Wikipedia and Holy Books Mis-analogy


It has been very long since I came across a passage that I so totally disagreed with, lines that I felt were as completely wrong on every front of this. The lines in question are from Jaron Lanier’s book, You Are Not A Gadget:
“Wikipedia, for instance, works on what I call the Oracle illusion, in which knowledge of the human authorship of a text is suppressed in order to give the text superhuman validity. Traditional holy books work in precisely the same way and present many of the same problems.”

So what do I find wrong in that? Hmmm, let’s see…

Holy books don’t hide their author? Really? What has this guy been drinking? All holy books derive their “truth” by claiming to come from God or some guy who claims to have seen, felt or experienced God.

Wikipedia, on the other hand, is by humans, for humans and of humans. The Wikipedia philosophy of making it not-so-obvious as to who wrote what encourages you to believe or question something based on your assessment of it, not based on the “authority” figure that wrote it!

Besides, what “same problems” does Wikipedia share with any holy book? When was the last time witches were burnt or a jihad fought based on anything anyone read on Wikipedia?

If just one passage from an unknown book could be so wrong, imagine how wrong any communist handbook must be?!

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