exploring fact city
I just read a lovely little NYTimes article, “Exploring Fact City,” about wikipedia. The article describes the working of wikipedia as akin to that of a growing city–“Since their creation, cities have had to be accepting of strangers — no judgments — and residents learn to be subtly accommodating, outward looking.” You might wonder what that has to do with gender, but I’m thinking of several connections. One is the dysfunctional city in Metropolis; the other is the history of urban gay enclaves-> the technological development of the city enabling the formation of social groups that had difficulty finding acceptance in rural areas.
And then, another: “The Civil Heretic,” about the currently-somewhat-wacky work of Freeman Dyson, “an undeterred octogenarian futurist”: “’I don’t think of myself predicting things…I’m expressing possibilities. Things that could happen….The purpose of thinking about the future is not to predict it but to raise people’s hopes’….Dyson was an optimistic American immigrant with tremendous faith in the creative imagination’s ability to invent technologies that would overcome any predicament….Dyson is himself the living embodiment of that kind of ingenuity.”
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I like comparing the article to Metropolis. Although, I think that Wikipedia is the opposite of Metropolis. It seems that there is an absence of gender in Wikipedia, because it is an “online city.”
I like the idea of an expansive city of facts. I feel like I’m saying this a lot, but it really brings up the idea of utopia. Maybe Utopia is that “no place” because it is constantly in flux, and constantly setting the bar higher and higher for itself. This Wikipedia city which exists everywhere and nowhere is like the idea of Utopia: not quite fully realized.
I must say that I disagree with Aline regarding the concept of gender online however. I think that screennames/usernames give a sense of gender. Calling oneself “HEMAN2045” or something is very different than calling oneself “PrettyPonyPrincess”. (Gender of ScreenNames! I’d love to see a thesis on that :D) One of my friends said that he thought my screenname on AIM was too masculine because I had a “z” in it.
On the topic of the Civil Heretic article, I am a little annoyed. I couldn’t put my finger on why I was so annoyed by the article, until I realized it had to do with gender. Some of the really smart women scientists I know are disregarded on the issue of Global Warning as “going senile” and “living in a hippie age” type of thing. This guy gets a bit of flak, but is still seen as smart. Old men are seen as experienced and old women are senile. Grrrrrr.