Wikipedia and Castro's Cuba
Two good articles in this week’s New Yorker. The first is on the creation of the Wikipedia encyclopedia and how global and accessible it is. It is open to editing and corrections, and has chats devoted to entries in the encyclopedia.
The founder Jimmy Wales has only five employees and has no adds for generating revenue on the site. The founder was influenced by the ideas of Friedrich Hayek’s 1945 free market manifesto, “the use of knowledge in society” which argues that a person’s knowledge is by definition partial, and the truth is established only when people pool their wisdom. He was also influenced by the Open Source Movement, which believes that software should be free and distributed in such a way that anyone can modify the code.
Since Wikipedia is not created solely by “experts in the field” it is often said to be inaccurate. But last year, Nature published a survey comparing forty two entries on scientific topics on Wikipedia with their counterparts in Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia had four errors of every three of Britannica’s.
I think because Wikipedia is online and is constantly being read by experts and others, and it is open to edits and allows for corrections to be made, and bias removed, it can pose serious challenges to how systems of knowledge are delivered and controlled. It’s breath, efficiency and accessibility make it ahead of the heavy and ponderous Encyclopedia Britannica for me, certainly.
The other interesting article was on Castro’s last battle: Can the revolution outlive its leader? By Jon Lee Anderson.
The great leader is clearly dying of Parkinsons but unfortunately wants to hold on to power. He represses his people and starves them of food and options. I wish he had stepped down about fifteen years ago. He would have been remembered as a revolutionary, but now he will be remembered as an aging brutal dictator. Raul his younger brother, who is seventy five, is being groomed for the takeover of power.
My parents had gone to Cuba about twenty years ago, inspired by Che and Castro’s revolutionary ideas. But were shocked when they saw empty grocery shelves and widespread repression of the population. They had gone to a beach, and my dad was taking pictures when a plain clothes policeman asked him to give him the film, and nearly jailed them. This they later realized was the time of the Mariel Boat Lift. The Mariel boatlift was a mass exodus of refugees who departed for the United States from Cuba's Mariel Harbor between April 15 and October 31, 1980.
The founder Jimmy Wales has only five employees and has no adds for generating revenue on the site. The founder was influenced by the ideas of Friedrich Hayek’s 1945 free market manifesto, “the use of knowledge in society” which argues that a person’s knowledge is by definition partial, and the truth is established only when people pool their wisdom. He was also influenced by the Open Source Movement, which believes that software should be free and distributed in such a way that anyone can modify the code.
Since Wikipedia is not created solely by “experts in the field” it is often said to be inaccurate. But last year, Nature published a survey comparing forty two entries on scientific topics on Wikipedia with their counterparts in Encyclopedia Britannica, and Wikipedia had four errors of every three of Britannica’s.
I think because Wikipedia is online and is constantly being read by experts and others, and it is open to edits and allows for corrections to be made, and bias removed, it can pose serious challenges to how systems of knowledge are delivered and controlled. It’s breath, efficiency and accessibility make it ahead of the heavy and ponderous Encyclopedia Britannica for me, certainly.
The other interesting article was on Castro’s last battle: Can the revolution outlive its leader? By Jon Lee Anderson.
The great leader is clearly dying of Parkinsons but unfortunately wants to hold on to power. He represses his people and starves them of food and options. I wish he had stepped down about fifteen years ago. He would have been remembered as a revolutionary, but now he will be remembered as an aging brutal dictator. Raul his younger brother, who is seventy five, is being groomed for the takeover of power.
My parents had gone to Cuba about twenty years ago, inspired by Che and Castro’s revolutionary ideas. But were shocked when they saw empty grocery shelves and widespread repression of the population. They had gone to a beach, and my dad was taking pictures when a plain clothes policeman asked him to give him the film, and nearly jailed them. This they later realized was the time of the Mariel Boat Lift. The Mariel boatlift was a mass exodus of refugees who departed for the United States from Cuba's Mariel Harbor between April 15 and October 31, 1980.
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