9 comments

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  Nick Carr

  3 years ago

  Mathew, when it comes to my writing, you are one of the most creative inferers (inferrers?) that I've come across. I think it's called "reading with your imagination." Anyway, I don't remember saying, or implying, that numbskulls were "Web 2.0’s biggest problem." Just to be sure, though, I went and checked my list of "The 100 Biggest Problems with Web 2.0" (I keep it under my pillow), and I found that, actually, "numbskulls" comes in at #27. Nick
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  Nick Carr

  3 years ago

  To put that in context, by the way, #26 is "the proliferation of AJAX pop-up boxes" and #28 is "Canada." Nick
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  Mathew

  3 years ago

  Thanks for the comment, Nick -- and the compliment. At least, I'm going to take it as a compliment :-) And I could have sworn that numbskulls was up in the top 10 at least. As for your gratuitous anti-Canadian slander, I'm going to ignore it, and assume that you've been drinking.
  
  All joking aside, though, it was a thought-provoking post, and that puts you right up there with the blogosphere's elite -- but then, you knew that already :-)
  
  Mathew
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  mark evans

  3 years ago

  I wonder what mr. carr has against wikipedia. it's far from perfect but it is quickly becoming one of the reference tools on the web. perhaps he should start making contributions to wikipedia to ensure it's not dominated by "numbskulls".
  
  mark
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  Bill Brantley

  3 years ago

  Beautiful comments on Mr. Carr's complaints of Web 2.0 numbskulls. I am really puzzled by why he would post this argument considering that in every field of new knowledge, there are many ideas that turn out be wrong but it is the constant refinement of these ideas that allows us to get closer to the truth - Popper's concept of the working hypothesis.
  
  I also wrote a response to Mr. Carr and even got a mention on his posting under the Update section. But Mr. Carr chose to sidestep my argument that his thesis is fundamentally flawed because it is essentially a teleological argument. http://eclecticbill.blogspot.com/2006/04/wisdom-of-numbskulls.html
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  Mathew

  3 years ago

  Thanks for the comment, Bill -- and I would agree that a big part of the problem with Nick's analysis is that it hinges on who gets to decide (and how they decide) who qualifies as a "numbskull."
  
  Mathew
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  Seth Finkelstein

  3 years ago

  I think the problem is that when you try to mine the collective intelligence of a group of people, you also have to deal with their collective stupidity. Otherwise, committees would be sure-fire recipes for genius.
  
  Wikipedia is sometimes like listening to a huge committee where the chair of the committee insists that readers only praise the good parts of its efforts and not count any bad results.. All the while talking about how great committees are, in terms of being a management innovation.
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  Mathew

  3 years ago

  Unfortunately, democracy is kind of like that too, but the benefits tend to outweigh the disadvantages. And as someone once said, democracy is the worst form of government out there -- except for all the others.
  
  Mathew
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  Seth Finkelstein

  3 years ago

  Wikipedia is not "democracy". It is a pet project of rich guy, who holds ultimate power over it, delegates lesser power, and can't ever be removed.
  
  Morever, "democracy" as a system of political organization is one thing, as a method of determining encyclopedia accuracy, quite another.
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