Wikipedia Scholars

In the days of Lenin, back when life was good, the modus operandi of leadership revolved around the ability to kill ones’ enemies. Life was simple. To maximize efficiency you created a secret militia, giving them fancy titles and a sense of entitlement. By spreading fear, the universal currency, you could abide by your personal agendas. This of course only worked well until you got dethroned by someone with more money or a stronger militia. Alas such is life. The point is that back in the early 1900s, power was convincingly a formula of brutality and physical force. In fact, this has been true since the beginning of time.

The Internet however has managed to become the Great Equalizer™. In many ways, it is, at least pragmatically speaking, exactly what Lenin and Marx had envisioned. In the era of the Information Age, power is increasingly a function of information — not physical strength. To fortify this argument, peruse even the most mildly active forums to see that the most vocal, most respected and often times most domineering figures are nothing more than pipsqueaks with idle keyboards. This is a great thing. The balance of power has shifted from the pugnacious to the articulate. I can get behind that.

The unimaginable phenomena however is that the same paradigm shift is occurring off the Internet. People are reading, learning and educating themselves through a myriad of articles written by mere commoners. I call these people Wikipedia Scholars™. They can be spotted at any social function drinking a dirty martini (shaken, not stirred). They wear earth tones. They probably own an iPhone. They are obsessed with truth, politics and the Brady Bunch. They have a natural affinity for playing the devil’s advocate and a seemingly unrelenting supply of bad puns.

This appearance of intellectual superiority is not only clever but seemingly necessary in today’s socially connected world. These enterprising individuals have fully embraced social networking. They are on Facebook. They update their status. They even write clever photo captions. These people are you and I. You better not fall behind. Why not read something new and tell me what you learned?

Adieu. Navid.