Nine Theses on Wikipedia: A Special Feature
I submit these nine theses to Wikipedia’s community and to the world. I do this, as Martin Luther said when he posted his famous 95 theses, “Out of love for the truth and the desire to elucidate it.” A quarter of a century ago, Jimmy Wales’ company Bomis hired me to start a free encyclopedia. The first draft, from which we learned much, was Nupedia—it made slow progress. So, a year later, on January 2, 2001, when a friend told me about wikis, I immediately began imagining a wiki encyclopedia.
My Blog
Why There Is Free Will
I. Some quick preliminaries I believe there is free will. I am a compatibilist. In this essay I will defend this view. I’ve taken this line ever since college, but have never taken
3 comments on Why There Is Free Will20 minutesPlease read: my challenge to kindergarten and first grade teachers
Dear Teachers(and those who support teachers, please listen in), I will buy your class $100 worth of books, and donate whatever anyone else pledges below (more on that in a bit), if you
5 minutesWhy Edward Snowden deserves a pardon, explained in 10 easy steps
Let me put this briefly and simply. The government should not be snooping on us. But they started anyway. That was wrong and unconstitutional. When they did, they made their snooping program secret.
4 minutesUpdate about the boys, April 2013
In the past I’ve given mammoth updates about the boys, because I do enjoy writing such updates; but I really can’t afford the time now. Still, I will take a little time and
12 minutesAsk DadDude: spawning analytical thinkers
Someone emailed me this question. Since it was asked so nicely, I thought I’d answer. I have a question for you and I hope you have time to reply to it. I admire
3 minutesHow I set up my standing desk
And now for something completely different. After my wife told me I sat too much, and reading various scary things about the evils of sitting too much and the benefits of standing desks, I
3 minutesReading Bear improvements
Here’s our latest Reading Bear update. We’re not done working on Reading Bear–which will always remain a non-profit, free website to teach reading through phonics and vocabulary. Here’s a quick progress report. Alternative reading systems
2 minutesOn the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting
I think the most relevant cause of the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting has relatively little do with guns or mental health. I think it’s because our society is seriously ill–not mentally, but morally–and
1 minuteE.’s reading progress
(No, that’s not a picture of E. He doesn’t have glasses.) Just a short report here. I’m delighted with 25-month-old E.’s reading progress. We are not studying phonics nearly as carefully and systematically
3 minutesA challenge to first grade reading teachers: read in one year! No excuses!
In the course of responding on the “readbygrade3” mailing list (I’m a subscriber), I came across this page on ReadingRockets.org. I was greatly struck by the fact that, here in 2012, professional advisers
3 minutes
Support the Knowledge Standards Foundation:
/larrysanger- I invited my X peeps to ask me questions and then "like" the various questions, and I would upload the answers in video form. Here it is! Christian identity – 1:10 "Call no man teacher" – 9:25 Role of government – 15:45 Authority & resistance – 19:15 Wikipedia labor – 24:20 Net value of Wikipedia […]
- Made for beginners, family, friends, study group members. Most of this stuff is obvious after you use LLMs long enough. If you have more good ideas, put them in comments!
- While I was raised Christian, I lost my faith in my teens, as so many do. But my life has been a truth-seeking quest, and I ended up earning a Ph.D. in philosophy (as I was starting Wikipedia). My reasons for disbelief fell away one by one; eventually I read the Bible, finally, for good […]