Talk:Wiki
First Thoughts... then Journals... then Blogs... now Wikis??[edit source]
Before the advent of written language, one's thoughts remained private except when explicitly expressed to others in personal interaction.
When written language was created, humans acquired the ability to transcribe their thoughts to paper, and show them to others, but remained limited by their ability to make those pieces of paper widely available. It was at this time that the practice of "journaling" began to take on popularity. Humans were able to put all their feelings and ideas onto paper, and, if they so desired, show them to friends at a later date. Or, if they felt comfortable enough, publish their diaries and disseminate them. Through case examples, we have found that reading the diaries of individuals such as Anne Frank and Charles Darwin provides great intellectual as well as emotional insight to the rest of society.
This brings us to the concept of blogs. With the creation of the World Wide Web, came the possibility for all individuals to create their own websites. Essentially a public digital journal, blogs widely allow individuals to read each others most sincere thoughts and feelings, acting as a catalyst for massive acceleration in learning and consciousness on our planet.
Today, as our technological capabilities have taken on even greater sophistication, humans have build sites called Wikis. Wikis are sites in which any individual can edit and add to the content of the website. Though this concept may at first seem unsustainable, it has proven itself to be not only sustainable, but vastly superior to the website model before it. Put another way, the operator of a website may fear that with total malleability, his site would eventually be overtaken by vandalism and lose all credibility. For some reason this is not quite what happened with wikipedia. To understand why, it may be helpful to consider the underlying philosophies that would tell us whether or not a wiki site would be successful. The view that making your site a wiki doesn't work is founded on the assumption that over time, more vandalism than contribution will be added to the site, leading your page to chaos. The view that wikis do work, is based on the hope that over time, more contribution than vandalism will be added to your site, causing it to grow and improve forever. With Wikipedia, this seems to be what has happened.
Returning to the concept of blogs, a very prevalent belief within our society is that one could not write a blog as a wiki because, as assumed with all other sites, chaos would conceivably take them over. However, since this has not proven to be the case with Wikipedia, there is little to no evidence that this would in fact happen. If we use Wikipedia as a model, an individual that opened his/her blog as a wiki would ultimately be facilitating a never-ending qualitative improvement in the content of their page. Applying this model to every other site on the internet, humans have the technological knowledge to make any site a wiki. If we can use Wikipedia or any of Wiki Media's projects as an example, this would result in a net improvement in the content of every website on the internet, acting as a catalyst for insight and consciousness worldwide the likes of which had never before been known.
Taken as a microcosm of this enormous realization, one might wonder how it would be possible to do ones part and bring about this global evolution. The first, most obvious answer is to change the way you express ideas and emotions. When you are able, instead of putting them in a book or secure blog, add them to a wiki. Experience tells us that your creations will receive more contribution than vandalism. This discussion post is but one example. Anyone in the future who finds a more concise way to word this concept, or enlightening point to add can do so simply by clicking edit. As a result, every idea sent forth on the internet will ultimately grow in ways that they never before could, and actually improve as it goes.
The profound implication of this discussion point is as follows.
Together, we will create a world that is qualitatively better than we could in isolation.
So, once you are ready, stop thinking, stop journaling, even stop blogging... and start contributing to Wikis. Together, we will take the locks off of every aspect of our society as we awaken together unto A New Earth.