Wikipedia:Existentialism

So Sartre claims at the end of his first nonfiction book that, given that life is without meaning, as he spent the whole book arguing, we, as individuals, must make an existential leap, which is our pretense that life is meaningful. It doesn't matter what you believe or who you are or your money or race or sexuality. Every one of us must make up a reason to get through the day, because if we didn't, we might not make it.

Wikipedia seems like a good example of life. Editing Wikipedia may or may not improve the encyclopedia. It might help or hurt people. But in the end, it's meaningless.

So what are our existential leaps? By what arguments do we consider Wikipedia worth editing?


 * Politics
 * Economics
 * Race
 * Sexuality
 * Science
 * Logic
 * Knowledge

While Wikipedia may or may not help with knowledge is debatable. You say that I'm stupid and wrong, and I say that I'm respectful and well read? But does our conflict matter? No.

So Wikipedia should be edited with existentialism in mind. You can toil for hours and only receive 20 criticisms. You can toil for a second and receive more than 20 compliments. But do those criticisms or those compliments mean anything?

So we have to consider priorities and pragmatism, rather than idealism. Results and ethics are our only hope. Arbitrary decisions help us very little, but are the only thing that can be claimed to have "meaning". Anybody who has edited Wikipedia probably agrees that it takes some skill, but also that they are not all knowing, and that their skill is just a tiny cog in a giant machine.

For example, when you call another editor wrong, you aren't even attacking the correct target. Editors don't matter, articles do. So if you attack an editor for being wrong, why are you wasting your time? Couldn't you find sources to support your idea instead of crafting insults for someone who disagrees. You definitely could spend your time finding and citing sources than ANY time worth insulting an editor (especially because the first insult might hurt, but then the blade gets dull, and eventually insults become not pragmatic).

So why do we spend so much time attacking people for the wrong reasons?

At the end of Sartre's first nonfiction book BAM! he introduces the idea of the "existential leap". The idea that we have to pretend things matter when they don't, just to get up and brush our teeth and make it through the day. So what are the existential leaps that support Wikipedia contributions? They may be as diverse as the users, or users may share highly common justifications. But your contributions to Wikipedia have no meaning and serve little purpose, but you have to pretend that they do, or you wouldn't do them.

So if you think you are a hero for being mean to people on Wikipedia, then you don't understand anything, never mind existentialism.