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13/03: The world as I see it

an essay by Albert Einstein

This text of Albert Einstein's copyrighted essay, "The World As I See It," is a shortened version of the original essay. The essay was originally published in "Forum and Century," vol. 84, pp. 193-194, the thirteenth in the Forum series, Living Philosophies. It is also included in Living Philosophies (pp. 3-7) New York: Simon Schuster, 1931. For a more recent source, you can also find a copy of it in A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, New York: Bonzana Books, 1954 (pp. 8-11).

Einstein

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...


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10/03: Wikipedia: The untimely rise and expected fall

Wikipedia... When one hears this name, one thinks of one of the world's largest encyclopaedia which relies on community members contributing articles.

Being a student, I have been a huge, though passive, supporter of this project. I say passive, because I have used it for finding information but rarely have put in any information myself. However, my primary interest in Wikipedia articles lies with topics relating to computers and various other non-political topics. I have looked at political and controversial articles on Wikipedia before now but that has happened infrequently.

Wiki logo

During the last few days, I have been taking a look at various political articles. My interest in such articles relates primarily with articles on South Asian political topics. On one of the forums I frequent, some members complained about some administrative abuse issues with Wikipedia in a thread titled "Indians bragging on Wikipedia". I first thought of this to be the usual case of vitriol, and to find the truth for my own self, I spent a couple of hours browsing various Wikipedia articles, reading user pages of various community members and administrators and looking at article histories to see when and what editing was done.

What I found was slightly shocking and depressing for me.

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