October 17, 2005
Wikiversity
Link - Wikiversity- Your Free University
For the sake of this entry, “Genuine knowledge” will be defined to mean any attainable knowledge that is respected and valid for use in the workforce, further education, or elsewhere. We’re currently in an age where this knowledge is prohibitively expensive. To make sure the knowledge we gain is valid, we must pay people a lot of money to share their 10-30 years of accredited research and study. How do we know that they’re giving us good information? Well, because we trust that the titles after their name were given because they have proven their usefulness in a given area. Mr. Smith could be anyone, a plumber, a student, we don’t know for sure because the title doesn’t convey enough information. Dr. Smith, PhD, however, tells a completely different story. Somebody, somewhere, (hopefully an accredited institution) claims that “Dr. Smith” has proven to have knowledge in some given area. In fact, he has so much knowledge that the institution (that we hope exists) has staked its reputation of producing knowledgeable people into the world on this one man. If he goes on to get a job and it’s discovered that he doesn’t really know what he’s talking about, that institution will be less respected.
Where does the reputation of an institution come from? Is it something that takes a very long time to build up? Can a new institution sprout up and instantly become well-known and respected if they produce just one class of knowledgeable graduates? What if this happened… soon.
In the future, degrees will be attained without ever leaving home. Everyone will have access to the sum of human knowledge and everyone will be able to contribute to further it. In this flat earth, there are no barriers to learn. In the future, knowledge will be free.
