3 ms·

A thing that bothers me is that Jimmy Wales, a founder of and arguably the face of Wikipedia, is also the founder and president of Fandom, Inc. (2004–present)

• whstl 2y ago
  Jimmy Wales lost my respect with Wikia itself, even before it was acquired. There was a huge push in Wikipedia in the 2010s to delete content that could be moved into Wikia/Fandom, and a huge amount of quality information was removed. It was clear the goal was to pump views in the money-making website. Then we only saw Wikia becoming Fandom and getting progressively worse.
• marxisttemp 2y ago
  Jimbo is a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and as such I find it unsurprising that he has created both a wonderful, decentralized, communitarian project as well as a capitalistic nightmare. Libertarians are essentially anarchists who selectively turn their brains off when they see dollar signs.
  • mardifoufs 2y ago
    I think you're talking about the other wikipedia founder, no? Jimbo might have some libertarian tendencies too but they haven't been super visible in the way he directed the wiki. But yeah, his involvement with wikia is a huge stain
    • marxisttemp 2y ago
      Nope, I am talking about Jimbo. From that website he founded: > Wales has previously referred to himself as an Objectivist, referring to the philosophy of writer Ayn Rand in the mid-20th century that emphasizes reason, individualism, and capitalism.
      • sph 2y ago
        What has objectivism got to do with anarchism? I take offence at being put in the same pile as Rand fanatics.
        • marxisttemp 2y ago
          I’m an anarchist too, and I would also take offense to being lumped in with libertarians! I only meant to say that they often seem to have the seeds of an anarchism in some of their thinking e.g. individual liberty and volunteerism, but then immediately embrace contradictory positions due to their inability to critique property.
          • card_zero 2y ago
            I was an anarchist as a child because I read a short dictionary definition, maybe describing it as meaning "without rules", and I figured that was what I wanted in life. Then I graduated to libertarianism as a teenager. Then in my 20s I encountered people who really called themselves anarchists, and they were all basically socialists with a sprinkling of individualism, which seemed incoherent because the socialism is all about taking people's property away for "the public" (which definitely won't ever turn into for the state, right?) ... so I sadly had to stop using the word "anarchy" since the dictionary had apparently misled me and nobody is just purely against being ruled. But, I must say, I'm increasingly easy-going about the whole thing. I don't claim to know how things should be arranged, tax me if you must, assign me to clean the communal latrines, do what you like, such is life. I will generally assume that we're all getting it wrong, regardless of viewpoint.
            • everforward 2y ago
              There are sub-families of anarchism, and you would be correct that the predominant form at the moment is a flavor of socialist anarchy. The purported relation to anarchy is that the world would be split into tons of small, self-organized communities that individuals are absolutely free to join and leave at will. I tend to agree that it makes far more sense to call it socialism with some individualist facets than anarchy with some socialist attributes. What you’re describing would be closer to individualist anarchy or philosophical anarchy. Individualist anarchy believes the right of the individual is paramount, excepting when the rights of two individuals clash. Philosophical anarchy is the general belief that the desires of individuals should not never be co-opted because one person can never morally justify forcing another to do something and thus governments can never be moral as their entire reason to exist is to wield the monopoly on violence against individuals to override their will. Individuals are of course still free to join groups and abide their rules if they choose, but those groups would not be able to enforce any kind of agenda against its members.
  • booleandilemma 2y ago
    Are they turning their brains off or on?
    • marxisttemp 2y ago
      Depends on whether you think it’s possible for property to be used as a means of curtailing individual liberty, or whether individual liberty is fundamentally rooted in private property. I believe the former, and as such I find libertarianism to be ideologically inconsistent.