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Wiki Nation

One of the most popular internet sites, as I sure most or all of my readers know if Wikipedia. (if not see: http://www.wikipedia.org/) Wikipedia, the online, cooperatively written, encyclopedia is remarkable in that, though almost anyone can write or edit it's articles, it has been proven to be more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica.   This in spite of some saboteurs now and then.  It seems that the multitude of willing volunteers corrects mistakes, accidental or deliberate, and finds references for undocumented items, much more efficiently than a single expert. Wikipedia is a horse built by committee that does not look like a camel, but in fact like a fine Arabian steed.

Yesterday my post dealt with ways to create a society that was simultaneously more egalitarian and freer.  I dealt with big ideas like  subsidiarity, communitarianism, etc.
(see http://roominhouseblues.blogspot.com/2010/11/some-ideas-on-greater-equality-without.html)

Today I wanted to focus on a way of cooperating, the Wiki idea.  In a sense it's a very old idea, the idea that many hands make light work.  The idea of distributing the labor. But reframed with --I will leave it there for you, part done, and some of you can finish it.  The idea of a project that   can be contributed to at any time from many sources.  It's the wonder of the computer age and cybernetics that this is possible.

It may be possible that certain parts of our economic and political organization can be done this way.   Perhaps we can engage in cooperative trading organizations with a multiplicity of suppliers using the computer network.  The application of Wiki to Time Share organizations might be interesting.  Wiki is ultimately an application of the principle of subsidiarity.  Well reader--any ideas on this?

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