User:Moni3/Cogs, Trees, and the Forest

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Things seem so different when you pass through that door.

Welcome to Wikipedia. What a fascinating journey to experience here, where knowledge is shaped by professors and dropouts, students and secretaries, and experts and dilettantes alike. What a beautiful concept, that anyone can jump in and pursue a passion and present it to millions of people who may be curious about it. Most of us came here the same way, by reading articles and thinking there was something we could do to help out. Crossing over the threshold from reader to editor is a learning experience on many levels. Behind the curtain is a culture full of people who are enthusiastic about the goals of presenting good accurate information, free to millions. Also back here are the inevitable foils of human nature. Not being aware of them and falling victim to the cycles and patterns makes many editors' careers entirely too short.

One of the facets of Wikipedia I find most wonderful is the light speed that people change perceptions of knowledge. Rather than relying on a generation's worth of printed text that may be the traditional and commonly held belief, and having to wait another generation or so for people to change their minds about an issue, discussions are held on article talk pages that add foreign perspectives to issues, making them wonderfully ambiguous. After all, so few issues are black and white. The speed of this idea exchange, however, may come at too great a price for many. It is the duality of fast and accessible knowledge. I don't find that we as humans have a limited capacity for shifting our constructs, but it is my view that the approach will affect how successful we are in remaining vital members of this community.

[edit] Alliances and acceptance

To understand what can happen is to understand human behavior a bit. Standing on a street corner with two other people, most will align themselves with one of the two. People cannot seem to help these alliances. In the physical world, they are based on appearance, gender, wealth, language, and culture, and what can be immediately seen and understood. We all make these judgments about who we trust and who we don't. We have to make them quickly, too, or it can be dangerous. Here behind the curtain, much like any other internet forum, may be the embodiment of Martin Luther King's dream: here, where there are no appearances, we are judged solely on the content of our characters instead of the physical trappings that keep people apart. Realizing for the first time that your character and contributions are highly valued can be wonderfully intoxicating, quite literally. Our brains may be overcome with whatever biochemical is released when we feel the pleasure of acceptance into a group. What a rush, and what a reward it is!

One can argue, I suppose, that like addicts, we continue on with our behavior to get to feel that rush, yet it comes in smaller doses after the newness has worn away. Like a new friend or love affair borne of excitement, we can see only what is good and beautiful and exclude all else until the inevitable. Those fast friends and hot affairs don't last too long, though. Everyone has warts, and smells a bit from time to time. Much the same can be said about newcomers to any group, here on the internet or in your company, church, club, or even marriage. Once the initiation into the group has been established newcomers start to realize what faults there are, and it brings them to a junction with many choices of how to proceed.

[edit] The best named theory of all time

Do you think if we argue about what color the cogs are, we'll be able to get there sooner?

Like on the street corner, the alliances that form when two or more people get together compounds in degrees and intensity as more members of a group interact. This I call the Theory of Exponential Sucking, or TES. The goal of the group becomes less important than the alliances formed by its members. As more members are added, so are alliances, and the organization has the potential to be halted by dysfunction as the majority of people work to maintain their alliances and compete with others. In government, this is called politics. In your family, this is called Thanksgiving.

People can create cultural operations to reinforce the inertia brought on by TES. They try to figure out how to make the dysfunction more streamlined. They praise those who have been particularly effective at it in the past, thereby creating heroes and role models for those in the future. They create awards, instruct others, and strategize about how to make the dysfunction more successful. The goal becomes perverted, from that of a grand vision, to individual glory, ego, and maintenance of what power one may hold, sometimes most tragically, resulting in the destruction of the original grand vision. If, for example, the grand vision is to reach a location by 5:00, in a group deeply affected by TES, people reduce themselves to arguing over the cogs within the watch, and find a greater reward in arguing over the cog than arriving at their destination on time.

[edit] Patterns and cycles

The inevitable result is burnout. Members who are truly dedicated to the grand vision get frustrated and leave realizing that the majority of their colleagues are disinterested in the vision. Members who have participated in TES realize abruptly the counterproductiveness of their actions, and leave disillusioned with the group and with themselves. The group as a whole may dissolve or lack cohesiveness. Patterns may repeat themselves over and over. A group may be furiously productive for a few months, fall off as people leave and newcomers full of enthusiasm join, and the cycle repeats itself.

People are who they are, and we all come to groups with our own baggage and hidden desires and motivations. Perhaps TES is the result of human nature. Such tragedies occur all throughout history, in small groups like families, or between nations. This would suggest that there really is no nope for humanity or Wikipedia, because people cannot keep themselves from screwing things up. However, what if this kind of behavior is, after all, more like an addiction? What if, like nicotine and cigarettes, we exist with cultural rewards for maintaining the biochemical rushes we get from acceptance from those we hold in high esteem, or the victory of competition, much like cigarettes were advertised and so commonly accepted two generations ago, that one was truly lacking if one didn't smoke? That suggests a long, difficult road accepting one's addiction to this kind of behavior, but that it may be overcome with hard work and understanding.

[edit] Forests and trees

Nice.

Ultimately, it is every individual's decision to determine why he or she belongs to a group; why you're here. Is it the grand vision of creating and improving accurate and well-written articles, or has it become something else? Consequently, if it has become something else, each person must decide if he or she continues to find a reward in the cog, or focus on arriving at 5:00, and walk away from a lifetime's worth of learned maintenance of dysfunction. Trees by themselves are beautiful things. Forests, one can argue, are even more beautiful because all the trees are working together in balance. Keep your eyes on the prize, grand vision, and the forest.^[1] Everything else is the trapping of illusion.

[edit] See also

• Public education
• Watergate
• War in Iraq
• Vietnam War
• Seminole Wars
• Restoration of the Everglades
• Thalidomide
• And the Band Played On
• Hurricane Katrina
• Enron
• Daughters of Bilitis
• Animal Farm
• Feel free to add more