Finding the Time
Monday, October 11, 2010 at 5:20AM Since starting this blog I have stopped using time constraints as an excuse. Reinforcing the fact that I have control over my time is one of the benefits of writing regularly for fun. Clearly this activity is not essential -- so if I have time to write on my blog every day, I must have time for a lot of other things.
This weekend I started reading Clay Shirky's Cognitive Surplus. Right in the beginning he sets up a very interesting contrast: Volunteers editing Wikipedia vs watching TV. Shirky estimates that the cumulative time spent on Wikipedia writing/editing is something like 100 million hours of human effort. Say what you will about Wikipedia, but I find it quite useful. I would trade 100 million hours of everyone's TV watching time to get a Wikipedia.
It turns out that Americans watch about 100 million hours of TV commercials -- every weekend. Can you believe that? We could create something as valuable as Wikipedia -- every weekend -- just by not watching the commercials on TV!
Clay Shirky, Wikipedia in New Media
Reader Comments (4)
As a fan of your blog I was taken aback a bit today. Did you seriously state that we could create something as valuable as Wikipedia -- every weekend -- just by not watching the commercials on TV???
Do you really think the people watching all those commercials every weekend are competent to update more than aobut 10 Wikipedia sections?
I suppose it is possible that we are fortunate to have TV controlling the people incapable of adding value to Wikipedia.
touche'
I suppose this leads to ourfavored topic-- education in America. (Like health care our very best are probably very good.) Unfortunately attempts to to improve the quality for vast numbers by focussing services on the unmotivated (for any number of reasons) just hasn't worked. In fact it's arguably created part of the problem.
Think about this--one area the US appears to continually dominate on a relative scale is in sports-- and in my opinion its not a coincidence that it's one of few areas where performance is the only standard and the rewards highly concentrated. Can we learn from that model?
The combination of your two points is really a powerful idea Ace. Trying to educate everyone (as opposed to just those that want to be educated) is clearly dragging down the system. In sports, no one is trying to make everyone a star. Millions try and a handful make it. With these two extremes as bookends, could we find a middle ground that would educate enough people to restore our competitiveness?