[Foundation-l] Jimmy Wales in the news

[David Gerard]

On 07/03/2008, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree. I had no idea when I started who owned what, and I didn't
>  care. The social and moral value of the project exists independently
>  of the money angle. And if it had been run with almost all the profits
>  going to good causes, it would still have been a very attractive
>  project to volunteer for.


I always assumed (2004) it was Jimbo's wiki, he just let us edit it -
I was unaware this had already changed as of 2003, at least on paper.

For a direct comparison, lots of people (including me) contribute to
Wikia wikis, because the content can be taken off it and set up
elsewhere, even though that's much more a case of "It's Jimbo and
Angela's wiki farm, they just let us edit it".


>  Antony said earlier that, as a Randian, Jimbo would act only out of
>  self-interest and not altruism, but this is a false dichotomy. People
>  who act altruistically want to do so at some level, or else they
>  wouldn't.
[...]


Speaking as someone whose political ideas formed in the '80s, lifelong
Labor/Labour voter who speaks Ideologically Sound as a second
language, I have no trouble seeing altruism and community effort
entirely in terms of game theory and being fairly obviously
advantageous in terms of creating a nicer environment to do everything
else in.


- d.