Why Wikipedia should be our source of knowledge (Unproofreaded)

Sorry I've been AFK for sometime, you might have guessed that I have been busy due to assignments. You are wrong. While I do have loads of work to do, I have been busy furthering my skills in the art of procrastinarianism. 

Yes, I have been diligently procrastinarinating the past few days and all I have to say is, I never thought youtube could be this interesting ^o^. In other news, this is a load of philosophy that I spewed a few days ago, just copy-pasting to keep my blog.. healthy :D

A week ago, I posted on facebook wondering if wikipedia were more reliable, it could actually replace textbooks for school children, making everyone's lives easier.

The most interesting thing I gathered from this, however, is the common notion that wikipedia is unreliable, it's rubbish. Why?

Because entries in wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and it has plenty of cases of false information. Some entries in wikipedia aren't even cited properly or academically, which casts even more doubts on the content.

Very logical and reasonable arguments, I'm sure. But I'm starting to disagree.

Reality creates discourse, and discourse creates reality. Reality can be described by words, and words, can create reality.

I'm not saying that by saying the seas will boil, I can cause it to happen, no. By reality, I mean social reality. I have a very strong belief that everything in human society is a construction, and the reality that we know, that every child should get educated, that boys look weird in skirts and girls look girlier in long hair, that every country needs a leader and you need a religion in order to die in peace, is all constructed.

In other words, as I like to say, it's all bullshit :D Everything in human society is as real as what I say in my blogposts. They only appear to be 'correct', 'the truth' or 'fact' and 'reality' because the grand majority believes in it. The majority of the world is male dominated only because most of us don't think like the women tribes in the Amazons. The same goes for every religion ^o^

I'm sure you're beginning to see where I'm going. If wikipedia can be edited by anyone, and most entries would be compiled by people who actually bother to contribute their knowledge,
the information on wikipedia might actually be the most reliable of them all! Especially if the information that stays on the page is information that is agreed upon by the majority of contributors.

Sometimes, I even come across entries in wikipedia that are conflicting. These are even more reliable, in my opinion. Why do a lot of the political savvy people read the alternative blogs of politicians? Everyone knows that it's because you should always hear both sides of the story, and relying solely on 'official' coverage and newspapers is literally giving in to the government's propaganda.

If people could think that way, then why isn't anyone thinking the same regarding wikipedia? In fact, why would anyone trust information from a singular source anymore? Because they're credible? I'm sure everyone has heard the story of the most 'reliable sources' such as history textbooks and how they can still be manipulated.

To put it simply, which would be more believable; an account of an incident from a single witness, or from multiple people that witnessed the incident seperately. By the way, have you watched the film Vantage Point? Damn that movie is awesome *_*

Of course, I'm totally discounting the fact that there are trolls and scammers that love to put up false information just to mislead people. What's interesting to me is that anyone passionate about the information on the page (which is anyone bothering to edit the content) would want to correct or add on to whatever they see on the page, and like I said earlier, the majority would decide what stays on the page.

Regardless on whether what the majority believes is actually true or not, after sometime, this belief would actually be the accepted truth and fact! Just because the majority believes it to be so! Isn't that exciting *_* Don't think such a thing will happen? Well here's an example of how false information can fool a whole bunch of people and have them accept it as reality;

I was eating with my friends and there was pita bread served. My dirty minded friends and I were pointing out how some of the lumps on the bread are shaped like ... nipples (sorry sorry please excuse me, let me finish =o=) and then I started to say that we're actually not that perverted/far off, because in arabic, pita means nipple. And what was amazing was that one of my friend played along with me, and we fooled everyone at the table *o* They weren't just layaning us, they really thought we were telling the truth! (I'm still amazed at how we were able to keep straight faces throughout)

...So yeah. Now imagine they told their other non-arabic speaking friends about this, and subsequently everyone in Malaysia thinks that pita = nipple. If that actually happened, (and believe me, it's so easy these days, "my friend said so, and he knew arabic!" silences so many doubts) it would become a Malaysian definition! :O This is how new words and definitions are made, and I believe the same can happen on a larger scale thanks to wikipedia.

And it's not a bad thing! Wikipedia is such an interesting platform *_* The fact that so many people are reffering to it, and contributing to it, really makes it a very, very powerful source of knowledge. Regardless of whatever other people say.

In fact, whenever I hear authorities preach about how wikipedia is unreliable and shouldn't be a source of information, the more I feel like it's a case of a position of power silencing the masses so that they can maintain their rule or monopoly on the 'truth'.

Sorry folks, but the truth can never be owned by anyone, in fact, it is never consistent and is constantly changing~ In my opinion, it's almost impossible to pin down a definition about anything, as everything depends on an individual's perception and thought process, and no two individuals think exactly the same :D

Yes, yes, this is all very abstract, and there is no way I'm trying to revolutionize the way we define anything, in fact, I'm not even advocating that! tl;dr: Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, and it will be fact to them as long as they stand by them~ *o*