Wikipedia I Love You

Or not? Wikipedia is the real revolution in our time and age. What do you think?

A few days ago I finished reading @JaneFriedman' 'The Future Of Publishing: Enigma Variations'. It's an ebook that made me smile. Lovely to read. I became quickly aware that I'm very, very fond of Wikipedia. According to me it's the real revolution of our digital era.

Revolutions connected to books:

• 3,000 BC species 'homo sapiens' learned writing [source]
• 800 BC Homer wrote down the stories of an oral tradition in a book [source]
• 15th century more efficient book printing [source]
• present time digital revolution [source]

I learned nothing new in Jane's book. (Although she gave me views on things I hadn't thought of before.) Not because I know everything ;) but because it seems a natural thing to me that the publishing business is changing. The power of writers, readers, publishers and critics is being shaken up. Remember this. Jobs come and go. When we look back in history we find out that jobs are like a river. The exact definition on what to do (and don't) is never the same. Never! Water floats and floats. The #farmer of today is not the same as the farmer 50, 100, 500 or 1,000 or  10,000 years ago. 

Books made it possible for us to transcend our oral tradition. It was a prerequisite for science. It made us smarter. Much smarter. It gave us doctors who can cure patients. It gave us TV and social media. It connected everyone of us on planet Earth 24/7. It made it possible that you can read these lines now.

What will the digital revolution bring us? Are we able to "see" that now? 

What I see now is this: books made it possible to remember what was said in the oral tradition. It made it possible to chew and ruminate on ideas and assumptions. It made us smarter. To be more exact: it made some of us smarter. Those who had access to books. 

The digital revolution will bring all our books online. It will bring all our information and knowledge online. Condensed in Wikipedia. The scholar of today is not a male who ruminated everything on a given subject. Today all of us are scholars. Partly scholars. Most of the time taking information. Only sometimes adding information on Wikipedia.

Wikipedia makes all of us smarter. Much smarter. To be more exact: it makes all of us smarter who have access to Wikipedia. I don't trust in GAAd. I trust on Wikipedia.

P.S. Real book reviews on Jane's book: eCapris and Christina Katz