Every day, when I pick up the paper, a headline bombards me with the fact that the United Nations doesn't work.
I also see the failure of international governance every time President Bush opens his mouth, Israel cuts off basic services in Gaza or the world fails to stop the genocide in the Sudan.
Although the U.N. bites in its current incarnation, I have yet to see a proposal for a legitimate alternative: until now.
This morning, while reading about Muammar al-Gaddafi's Amazonian guard (a group of beautiful female virgin bodyguards trained in martial arts) and the '80s Austrian pop star Falco (of "Rock Me Amadeus" fame), I realized that Wikipedia.org holds the key to successful international government.
In the U.N., member states participate solely out of self-interest.
Meanwhile, Wikipedia involves the suppression of individual motivations in hope of creating encyclopedia entries that a consensus can agree upon.
Wikipedia is thus the ideal model for international governance because it relies on a premise of cooperation.
Unlike the U.N., Wikipedia does not privilege a few of its participants arbitrarily. This isn't so in the U.N., where members of the Security Council have the power to prevent any important U.N. directive from passing.
Who wants to place the fate of the world in the hands of ambassadors from the U.S., China or Russia? Shouldn't Burkina Faso or Ceylon have a say in international policies that affect them as much as Americans, Chinese or Russians?
Wikipedia, by contrast, allows all members to make edits on its pages. While there are privileged administrators who can prevent edits and block disruptive users, those administrators gain their position by compiling a long history of accurate additions to articles.
If we translated current U.N. politics into the Wikipedia model, the U.S. and its hostile ambassador John Bolton would be removed from the Security Council, and responsible states and ambassadors from Bolivia or Sweden could be the replacement.
Also, unlike the U.N., at Wikipedia there is self-regulation. When factually incorrect articles are published, other editors check the facts and correct the entries.
There is no possibility of Oil-for-Food scandals at Wikipedia because users would quickly move to undermine those who act outside of the common good.
The most significant way Wikipedia offers a stronger model of international governance than the U.N. is Wikipedia is genuinely democratic.
At the U.N., a group of dudes in expensive suits gets together and talks about things that you and I never hear about.
At Wikipedia, a middle-aged woman wearing a muumuu and hair curlers might work on an article on the English miniature painter Andrew Cooper.
Five thousand miles away, a Vietnamese man might be editing an entry on Moroccan poet Abdallah Zrika.
The fact that Wikipedia is made by the masses and for the masses means that it more closely represents our collective interests than the top-down policy making of the U.N.
So as people lament the failure of the U.N. to stop war, prevent nuclear proliferation and reign in the tyrant in the White House, they should notice Wikipedia and the model that it offers.
Only by implementing an egalitarian, democratic form of international governance might we form a better collective future.
Wikipedia has already successfully disseminated knowledge. Isn't it about time to see if it can spread international cooperation?
Alex Ginsburg is a religious studies senior who learns far more every day by reading Wikipedia than he does in class. He has recently read the entry on the Atari game "Test Drive: Eve of Destruction." You may ask him about it or send comments to: aginsbur@asu.edu.
