In his essay ‘Digital Maoism’ Jaron Lanier makes an open criticism on Wikipedia and its ‘hive mind’ style. He criticizes the idea of the collective as being ‘all-wise’ and points out how this idea can be dangerous, if one looks up the examples when the extreme Right or extreme Left were in power in history. Wikipedia, according to him, reestablishes the idea of the collective being ‘all-wise’. The central problem that he sees in Wikipedia is not the experiment itself, but its rapid growth in size and importance. He believes it makes Wikipedia a source of social danger, increasing collectivists’ thoughts, mob-like acting and turning otherwise creative individuals into idiots. However, can we compare an organization such as Wikipedia to political extremism?

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