FT2 vs. SlimVirgin, The end is near! Options

[Shalom]

I can't make this up. SlimVirgin might be desysopped for unblocking Giano.

Read all about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Req...:_re_SlimVirgin

[Son of a Yeti]

I can't make this up. SlimVirgin might be desysopped for unblocking Giano.

What's the hoopla about? If you lets the project be ruled by unstable personalities and teenagers you gets what you deserve.

Sometimes the admin crowd reminds me of the Lord of the flies bunch.

[Milton Roe]

Sometimes the admin crowd reminds me of the Lord of the flies bunch.

No!!! That really would be scary, all right.

Probably we should have a count of the number of new people who show up and make this observation. You get intelligence points for doing it; on the other hand, it's sort of a necessary insight which everybody has to go through on their own.

I was pondering one of these early witchhunts the other night, after a special on the History Channel. I had long known of some of the history of the Athenian Alcibiades, who one historian describes as a sort of combination of JFK and George Patton (if you can imagine this). Just before his Sicilian expedition in 415 BC there was an incident in Athens where the hermai (statues of Hermes with other symbols) were defaced. After which, there was an absolutely classic witchhunt, ala Salem and McCarthyism. Everybody blamed everybody else, seeking to gain political advantage; people gave up their associates out of fear for themselves, etc. Alcibiades was about to leave for Sicily and rightly suspected this was going to be used to smear him after he left, but he was unsuccessful at forcing a public trial where he could defend. After he left, it was held and his property was confiscated and he was sentenced to death in absentia. This, in democratic Athens! This caused him to defect to Sparta in the first of a dramatic series of moves which you really have to read to believe.

Anyway, leaving Alcibiades, I have to reiterate my belief that the large brain of humans was developed for throwing rocks and for social gameplaying, influding witchfinding. We're not rational animals; we're WITCHFINDING animals. That's what we do. Except for team-hunting (which is now approximated by team sports) and foodprocessing that's most of what we do in public. In private, add childcare and trying to get laid. Our social system is shifting networks of trying to figure out who to blame for the latest screwup. "Primitive religion" consists almost entirely of this.

Wikipedia's social structure is but an example, and a somewhat infuriating one, since the characters are semi-anonymous and their antics are so transparent. It's sort of a toy-witchfinding exercise in a bottle, as has also been pointed out (like reality TV where people are voted off the show or the island or whatever, regularly). We love these faux bloodsports because they resonate with the social processing structure of our brains.

So, on Wikipedia, they gang up and toss somebody ELSE out, regularly. It may even be SlimVirgin one day, sooner or later. There's no end to it. And yes, it's entertaining to us and the WP hoi polloi But where is the good? This is really the most primitive tribal state of humans, surviving even Athenian democracy (which was better than Wikipedian democracy). Surviving even American-style democracy, as we saw with Japanese internment, McCarthy, and this last spasm post-9/11 (now ending with the Obama election, methinks). Fortunately, in America, these things only last less than a decade, before people come to their senses. On Wikipedia, the whole experiment is only about as old as 9/11. Will it mature any faster than American society? I look at the long history of mankind, where this goes as far into the written record as you care to look, and probaby much much farther into prehistory--- and I despair.

Milton

[Newyorkbrad]

On Wikipedia, the whole experiment is only about as old as 9/11. Will it mature any faster than American society? I look at the long history of mankind, where this goes as far into the written record as you care to look, and probably much much farther into prehistory--- and I despair.
Milton

Looking into prehistory for analogies to Wikipedia? Milton, meet Moulton.