On the communist point you make, people fear communism because . . . it simply doesn’t work and has been proven not to work.

Congratulations on regurgitating the textbook response! In fact, we don’t have enough evidence of communism in any system to judge its merits. The “but people will be lazy” argument is a bit of a logical fallacy, because it suggests that a communist system must still maintain the same high-speed, caffeine-induced, competitive market that we see in capitalism.

The very concepts of work and productivity are arbitrary - Our perceptions of what a “job” really means is defined by our social structure and culture. The 8-hour workday is an arbitrary level of productivity that most people embrace as the norm, when it is not much more than a selected value.

Your “view” of communism and all its failures are based upon the belief that a communist system must still support a rote-memorization schooling system where students are selected by a status-quo of intelligence to be sent to universities where they will be further required to rote-memorize and regurgitate information. This education then enables a person to work daily for the rest of their life in a productivity-driven job with a limited scope. Henry Ford taught us that the most productive workers are those whose job is simplified to a few simple, mundane tasks.

Since our goal is productivity, this drone-like system is effective. However, it is not the only way to bring about productivity, satisfaction and personal welfare. When people are engaged in things they truly enjoy, they are more likely to be productive in doing them. If people are given freedom to move laterally to any job that piques their interest, they will gravitate to the tasks that interest them and do so productively.

To understand communism, you have to remove all preconceptions of education, labor, wealth and so on. A proper communist is not a flaky government applied to a superficially capitalist world. For communism to work effectively, an entire transformation in the human psyche must first occur.

Of course, we will never reach that point due to our biased view of what communism is (your response being a case in point)

PS. Sorry for derailing. In regards to the post itself, I agree fully that Wikipedia is an extremely useful educational resource. So what if there is the occasional error? It’s not like the education system has never taught wrong information to its students. Teachers should always emphasize the importance of skepticism in learning - If they have done so effectively, then a small error in an otherwise vast library of knowledge will not be detrimental to their students education.

Of course, the school system doesn’t teach skepticism because its job is not to create students who think. The main purpose of the education system is to create citizens that obey any rules that they are given. The rote-education on top of that is more a facade then anything.

Too bad.

That’s it. The author of the book I was reading noted that the other author had to mention it because other authors and academics would attack the book as inaccurate if he did not. He noted genocide after a long paragraph that basically softened up the reader for the stunning fact that Columbus killed thousands and thousands of American Indians. He basically made excuses for Columbus.

The reason I like Wikipedia is that it opens up each topic for debate. Each side can cite their sources, etc.

When reading one book on a subject, you always have to worry about the author’s bias, and the possibility that he or she is glossing over some facts, etc etc.

bah I have no time, sorry. What I am trying to say is that I will take Wikipedia over most books because at least I know many people debated/argued over the content of that article. As James Loewen says “History is NOT facts, it is furious debate.”

With wikipedia, the debate is always ongoing….