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| ▲ | hayst4ck 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | OK, I can't argue with that. Timothy Snyder might make a similar correction, "markets can't be free, only people participating in the market can be free" is something he says frequently. If only people can have commitments to truth, which organization, institution, or media do you think has a leader that seems to have a commitment to truth, especially truth in their institution? Who is our gold standard of "as good as it gets"? | | |
| ▲ | flanked-evergl 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | I think for very scientific and technical matters that is entirely divorced from politics Wikipedia is fine, not great, but entirely serviceable. For everything else I won't trust it, which sadly includes matters of war and history, as almost all causal claims about the world rests on counter factuals, and therefore does not merely depend on what is. Politics also concerns what ought to be, not what is, and most editors of Wikipedia do not agree with me regarding what ought to be or even how one should determine what ought to be. Wikipedia would do better if they could figure out a way to manage bias rather than try to eliminate it. I don't want to be overly critical. Wikipedia is useful, but it's really very far from ideal and I would not want my tax money going anywhere near it. | | |
| ▲ | orwin 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Wikipedia is a great point of entry for history. Roughly ~20 years behind current academic research on most subjects, makes it 10 to 40 years more advanced than other encyclopaedia and school curriculums. But its value is on the bibliography. You have research papers linked, which makes it infinitely better than most other sources. The only way to get closer to the truth in history is rigorous demonstrations, and those only exist in academic papers. The view on Wikipedia on the French revolution are mostly Furet's views, which is 20 years behind, as it is the case in the Anglo world. Furet isn't the only one cited in Wikipedia though, and his point of view is nuanced with research from the 90s and 2000s, all with links to actual research. The last time I checked, research from JCM on the recently (late 2000s) discovered 'archives du comité' isn't discussed yet there, but all that makes it infinitely better than encyclopaedia brittanica. Infinitely. | |
| ▲ | hayst4ck 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Do you have any examples to show why I shouldn't trust it in regards to political topics or history? You also really avoided the "what's better"/"what's a better model" question. Social consensus, consent, and political mandate aren't ideas that can be hand waived away, they matter and they effect you and they are deeply impact by what people perceive to be true. So the question still stands, if you mention a topic like Mao's cultural revolution, where should I go to get a primer and verify that the way you're talking about it appears to be grounded in reality. |
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