----- Original Message ----- From: "Gary Nunn" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Brin Mail List" <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, August 25, 2007 9:15 PM Subject: Wikipedia transparency
> > Wikipedia Unmasked http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Best_of_BJAODN Some of the best Wikipedia edits in history have been hoax/joke edits like this one: "Bexley Hall has a unique set of governing laws. Many dormitories throughout the United States have meager, impotent governmental bodies operated by either photogenic male sociopath proto-politicians or detail-obsessed sexually-repressed females bent on attaining perfection at the cost of their humanity (some examples: Kathy Lee-Gifford, Tracy Flick). Bexley hall is different. According to noted anarchist thinker Rudolph Rocker, Bexley Hall is an "... oddly prescient example of what the future anarcho-syndicalist living situation should resemble... truly a place where the calcified rotten husk of formalist government has been upended, pulped, and made into rolling papers for the smoking of intoxicating plants." Bexley Hall was first to understand that government by people (or even robots) was inefficient and error prone. People tend to be afflicted with 'principles' and 'morality', they are also subject to 'reality'. Bexley was the first institution to institute a de-facto illusory governing construct, pre-dating Foucault's deconstructionist theories by some two decades. As the case of Ronald Reagan amply demonstrates, in this age of mass-media, people do not want and cannot tolerate being ruled by humans. They want to be ruled by myths. Mythological rulers are more appealing, more effective, and ultimately more cost effective for all. They transcend the straightjackets of 'objectivity', 'consistency', 'honesty', and 'ethics' that hampered previous non-constructed leaders. Actual politics is quite boring and will not satisfy the current generations of television and internet-saturated entertainment consumers. Expecting these consumers to have any working knowledge of history (or even the present) that will allow them to differentiate 'fact' from 'fantasy' is far too much to ask. Anything with a semantic content more sophisticated than People Magazine is difficult and disturbing for the average American. In the year 1920, Bexley-based political scientists experimented with the 'construct' idea. It was considered absurd, irresponsible, and nihilistic -- because it was, and the creators said so themselves. They suspended research in 1941 to work on Radar, and were hired again by HUAC in the early 1950's. Their stunning success was noted in governmental circles and a project was inaugurated to unify the powers of Hollywood and Washington to create a cross-national axis of delusion. The Bexleyites called this elaborate, highly-funded secret operation PROJECT REAGAN. Through a miracle of public relations firm moxie and animatronic genius, the Reagan-bot broke down the barriers between fantasy and reality in a masculine fashion. By 1980 the transfer to a completely fantasy-based system of political economy was complete when Ronald Reagan was elected President of the United States. The purposely fantastical and delusional actions of the government caused the fall of the Soviet Union when the Russian government realized they could not compete with the sheer entertainment power of the United States. The United States' systematic program of voluntary, incentive-based stupidification was far more successful than the Soviet Union's program of forced, involuntary stupidification. Racing to catch up, Gorbachev implemented Perestroika and Glastnost to try and compete, but by the end of the decade America's PROJECT YELTSIN seized power and implemented a foreign style delusion-based system of political economy, creating a fantastic narrative where the President was a drunken buffoon who fired one Prime Minister after another, suspended democracy on multiple occasions by dismissing the Duma, and even sent forth tanks to fire on the nation's highest legislative body. An interesting side-note was the creation of the Cheap Vodka Party, a short-lived group of politicians who were promising and, based on the absurdity of their premise, capable of seizing power over the world's largest country; until they were upended by the fantastically funny and fanatical Vladimir Zhironovsky, who threatened to take back Alaska from the United States if elected. Cheap vodka is one thing, but promising frivolous war on a nuclear power is clearly the trump card of balderdash. This article was written by Marc Rios, a former resident of Bexley." If it were not for the short-attention-spans of these younger folks, we would have a much richer and more diverse crop of satirists and comedic writers. Perhaps it is just me, but I find the quoted edit to be hilarious, not just because it is silly, but it twists the historical record in such a way to reflect a biting sarcasm contemporaneous with the times it describes. I remember people joking in a similar manner during the Reagan years but this piece ties it all together quite nicely. I don't know that Wikipedia can remain independent, objective, and transparent over the long haul. But I sure would like to see them succeed. The numerous opportunities for humorous discourse at the expense of the site certainly stand out as just one impediment. The Upper Peninsula War is another fine example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Hanger65/Upper_Peninsula_War xponent What Might Have Been Maru rob _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
