Archive:Stories: Difference between revisions

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+{{cquote|Wikipedia is amazing.  It is everyone's first go to tool.  When I was completing my degree in biological anthropology at Boston University, I was consistently surprised that citing wikipedia wasn't an acceptable means of demonstrating research, but it was still the place to start any academic or intellectual inquiry for everyone from the 85 year old professors, to the grad students, and obviously to the undergrads
+I have since been deep in an ethnographic field research pursuit that has taken me to multi-million dollar board meetings, needle exchange public health clinics, the top of the state house up on beacon hill, and face to face with the reality of the disconnect between what people are and what they imagine themselves to be.
+With some of my research informants, we have concluded that the definition of 'voters' are people who vote for who they wish they were, not for who they are.
+Often this behavior ends up with them hurting themselves in the process.  As in the case of tenants who vote down rent control on the theory that some day they will be landlords.  It doesn't matter that mathematically there must always be more landlords than tenants, and that realistically the chance of becoming a landlord is heavily weighted against them.  The majority believes they are going to win the lottery, even if they are not, and so they help protect those with the power to hurt them.
+These people are fundamentally disconnected from reality, and more than unwilling to acknowledge it, unaware it is even there.
+There fantasy played out creates their nightmare.
+However, every now and again the person you wish you were, and the culture you wish you lived in are one where resources are treated with respect, made free and available to all equally and built one stick at a time by everyone to last by growing and changing with the world.  When the fools who wish to live in that world vote you get Wikipedia.
+Wikipedia provides the arena for the imaginative to imagine and the inquisitive to seek answers, indiscriminately, unselfishly, and with the maturity to admit when they are wrong.
+I am proud to support an organization that is smart enough to be malleable and brave enough to be free. }}
+<hr>
 {{cquote|Wikipedia represents much more than a well indexed and valuable resource of human knowledge.  It is a demonstration of the creative power of humanity, decentralized but not disorganized.  In addition to referencing the content multiple times daily, the idea of wikis has spread to my industry as a way of organizing all of the complex medical knowledge in the world.  Who wouldn't want to see this succeed?  And so I have contributed just a little bit to help. }}