Knowledge is [personal] power

The education I got was in economics, that's not to say that I learned nothing else, but what I pulled away from school with was a profound grasp of economics. I feel like I understand economics at a level more than the average college graduate, mainly because I took more classes and was highly interested in it. Now that I am no longer taking classes in it I find my myself talking about it with people alot. I think this is for two reasons. #1 is to continue learning about economics. #2 is because the things are learned are not set in stone. They are written on paper (or in Word these days), and yes this is purely metaphorical. Everything I learned about economics (and what everyone has learned about just about everything) is up for debate. The more i talk with people the more I see that interpretation in what defines what we know. After reading a couple of The Economist articles on wikipedia I learned two things that still shock me. If Americans alone didn't watch TV and instead contributed what they know to wikipedia we would have a data source 20,000x larger than the wikipedia we have right now. Also the creator of wikipedia views the world through an objectivist lens, a la Ayn Rand. Which is humorous for the simple fact that Ayn Rand believed that reality exists through an individuals perception, and wikipedia is just a collection of peoples perceptions and therefore a collection of other people truths, and no real truth. I've heard that wikipedia is democratic knowledge, I think wikipedia is meant to be democratic reality. Finally coming around to my point, there are many sources of information (college, wikipedia, the fellow bar hoppers, personal experience, etc) and you can collect all of the information in the world and still not have any truth. Your best bet is to go out there and collect knowledge any way possible, take it all with a grain of salt, find something (anything) you believe and keep striving for more information. If someone doesn't agree with you, that doesn't mean that they are wrong, or that you are wrong. Don't be afraid to be challenged to challenge others, and please for the love of all things [holy?] don't force your views on anyone, they already have their own which is correct for them.