This link has been bookmarked by 33 people . It was first bookmarked on 19 Apr 2007, by Alex Golub.
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19 Feb 12
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01 Dec 11
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certain claims that some of us don't accept end up being background knowledge
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But we are now confronting a new politics of knowledge
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a sort of collective authority
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The hegemony of the professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing—a deeply profound truth that not everyone has fully absorbed.
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I, at least, think it is wonderful that the power to declare what we all know is no longer exclusively in the hands of a professional elite.
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As it turns out, our many Web 2.0 revolutionaries have been so thoroughly seized with the successes of strong collaboration that they are resistant to recognizing some hard truths.
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widespread rejection of expertise
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not a positive development; but it is also not a necessary one
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We can imagine a Web 2.0 with experts
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when we say that encyclopedias should state the truth, do we mean the truth itself, or what the best-informed people take to be the truth—or perhaps even what the general public takes to be the truth?
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While I am not a pragmatist in this philosophical sense, I do think that it is misleading to say simply that encyclopedias aim at the truth.
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If an expert article-writer states that p is true, and the editors find p plausible, and p gets past the fact-checkers
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then p is true
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highly fallible
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we usually can't do any better
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what do we most want, as responsible, independent-minded researchers, out of an encyclopedia?
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we want to be able to consider the whole dialectical enchilada
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speak of experts in a more objective sense
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objective expertise amounts to something like this: if we rely on the expert's opinion in matters of their expertise, that really does increase the probability we have the truth.
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Encyclopedias should represent expert opinion first and foremost, but also minority and popular views.
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When decision makers have to decide whether a person really is, objectively, an expert, they have to use evidence that they can agree upon
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But when groups must make decisions about who is an expert, they must have evidence
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due to its sheer size, the public can also contribute enormous breadth and extra eyeballs for all sorts of the more usually "expert" topics, too
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the inclusion of the general public in an encyclopedia project, and ensuring that all subjects are treated at once, will tend to reduce the insularity common to many specialized fields
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Experts, or specialists
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Because of their knowledge, they can often sum up what is known on a topic much more efficiently than a non-specialist can.
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write about their specializations in a style that is credible and professional-sounding.
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To exclude the public is to put readers at the mercy of wrongheaded intellectual fads
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and to exclude experts, or to fail to give them a special role in an encyclopedia project, is to risk getting expert opinion wrong.
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The issue here is not whether people should make money from their work, but whether their special knowledge should give them some special authority
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To the latter, dabblerism says no.
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This does not go the slightest way toward showing, however, that some sort of expert guidance is neither needed, nor would be a positive addition to, content creation systems
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each member of a "crowd" needs make decisions independently of each other
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precisely how Wikipedia doesn't work. As he writes:
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Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise.
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Wikipedian "crowd" can often agree upon some pretty ridiculous claims, which are very far from both expert opinion and from anything like an "average" of public opinion on a subject.
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do not lend the slightest bit of support to the notion that experts and editors are not needed for publishing or content creation.
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There is no reason whatsoever to insist on any simpleminded approach to identifying experts.
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Wikipedians
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say, sometimes, that it is only fair to judge people based on what they do, not who they are.
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Define "credential" as "evidence of expertise." If we reject the use of credentials, we reject all evidence of expertise; ergo, lacking any means of establishing who is an expert, we reject expertise itself. Meritocrats are necessarily expert-lovers.
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implies that degrees, certificates, licenses, association memberships, papers, books, presentations, awards, and all other possible evidence of expertise—the whole gamut of "credentials"—just don't matter.
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world of Wikipedia: mere quantity of work is a credential there
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The notion that experts cannot play a gentle guiding role in a genuinely bottom-up collaborative project seems to be plain old bigotry.
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Surely it isn't impossible for professors to exit the cathedral—to borrow Eric Raymond's metaphor in his essay "The Cathedral and the Bazaar"—and wander the bazaar
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Wikipedians attempt to take my dilemma by the horns, supporting the credibility of Wikipedia's content through a combination of both external and internal means
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If a fact has been supported by a footnote, then, apparently, it is credible.
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If Wikipedians actually believe that the credibility of articles is improved by citing things written by experts, will it not improve them even more if people like the experts cited are given a modest role in the project?
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The dilemma Wikipedia finds itself in, then, is that if it wants to establish its credibility by reference to expert opinion, then it has no reason not to invite experts to join in some advisory capacity.
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epistemic egalitarianism
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this is a doctrine about rights or authority, not about ability
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It is precisely the fact that it speaks about our rights to declare what passes for knowledge that makes epistemic egalitarianism a doctrine about the politics of knowledge
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perhaps it is only an accident of history, not any good reason, that placed the epistemic leadership of society almost exclusively in the hands of a fairly small class of professionals.
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Thus, if we reduce experts to the level of the rest of us, even when they speak about their areas of knowledge, we reduce society's collective grasp of the truth.
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It's Truth versus Equality, and as much as I love Equality, if it comes down to choosing, I'm on the side of Truth.
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19 Aug 08
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24 Jan 08
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03 Dec 07
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06 Sep 07
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06 Aug 07
Erich FeldmeierÜber die neue Politik des Wissens, Wikipedia, creative individual vs. team, Csikszentmihalyi
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18 Jul 07
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11 Jul 07
Bibliofusion Pierre ChicoineWe are confronting a new politics of knowledge, with the rise of the Internet and particularly of the collaborative Web—the Blogosphere, Wikipedia, Digg, YouTube. It is particularly the aggregation of public opinion that instituted this new politics.
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28 May 07
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06 May 07
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01 May 07
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26 Apr 07
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25 Apr 07
Said Kassem HamidehThe Sanger-Lanier axis
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24 Apr 07
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Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion.
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The hegemony of the professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing—a deeply profound truth that not everyone has fully absorbed.
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for each of these things "we all know," significant minorities insist that they're false.
Those dissenters, however, don't matter much when it comes to most journalism, reference, and education. Society forges ahead, reporting and teaching things without usually mentioning the dissenters, or only in a disparaging light. As a result, certain claims that some of us don't accept end up being background knowledge, as I'll call it. If you question such background knowledge, or even express some doubt about it, you'll look stupid, crazy, or immoral. Maybe all three.
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It is particularly the aggregation of public opinion that instituted this new politics of knowledge
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To be able to determine society's background knowledge—to establish what "we all know"—is an awesome sort of power. This power can shape legislative agendas, steer the passions of crowds, educate whole generations, direct reading habits, and tar as radical or nutty whole groups of people who otherwise might seem perfectly normal. Exactly how this power is wielded and who wields it constitutes what we might call "the politics of knowledge." The politics of knowledge has changed tremendously over the years. In the Middle Ages, we were told what we knew by the Church; after the printing press and the Reformation, by state censors and the licensers of publishers; with the rise of liberalism in the 19th and 20th centuries, by publishers themselves, and later by broadcast media—in any case, by a small, elite group of professionals.
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we are now confronting a new politics of knowledge
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if you want to find out what "everybody knows," you aren't limited to looking at what The New York Times and Encyclopedia Britannica are taking for granted. You can turn to online sources that reflect a far broader spectrum of opinion than that of the aforementioned "small, elite group of professionals." Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion. The hegemony of the professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing—a deeply profound truth that not everyone has fully absorbed.
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with the chorus (or cacophony) of voices out there, there is so much dissent, about everything, that there is a lot less of what "we all know." Insofar as the unity of our culture depends on a large body of background knowledge, handing a megaphone to everyone has the effect of fracturing our culture.
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I, at least, think it is wonderful that the power to declare what we all know is no longer exclusively in the hands of a professional elite. A giant, open, global conversation has just begun—one that will live on for the rest of human history—and its potential for good is tremendous
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one of the fathers of modern liberalism, John Stuart Mill, argued—an unfettered, vigorous exchange of opinion ought to improve our grasp of the truth
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With the rejection of professionalism has come a widespread rejection of expertise—of the proper role in society of people who make it their life's work to know stuff. This, I maintain, is not a positive development; but it is also not a necessary one.
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according to one leading account of knowledge called "reliabilism," associated with philosophers like Alvin Goldman and Marshall Swain, knowledge is true belief that has been arrived at by a "reliable process" (say, getting a good look at something in good light) or through a "reliable indicator of truth" (say, proper use of a calculator)
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Reliability is a comparative quality; something doesn't have to be perfectly reliable in order to be reliable. So, to say that an encyclopedia is reliable is to say that it contains an unusually high proportion of truth versus error, compared to various other publications. But it can still contain some error, and perhaps a high enough proportion of error that—as many have said recently—you should never use just one reference work if you want to be sure of something
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when we say that encyclopedias should state the truth, do we mean the truth itself, or what the best-informed people take to be the truth—or perhaps even what the general public takes to be the truth? I'd like to say "the truth itself," but we can't simply point to the truth in the way we can point to the North Star. Some philosophers, called pragmatists, have said there's no such thing as "the truth itself," and that we should just consider the truth to be whatever the experts opine in "the ideal limit of inquiry" (in the phrase of C. S. Peirce). While I am not a pragmatist in this philosophical sense, I do think that it is misleading to say simply that encyclopedias aim at the truth. We can't just leave it at that.
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experts disagree about a lot of things. It is presumptuous, and a great disservice to readers, for editors to choose one expert to believe over another.
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what do we most want, as responsible, independent-minded researchers, out of an encyclopedia? Primarily, I think most of us want mainstream expert opinion stated clearly and accurately; but we don't want to ignore minority and popular views, either, precisely because we know that experts are sometimes wrong, even systematically wrong. We want well-agreed facts to be stated as such, but beyond that, we want to be able to consider the whole dialectical enchilada, so that we can make up our own minds for ourselves.
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I believe that if someone meets a certain standard of credentials about some topic, then that person is probably more reliable on that topic than someone picked at random. Bear in mind, however, that "credentials" should be construed very broadly, and can mean much more than simply degrees and certifications
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due to its sheer size, the public can also contribute enormous breadth and extra eyeballs for all sorts of the more usually "expert" topics, too. The general public may add a far greater assortment of topics and perspectives than one would get if one assigned only experts to write about only their areas of expertise. Moreover, the sheer quantity of eyeballs gazing at obvious mistakes means that such mistakes will be fixed more quickly and reliably than if one engages only experts working only on their areas of expertise.
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Experts, or specialists, possess unusual amounts of knowledge about particular topics. Because of their knowledge, they can often sum up what is known on a topic much more efficiently than a non-specialist can.
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Wikipedia's defenders have a great many arguments for dabblerism: non-experts can create great things; the "wisdom of crowds" makes deference to experts unnecessary; studies appear to confirm this in the case of Wikipedia; there is no prima facie reason to give experts any special role; it is only fair to judge people by what they do, and not by their credentials; and making a role for experts will actually ruin the collaborative process.
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But what facts are Wikipedians attempting to describe?
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The facts they want to amass are facts contained in the books and articles that, it so happens, they are so keen on citing. Who writes those books and articles? Experts, mostly.
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Wikipedia can be expected to excel in scientific and technical topics, simply because there is relatively little disagreement about the facts in these disciplines. (Also because contributors to wikis tend to be technically-minded, but this probably matters less than that it's hard to get scientific facts wrong when you're simply copying them out of a book.)
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To give authority to people simply on the basis of their expertise is—as Wikipedians often say—simply "credentialism," and no more rational than rejecting an application from a stellar programmer simply because he lacks a B.S. in Computer Science. People should be judged based on their demonstrated abilities, not degrees.
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Some of the finest programmers in the world lack any computer science degrees, and it would be silly to fail to recognize that fact. But there is no reason why a content creation system could not recognize as a "credential," or as proof of expertise, all manner of evidence, not just degrees
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Wikipedians have a sort of moral argument for their dabblerism: they say, sometimes, that it is only fair to judge people based on what they do, not who they are. Meritocracy is the only fair way to justify differing levels of editorial authority in open projects; and a genuine meritocracy would assign authority not based on "credentials," but only based on what people have demonstrated they can do for the project. It is wrong and unfair to hand out authority based on credentials
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Define "credential" as "evidence of expertise." If we reject the use of credentials, we reject all evidence of expertise; ergo, lacking any means of establishing who is an expert, we reject expertise itself. Meritocrats are necessarily expert-lovers.
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I find the moral argument annoying for another reason, however. It implies that degrees, certificates, licenses, association memberships, papers, books, presentations, awards, and all other possible evidence of expertise—the whole gamut of "credentials"—just don't matter. They don't constitute good evidence of anything. But if they don't count as good evidence of expertise, why should the ability to do something on behalf of a mere Internet project count as good evidence? There is a bizarre reversal in the insular world of Wikipedia: mere quantity of work is a credential there, but not for academic tenure and advancement committees; meanwhile, degrees and peer-reviewed papers are credentials for tenure and advancement committees, but not for Wikipedia and its ilk. (Wikipedians will protest that quantity of work doesn't really matter. But, of course, it very much does.)
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Wikipedia pooh-poohs the need for expert guidance; but how, then, does it propose to establish its own reliability? It can do so either by reference to something external to itself or else something internal, such as a poll of its own contributors. If it chooses something external to itself—such as the oft-cited Nature report—then it is conceding the authority of experts.
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It is one thing to argue for "the wisdom of crowds" by reference to an objective benchmark. It is quite another thing to maintain that crowds are wise simply because they are crowds. That is a philosophical view, a variety of relativism, according to which the only truth there is, the only facts there are, are literally "socially constructed" by crowds like the contributors to Wikipedia.
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Wikipedians attempt to take my dilemma by the horns, supporting the credibility of Wikipedia's content through a combination of both external and internal means. They insist that footnotes suffice to support an article. If a fact has been supported by a footnote, then, apparently, it is credible. This, we might say, is an external means of fact-checking; but it is up to rank-and-file Wikipedians, not any fancy experts, to add and edit the footnotes, and so it's also an internal means of fact-checking
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It seems that we all know that footnotes makes articles much more credible—but why? Whatever the reason, Wikipedians wouldn't want to say that it's because the people cited are credible authorities on their subjects.
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The dilemma Wikipedia finds itself in, then, is that if it wants to establish its credibility by reference to expert opinion, then it has no reason not to invite experts to join in some advisory capacity. But this is completely intolerable for Wikipedians.
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epistemic (knowledge) egalitarianism
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this is a doctrine about rights or authority, not about ability
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the power to declare society's background knowledge is awesome, and that many consequential decisions, including political decisions, are deeply influenced by that background knowledge
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the main philosophical reason for epistemic egalitarianism is, like the reason for egalitarianism generally, the now-common and overarching desire for fairness. The desire for fairness creates hostility toward any authority—and not just when authority uses its power to gain an unfair advantage, but toward authority as such. That is, the most radical egalitarians advocate that our situations be made as equal as possible, including in terms of authority. But, in our specialist-friendly modern society, expertise can confer much authority not available to non-experts. Perhaps the most important and fundamental authority experts have is the authority to declare what is known. This authority, then, should be placed in the hands of everyone equally, according to a thoroughgoing egalitarianism
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I support meritocracy: I think experts deserve a prominent voice in declaring what is known, because knowledge is their life.
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Ultimately, at the bottom of the debate, the deep modern commitment to specialization is in an epic struggle with an equally deep modern commitment to egalitarianism. It's Truth versus Equality, and as much as I love Equality, if it comes down to choosing, I'm on the side of Truth.
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23 Apr 07
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22 Apr 07
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But there are also a lot of other things that "everybody knows," except that not everybody agrees that everybody knows them.
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Shay BrogWikipedia co-founder on Collective Intelligence.
articles politics web2.0 information culture sociology networks intelligence
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21 Apr 07
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20 Apr 07
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Ratcatcher"Professionals are no longer needed for the bare purpose of the mass distribution of information and the shaping of opinion. The hegemony of the professional in determining our background knowledge is disappearing"
collectiveintelligence politics web 2.0 article wikipedia authority
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19 Apr 07
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