Everything is Miscellaneous Ch. 7-8

I like the idea that knowledge is becoming more of a social act. I also like knowing that I can be regarded as an individual rather than the whole when it comes to my interests. I like miscellaneousness over men in a board room making decisions for me. Weinberger says, “Authorities have long filtered and organized information for us, protecting us from what isn’t worth our time and helping us find what we need to give our beliefs a sturdy foundation” (132). But what do these so-called authorities know about me? How do they know what I want filtered or what things I want to know? How can they possibly filter and organize information in a way that works for every single individual? Maybe it’s “comforting” knowing that somebody has taken the time to filter things that are useless, but maybe it’s also made us more skeptical. I certainly don’t believe everything I see or hear anymore. I have turned into somebody that questions everything. Is it because of something like wikipedia that has made me this way?

I don’t use wikipedia for any type of academic work, unless I am looking for the basic knowledge of an unknown “something” and just need a quick answer. But I never use wikipedia for more “important” things like research, because everyone knows that you can’t count on it being a credible source since you don’t know who the information is coming from. But in a way, I also think it’s reassuring that wikipedia posts notices like “the neutrality and factual accuracy of this article are disputed” (see page 140 for more). It allows me to go through the page with some ease, knowing that I don’t have to question whether it’s credible or not, because they’ve already come out and stated that it may not be.

This made me think of the in-class group assignment we did the other day. One group used the freevibe.com website, and it was pointed out that the information on the page wasn’t all factual, and we wondered where it was even coming from. We also noticed the “staging” of the pictures that were used, and the fact that the testimonials were clearly hand chosen (because a website against using drugs isn’t going to post anything that goes against their stance, like a post that says, “Drugs are fine. I’ve been using them for years and blah blah blah…you get my point”). And this goes back to the reading where Weinberger points out how newspaper stories are usually “presented as nothing less than rock solid,” and “letters to the editor [are] carefully selected by the editors” (141). What can we trust anymore? Who can we trust anymore? What are the proper ethics, and who has the authority to choose what and how much of something should be included?

On another note, I also liked the section on how social knowing changes who does the knowing and how. The description of students doing their homework while they have multiple instant messages going on, comparing answers, and asking for help on questions was pretty much describing me in high school (and from what I’ve seen on other students laptops in some of my classes, describes some students still today). But whereas standardized testing valued individual knowledge, this other type values social learning. I believe both are important, but clearly the latter is becoming more and more useful and relevant today. I’m a big fan of collaboration, or what Weinberger refers to as conversation. And if I like this type of learning, I suppose I like the idea of wikipedia and how it allows group knowledge to evolve (though there are still concerns obviously). But at least in this case, “what you learn isn’t prefiltered and approved, sitting on a shelf, waiting to be consumed” (146), although that type of learning still has value too.