Knowledge. Isn’t it possible that all of us are wrong? Most of the time? About most things? How many of us really understand any of the issues we talk about so willingly: politics, science, world affairs? How much time do we spend trying to convince other people to listen to our own take on topics of which we have but a relatively poor grasp and based on the slimmest of background data?
The main reason holding me back on getting down to actually writing a wikigovernment manifesto is the great, big, obvious, staring-in-your-face question: “What if I’m wrong?”
What indeed?
What if not only am I wrong, but what if it also makes things worse?
This is of course entirely possible.
But democracy is a very example of how things political can go wrong, particularly with money and lobbying. I don’t know how far things can go wrong on Wikipedia, but I’m certain it has its own shortcomings. Other than reliability, perhaps the most obvious issue is vandalism. This ranges from silly pranks and hoaxes through serious defamation, malicious errors and lies, “revenge-editing”, deletions, posting fake photos, attacks on pages found distasteful, etc. And then there’s the problem of Wikipedia regulars becoming “owners” of certain topics and trashing other would-be contributors’ attempts to add their own input.
Dunning-Kruger meet Impostor Syndrome meet Self-Regard Tendency meet Confirmation Bias
What the hell do I know about politics, about economics, about running a country? I can barely run a bath.
Although the word ‘economics’ comes from the Greek οἰκονομία, for household management, running a country is not the same as running a house, and yet…
And yet there are similarities:
Linnaeus has already shown us how: take life and break it down into component parts, from the incomprehensible jumble of global biomass, through lions and tigers to tardigrades, bacteria and viruses, down to amino acids, molecules and the humorously-named bits and pieces of atomic chemistry that keep things going.
Spit-balling here.
Is there a nation in the world that has an efficient, evidence-based system of government?
Democracy may be the least-bad form of government, but it should also be the most open to democratic improvement.
Does voting do this, and why not?
Pretty much every political issue lies on one or more continua: