by Hersch

There may be a few of you out there who, like myself a few short hours ago, did not know that Lily Cole is the successful supermodel who put the “LOL” in “Lolita.” And then, just a few years ago, she adopted the business model that was first perfected by Bono, and augmented her career by becoming a social activist. All this inevitably attracted the attention of Wikipedia’s own Jimmy Wales, who gave his support to Cole’s project called “Impossible.com,” described as an “altruistic social network.” Those of you who have followed Jimmy’s career may now be asking, “Altruistic? But Jimmy is a devotee of Ayn Rand, who rejects altruism.” But as it turns out, Ms. Cole has made her own unique contribution to this debate:

When you give, you release chemicals – oxytosin [sic] – that make you happy. The act of giving is self-involved, it has enriched my life.

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…thus cutting the ethical Gordian Knot. This reasoning evidently impressed Jimmy, who told the Telegraph that:

She had a deep understanding of what in fact makes up a huge part of human life: doing nice things for each other with no expectation of any particular return.

Of course, not everyone was feeling the oxytosin. There was a snarky write-up in the Register. There is also a long-running discussion thread here at Wikipediocracy. But Cole’s project did attract the interest of the British government, which kicked in £200,000 to support the project.

Now, it goes without saying that Wikipedia has a biographical article on Ms. Cole. And although Pop Culture topics are the one area where Wikipedia

…continue reading Wikipedia and pop culture ~ a special symbiosis