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February 26th, 2007 by Richard K Miller | Filed under Ideas, Mormon.If you're new here, read more about the More Good Foundation. We help members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) share their beliefs on the Internet. Learn more about what Mormons believe or talk with Mormons at LDS.net.
I wrote previously about Tim O’Reilly’s vision of “harnessing collective intelligence” and stated that it may not always be ideal. Presumably, the more that people connect with each other and collaborate on the Internet, the better off we are. There are a few new web sites where you can vote for or against something, the idea being that if enough people participate then they’ll arrive at a definitive answer. If most people say cold pizza is great for breakfast, then it must be true, right?
The first problem is that these sites don’t represent the masses. If the people with the most life lessons under their belt (read: old) are not participating on the Internet, then results will skew towards immaturity, naivete, and inexperience. Likewise, if faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christians aren’t participating, the Internet will skew towards secular notions instead of Gospel principles. That’s okay when discussing food, but not okay if people are expecting to learn and feel spiritual things. Good people everywhere need to participate on the Internet to counteract online trends toward secularism and faithlessness.
The second problem with “collective intelligence” is that it may leave out God and his authorized servants. That is, we (even all of us collectively) “[don't] comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend” and no one has a better grasp on “moral and societal issues” than God’s prophets.
Interestingly, one of these group voting sites is called Convince Me, the same tone used by Korihor when challenging the prophet Alma.
(I must mention parenthetically that I greatly admire Tim O’Reilly’s insight and vision. I’m being a bit facetious here, but the issue of online reputation is a real concern. To be truly useful, our online “collective intelligence” must include experienced and virtuous voices, and must not overshadow the divine.)
While there is some attraction in the democratic nature of “Web 2.0″ it is wise to remember that there are good reasons why our government was created a Republic instead of a democracy. It is easy for democracy to slide into Mobocracy, and tyranny of the majority can be as bad or worse than tyranny of the few–just look at the French Revolution.
Mobocracy is only attractive when you are in the majority, it loses its charm once you discover yourself in the minority.
There is certainly a danger that Web 2.0 could turn out to be in the end simply electronic mobocracy.
I don’t like cold pizza for breakfast, the cheese becomes plastic and the crust is like paper. As to the more important question of majority opinion, if you look at history, the followers of God and Christ have always been in a minority. The reason for this is that the world favors sin over righteous living.
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