Life in the Network

The idea of Wikipedia is not new in any form. This idea of using a collective has been around for quite sometime. I am truly amazed at the crazy amount of growth that wikipedia has undergone in just the last 3 years and the sustantial amount of information that has been gathered by the people. But its growth is understandable because you can literally feel smarter than you actually might be. Even if your entry gets modified or possibly removed or whatever, you have inevitably given to the collective hive.
I throughly enjoyed the article presented by Lanier, but one statement that he made stood out quite boldly to me. He stated, "The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots." I have to agree with this statement because its people that ultimately generate all content that passes over the net. I honestly do believe that some look to the internet as possibly the next absolute, Im not sure what we could call as a current absolute (for me its the bible). Its the idea that Lanier presented though as people seem to be moving more toward the "Meta" state of being or of artificial intelligence. With this mindset we basically are just holding an idiot sign overhead. This can also be seen as Lanier mentions the decline that newspapers are and will see even more as people turn to goole for the news, but most of this news flashed across google is comprised of the fine information that good reporters gathered, and I like how Lanier than states, "The aggregator is richer than the aggregated."
I think Wikipedia is a great tool, but the hive is not always collectively right, is it? In a very extreme, albeit very absurd example. What if the collective community decided that oranges were red, is this possible? Porbably not, but its the idea behind this example that concerns me about the concept of wiki and how much can be controlled. But if you want to check out my contribution to the Wiki community here ya go....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbocharger#Automotive_design_details
My part starts with "This can also account...." and ends with the word efficiency.