more interesting if you'd said that you heard it smelled like feet.
"It smelled like feet?"
"Yes, like feet."
"That sounds interesting. Tell me more."
See?

Mathematically, saying that you heard that a thing is excellent means that there is a thing that another entity made a critical observation about its quality. So you are at least once removed from the critic. So if the critic has a 50% track record for rating things as excellent that I also rate as excellent, then your opinion that the thing is excellent is half crap.
Why do people think that making a claim that they heard something was good rubs off on them and makes them good? If I like a movie and Roger Ebert likes the same movie, does that make me a film critic like Roger Ebert?

This is why the idea that we are all creators in the 2.0 universe pisses me off. Simply pointing at a beautiful thing doesn't make you beautiful like the thing. The beauty is supposed to transform you to make you more beautiful. Simply pointing at the Mona Lisa while sucking a sesame seed out of your teeth does not transform you.
Knowledge by consensus is less important to me the lower you go on base needs. Yes, practically any opinion is valid for recommendations on where to get my car's oil changed. Your preference for Wendy's over Burger King (you're terrified of the creepy king) is of equal unimportance. So yes, you may be an expert in those areas.
But not culture or art. Or any higher learning which requires critical thinking skills. I seek experts. In some ways, I am an expert. But not on this blog. But in the kitchen and in the bedroom, rraawwr.

I don't want to be confronted by anyone who wants to argue that Wikipedia is the new expert because everyone says so. Because then I'll have to do this:
Me: "What is your name?"
LB: "Lester Balls."
Me: "Well, Lester Balls, I'm opening a new page on Wikipedia and entering, 'Lester Balls is an idiot.' Now, save page, and there, your own page on Wikipedia that says you are an idiot, and now the whole world knows."
LB: "Wha? Huh? M.. W.. Wikipedia? I'm.. I'm famous! I'm on Wikipedia! I'm famous!!!"

And then I will kill myself.

[goes with this and this]