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| Comments on "Another Objectivist at Ford Hall Forum?" |
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 | Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 2:06:49 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Michael Spitler
E-mail: spitlermike(at)gmail.com
URL: http://www.mikespitler.net
I would like to know too. In college I was told never to use Wikipedia as a source for papers precisely because there is no way to know who wrote about a certain topic, and therefore no way to know the author's level of expertise. Still a good place to start your inquiries though.
Considering his past actions and what he has advocated, I see his claim that Objectivism guides his actions as more a travesty than a legitimate claim.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 5:31:57 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Taylor O.
E-mail: taylor.oneal(at)gmail.com
Fantastic questions! I hope someone asks them.
I think the first question is very interesting; I'd like to hear more about his thoughts on the conflict resolution process, etc. There are web tools that show who edits a Wikipedia page and there is always controversy when someone from a corporation or the government edits there page. This irritates me because it is controversial only because they choose to edit pages about themselves not only if it removes something negative that is true. If someone were to smear Microsoft and then their PR department were to delete the entry it would not be considered 'neutral' so they best they can do is wait around for some 3rd party to recognize the untruth and make an edit. (See Wired article on Wikipedia Scanner: http://www.wired.com/politics/onlinerights/news/2007/08/wiki_tracker)
I think the classification of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia, a source of truth, is what is troublesome. I classify it as a search engine or web directory more in the vain of Yahoo's old directory but much more thorough. It is far superior to the junk returned in Google searches as it is organized by human thought, a highly structured starting point to reaching primary sources. Of course, it shouldn't be cited as a primary source (perhaps a less formal works cited note would be acceptable though).
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 5:38:07 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Burgess Laughlin
E-mail: burgesslaughlin(at)macforcego.com
URL: http://www.aristotleadventure.blogspot.com
A philosophical movement faces many dangers. Examples are eclecticism; syncretism, name-dropping (using the name but without any connection to its principles), and apocrypha (contradictory ideas falsely attributed to the seminal philosopher).
The only answers to these dangers, that I can see, are study, acquisition of presentation skills, activism, and the virtue of intolerance for supposed members of the movement who misrepresent the philosophy. Greg and others here are practicing all these.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 5:51:34 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Don Kenner
E-mail: dbkenner(at)earthlink.net
Your questions are good ones; I'd be interested to hear his answers.
As to Wikipedia, I like it, but I take it with a grain of salt. I tell my students they can mine the article's sources, but not to use the Wikipedia article itself as a source. Some articles are pretty safe. If you want a quick bio of Rachmaninoff, you're probably okay using Wikipedia. Topics like Israel, Ayn Rand, or any presidential candidate are dicey, only because there is an army of "editors" trying desperately to fill in the "trooth," which everyone would know if only we'd listen to them.
Since assertions only have to be "sourced" to have legitimacy, one can construct a very dubious article from cherry-picked media sources. Still, there seem to be a lot of very serious and dedicated folks trying to keep Wikipedia honest. I just wonder sometimes if it is a losing battle.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 6:27:33 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Steve D'Ippolito
I recall reading somewhere (sorry, my mental mushpile isn't more specific than that) reading about a Wikipedia editing war. Someone had a climatologist tell him *to his face* than he disagreed with the "consensus" about some aspect of global warming. That someone went to the relevant Wikipedia article and added that tidbit of info: such-and-such climatologist disagrees. Less than a minute later, it had been edited out and replaced with a contrary assertion that the climatologist in question agreed with the "consensus". After a few back-and-forths on this, and even a discussion on the discussion page, the de-editor simply stated flat out that a direct conversation with the party would not be adequate as a source material. (At least not so long as it disagreed with the de-editor's point of view!)
Apparently the leftists have people monitoring the pages full time, ready to swoop down and edit dissent from the PC worldview the moment it appears. They understand the Big Lie theory all right.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 8:02:40 mst
Comment ID: #6
Name: Tony Donadio
E-mail: tdonadio(at)optonline.net
Steve: Here's a reference to the incident you're referring to:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3RXPPYI6K709I
I posted about the Oreskes affair in the Noodlefood comments recently:
http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2008/08/fortunately-art-doesnt-refle ...
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 8:25:29 mst
Comment ID: #7
Name: Billy Beck
E-mail: wjbiii(at)frontiernet.net
URL: http://www.two--four.net/weblog.php
I remember Jimmy, too. I was never convinced that he had Objectivism in hand.
As for Wikipedia: I have never understood the prohibition of original research. That strikes me as flat-out stoopid.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 9:22:50 mst
Comment ID: #8
Name: Steve D'Ippolito
Thanks, Tony. I could not remember enough to even do a search (no names, etc.)
Having (re) read the referenced article, it's clear that there is no defense in the Wikipedia way of doing things against someone deciding to make it their mission in life to see that a page propagandizes their point of view. Since the left seems to have an endless supply of people willing to do such stuff, it's basically useless for researching anything controversial.
It's okay for politically non-controversial stuff; I recently read their article about the Battle of Borodino and found it enlightening. If doing serious research though I would check the sources cited and also read the pages of discussion between the editors.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 11:04:52 mst
Comment ID: #9
Name: Ryan C
URL: http://ryantheegoist.blogspot.com/
I can't answer for Jimmy on the other issues, but on your first point, Wales has stated that it isn't about a site where people can say what they " believe ". They fact check articles, and they are changed constantly. People can't offer their own opinions most of the time, and if you see an opinion or a flatout lie on Wikipedia you should report that part of the article.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 14:01:56 mst
Comment ID: #10
Name: Per-Olof Samuelsson
E-mail: per-olof.samuelsson(at)swipnet.se
URL: http://www.nattvakt.com
Didn't Jimbo side with Kelley in the "Kelley split" of the early 90's? I think I have seen this somewhere.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 14:04:29 mst
Comment ID: #11
Name: Per-Olof Samuelsson
E-mail: per-olof.samuelsson(at)swipnet.se
URL: http://www.nattvakt.com
Didn't Jimbo side with Kelley in the "Kelley split" of the early 90's? I think I have seen this somewhere.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 16:20:14 mst
Comment ID: #12
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Jimmy definitely sided with David Kelley for some years. However, he hasn't been involved with or supported IOS/TOC/TAS for about ten years. As far as I know, he's not seriously revisited the philosophic issues of the split, but I'm very doubtful that he'd endorse Kelley's views if he did.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 22:05:02 mst
Comment ID: #13
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
As a former member of "Jimbo" Wales' invitation-only mailing list from the days when he was close to Objectivism, I've been observing his intellectual devolution for years, first with concern and then with disbelief.
Wales, like Sciabarra, was once an active "intellectual activist" trying to spread Ayn Rand's ideas - Wales among geeks, Sciabarra among academics. Both were mainly cultural, social and political activists, with very limited grounding in, or even familiarity with, the epistemological foundations of Ayn Rand's cultural, social and political ideas. Neither of them, as I've seen, had ever really grasped Rand's concept of measurement and its role in her refutation of Kant's "limits of knowledge;" and so both went looking for alternatives that were more compatible with Kant's "insights:" Misesian subjectivism, Hegelian/Marxian dialectics, etc.; both eventually became (I don't know whether implicitly or explicitly) Hayekians of sorts. Hayek's epistemology, which posits a social/cultural evolution/refinement of intellectual traditions into an emerging common concensus about knowledge, is the underlying motivation of both Sciabarra's JARS and Wales' Wikipedia. Hayek's name, though, is not recognized widely enough to generate many subscriptions to an academic journal, or invitations to speak at the Ford Hall Forum. So one way to look at Sciabarra and Wales is that they wear Ayn Rand lapel pins, but live and work by Hayek's ideas rather than Rand's. Or - and this seems to be the way they see themselves - they are using Hayekian methods and hoping for results that promote those aspects of Objectivism that they happen to agree with.
This is not an unusual phenomenon, by the way: Ayn Rand's explanation of the use of measurement to achieve objective knowledge is a kind of _pons asinorum_ for students of Objectivism. Those who don't pass this bridge almost always drift eventually into anti-Objectivist positions.
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| Wednesday, September 10, 2008 at 23:02:14 mst
Comment ID: #14
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Adam -- As someone who knew Jimmy very well back in the day, and remains friends with him, I must strenuously object to your characterization of him. No parallel whatsoever can be drawn between him and Sciabarra. Jimmy has his philosophical faults, undoubtedly. But they are not the product of any moral failings, to my knowledge.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 1:21:27 mst
Comment ID: #15
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Diana,
I defer to your personal knowledge - which I don't have at this point in time.
However, I do have personal experience with how Wales runs - or does not run - the Wikipedia. Please take a look at the account of Ayn Rand's break with Nathaniel Branden in its article on Ayn Rand - which presents NB's bizarre narrative as fact, while the facts documented by Valliant are just not there. I spent a good amount of time trying to insert a few of those facts into the article. I found that NB's narrative was always immediately restored - and the facts I had provided in the article on Ayn Rand, deleted - by NB's partisans, with Wales' knowledge and apparent approval. As you are still "friends" with him, you might ask him about that NB slant in the "Ayn Rand" article, and how it relates to Wikipedia's, and its founder's, epistemic integrity.
As for moral failings - again, I don't have a professional interest in the area. But I do have a professional interest in epistemology, and so I can't ignore the consequences on what Wales does, of Wales following Hayek's epistemology rather than Rand's. Until we know what he says in Boston I'll leave it at that.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 7:25:09 mst
Comment ID: #16
Name: Diana Hsieh
E-mail: diana(at)dianahsieh.com
URL: http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog
Adam -- Jimmy doesn't involve himself in editorial disputes because his opinion would likely carry undue weight. At most, he brings such disputes to the editorial board. So it's unfair to presume his "apparent approval" based on his knowledge of the case in question. If you knew as much as Wikipedia as your original comment indicated, you would have known that.
And your case that Wales' epistemology is Hayekian is thin, to say the least. Even if Wikipedia is fundamentally based on a Hayekian model of knowledge -- and I'm doubtful that it is -- that wouldn't prove Hayek's epistemology to be Jimmy's MO. (Certainly, I don't see that in my discussions with him.) To show that it was, you would have to present some evidence of Jimmy's actual beliefs, based on his actual statements. Notably, the often-inaccurate words or quotes in news stories won't do.
Please don't bother to do that. I'm irritated enough by your unjust moral accusations that I do not wish to discuss this matter further with you.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 12:29:42 mst
Comment ID: #17
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
I've work quite a lot on Wikipedia's mathematics articles for about six years. They're better than they used to be, but some of their flaws are identifiable, and the ones that are identifiable can mostly be corrected by continuing to edit, but that takes time. As to what people generally think: in mathematics, what _most_ people think is really really really weird, but those who edit Wikipedia math articles who don't know the subject are usually glad to learn from those who do.
One nice example of non-mathematicians' weirdities is the objections people from time to time express about the article titled "Proof that 22/7 exceeds π". The article embodies a really nice idea that it seems anyone (except non-mathematicians) will be instantly delighted with (and by instantly I mean within one second---I've seen it happen repeatedly). But the objections those strange creatures called non-mathematicians express a weird. See the article's talk page. Someone wrote:
"Sorry if this seems stupid, but I don't know why this article exists. Do we also need to prove that 4 is bigger than 3?"
I actually told him on his own user talk page that, yes, that does seem stupid, and answered some of his points. Among his comments:
"Mathematical people have proved time and time again that pi ~ (from memory) 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944. That is less than 22/7 (work it out). Ergo, pi < 22/7."
That is certainly true and quite obvious, and one can hardly miss the point more thoroughly.
But fortunately those who know what they're doing generally prevail in these matters. When the article was proposed for deletion on similar idiotic grounds early in 2006, a number of such amazingly unperceptive comments were made, but common sense prevailed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Proof_ ...
(One of the commentators was an allegedly literate university student who said he had never before heard a mathematical proposition called "elegant". The use of that word in just that way
is an over-used cliche. His ignorance of this matter that is so well-known to all _other_ college-bound high-school graduates was apparently supposed to be taken as a cogent point.)
So weird edit wars happen, but the illiterate majority seldom prevails.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 13:07:54 mst
Comment ID: #18
Name: madmax
E-mail: max34(at)wlcm.net
Adam,
Fascinating insights. Thanks.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 13:23:36 mst
Comment ID: #19
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
Steve d'Ipolito:
I agree that someone's report that a climatologist told him TO HIS FACE what his position is, is unacceptable as a source to be cited as authoritative. People can't check it independently; they have to trust the person reporting it.
Of course, the person asserting the contrary also needs a source and should be similarly not excused from that need.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 14:22:11 mst
Comment ID: #20
Name: Paul Hsieh
E-mail: paul(at)geekpress(dot)com
URL: http://www.geekpress.com
To Mike Hardy:
I occasionally use Wikipedia, but I don't contribute to it. Since you are an active contributor, would you be able to tell us what egoistic values one might potentially get out of doing so?
For instance, there are a number of egoistic reasons that I enjoy blogging. I enjoy spreading positive ideas and persuading others. I enjoy the opportunity for use the writing process to make ideas more clear in my own mind and to receive constructive feedback from others. I enjoy being able to establish a reputation based on whatever I write, and being credited with any new ideas, formations, and integrations I might originate. And I enjoy the fact that blogging helps reinforce standing orders in my own mind to be on the constant lookout for noteworthy news items that are important to my values (usually scientific, medical, cultural, or political news). For me, it's important that my ideas and writing be linked to me as a specific person and that no one can edit it without my permission. Hence, I'm responsible for my content (for good or for ill), and it also goes out under my own name.
But I don't know enough about the Wikipedia culture to know if any/all of those reasons would similarly apply. So if you don't mind, I'd be interested learning about possible egoistic reasons for spending one's free time on Wikipedia. I recognize that not every Wikipedia contributor is necessarily an egoist. But I am wondering if a Wikipedia-like site would be viable in a a culture where ethical egoism was the dominant philosophy. (I'm not claiming that it would be and I'm not claiming that it wouldn't be -- I'm asking it as an open question.)
Thanks.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 15:52:45 mst
Comment ID: #21
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
Pretty much all the reasons are the same as those you cite.
"But I am wondering if a Wikipedia-like site would be viable in a a culture where ethical egoism was the dominant philosophy." I think very little altrustically motivating Wikipedia-editing goes on; I'd guess 99.99 percent is egoistic, of just the kind you wrote about in your comments on blogging. But I'd never thought about that before. Now I'm thinking some people edit Wikipedia for weird reasons, but I've tended to stay away from those situations.....
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 16:37:15 mst
Comment ID: #22
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
Oh.... one thing about using one's own name: most Wikipedians don't. I always have. So did Adam Reed (he wrote it without a space: AdamReed; that what you need to look under if you want to see exactly what he contributed to Wikipedia---I see that his most recent edit was on June 26th of this year). One Wikipedian editing under the name r.e.b. (all three lower-case and with periods) is a very famous mathematician whose actual identity is known to everyone who cares to know, so there's no secret about it but it's not "advertised" the way it would be if it were his actual name. Many variations on that theme exist. I know a person who uses a fake name and wishes it not to be known that she is a woman; I haven't asked why. I know who she is but the public doesn't.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 20:50:23 mst
Comment ID: #23
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Mike,
Once, in a fit of optimism, I took time to correct some of the obvious errors in the article on Objectivism, which to this day remains much better than it was before I did the work. I subsequently discovered that several cults - that of Nathaniel Branden, for example, or of believers in "recovered memories" - keep watch to prevent the inclusion of facts contrary to their beliefs. I learned, from a couple of "edit wars," that articles that are of interest to those cults cannot be corrected, no matter how soundly the facts, that the cultists insist on keeping out, are known and documented. The Wikipedia does have interesting pointers to reference material, and so I use it to find those. If I come across some obvious error or a crucial omission in an article that, as far as I know, is not being watched by a dedicated group of cultists, I correct it in passing. But I think that failing to warn the reader of the Wikipedia, up front, about the "cultists' veto" is so counterproductive to the Wikipedia's presumed goal of public enlightenment, that its absence, and indeed the absence of any epistemic caveat on the front page, indicates a certain failure of responsibility.
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 at 21:53:12 mst
Comment ID: #24
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
Adam:
I haven't run into that. I've done more than 100,000 edits in six years. I'd need to see more specifics before I could be sure of what you're referring to. Can you give me the URLs for specific edits you have in mind?
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| Friday, September 12, 2008 at 0:27:25 mst
Comment ID: #25
Name: Adam Reed
E-mail: adamreedatalumdotmitdotedu
URL: http://www.calstatela.edu/faculty/areed2
Mike,
Maybe mathematics is not of enough interest to cultists - and the bulk of your edits have been in math. I don't have time to get you a specific URL, but I know that you can find the history of my edits, and comments and discussions and reversals of those edits by the Nathaniel Branden cult, for the "Ayn Rand" article, easily enough. Please contact me by e-mail for additional instances if you wish.
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| Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 11:05:39 mst
Comment ID: #26
Name: Mike Hardy
E-mail: hardy(at)math.umn.edu
So how did Jimbo's talk turn out? Can one hear it via the web?
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