Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia said in a recent interview, “But for basic factual information, I think having an open public dialogue and debate and democratic process, seems to be very powerful.” Basic factual information, as anyone knows, depends not one whit on public dialogue and debate, nor on the democratic process. What’s he thinking? Facts are facts, and no amount of talking will change them. What he’s talking about is truth. He’s talking about the internet, and particularly his Wikipedia, as becoming the incarnation of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Truth, however, is not the same as fact. Truth is a quality of language, not a quality of the world. Facts are qualities of the world; truth is what we say about them. Or rather, in some of the things we say about them. But I get the feeling Wales really isn’t talking about basic factual information. That he’s not really talking about basic or factual, but just about information; and moreover, about information being truth. Or, to put it in the form of the well-known modern leftist lie: perception is reality.
Now I don’t know this man’s politics, and I’m not accusing him of any. But I do know the fog of leftism is everywhere. It clouds peoples thinking even when they’re not aware of it. Leftist ideas are like cow patties in the sun – looks dry on the outside, but step in it and you’ll literally step in it. And Wales idea steps in it. All it takes to change from accurate, truthful information to disinformation are efforts like this one. Suppose it’s to the advantage of some cabal that Doc Holiday is proven to be a Clanton mole. Just get enough people to edit wikis, to write blogs, to challenge any other interpretations, and after enough of this the people will think it’s the truth. Get enough people to think that we work backwards from information to basic facts, or rather from disinformation to basic facts, and you change people’s perception of reality (regardless that you haven’t changed reality). And because of this they become endangered and dependent on the disinformer – how to create power the leftist way. Isn’t that just what Jimmy claimed, that such a method “seems to be very powerful?”
