Some thoughts for the new year that I welcome comments on. I have been reading a book of the conference proceedings of AFIPS in 1970 about the Information Utility and Social Choice. The conference had a keynote by J.C.R. Licklider and talks by a number of other people including Harold Sackman, Irving S. Beglesdorf, Harold Borko, etc. I have been impressed to see the fact that there seems to have been a vision of how there would develop a network of networks either for increasing democratic participation by citizens in their societies and for increasing communication and interaction or for hoarding knowledge and toward creating totalitarian control. And that it would have to be administered in the same way that the development of the network had been created, i.e. through the experimental processes guided by computer science methodology and by a social vision and practice. For example J.C.R. Licklider recognized that there there would be a point reached where there was a switch that could go in either a social direction whereby the developing network would be directed toward fostering human-to-human communication and toward people being encouraged to interact with computers and information, or a downward direction where the network would encourage people to be passive and to just be the passive recipients of data from the developing network. Harold Borko urged that as "as scientists and as human beings we have the responsibility for guiding the products of our science in socially desirable directions." And he urged that the computer utility that was being developed be an instrument for sharing scientific achievements and improved democratic participation, rather than for hoarding knowledge or toward creating totalitarian control. H. Sackman proposed that "no one has faced up to the problem of social information on a regulated public utility." He maintained that manufacturers and the industry didn't have any guidance as to "what the public wants nor what the public needs." And that "if immediate profits are the supreme end of all social planning because no other serious contenders arise, then the information utility could end up as the most barren wasteland of them all." Instead he proposed that computers were revolutionizing science, particularly the method and findings of science. He proposed "That suggested resolution looks toward an evolving universalization of science, nourished by global information utilities within a framework of increasing international cooperation." He urged that the public interest be kept in mind as there be an effort to figure out how to provide the kind of scientific oversight to the developing computer information utility. He proposed utilizing scientific design and test methodologies to do this, much as the work in developing computer technology utilized these scientific processes. These are just short notes about three of the talks at this interesting conference that took place in 1970, just as the research on the ARPANET was in its earliest days. And yet there was a vision that a network of networks would develop and that there would be a need to apply the same kind of scientific methodology that was used to create the network to its development and toward having it serve people's needs and interests. There seemed a commitment to expanding communication among people and interactive participation of people rather than to creating passive processes that would mimic the worst of the old world. I wondered if anyone has an idea of what has happened to this vision and this commitment? The recent events in the U.S. to privatize various aspects of the Internet show no understanding of this social vision or of the commitment to applying scientific processes to the development of the future computer utility, which we today call the Internet. Has this vision gotten lost? I was surprised to find it expressed so strongly in the presentations of several of the participants in this 1970 conference. Is there a way to bring this vision and the methodology back into the heart of the development of the network of networks? If so, perhaps there is a way that can be found for the plans by the U.S. govt to change the management structure of the essential functions of the Internet to reflect something that is scientific, based on increasing communication, and in spreading the Internet, rather than the legalistic, secretive and exclusive view of turning the Internet into a commercenet that currently is governing the way that the ICANN folks and those who seem to be designing its structure are functioning. We are entering a new year, and a year that is the prelude to welcoming in of a new millenium. It is important that we take the future seriously and try to figure out how to make it one we choose rather than one that is given to us by those who have no vision and no concern the advantages that increased communication among those around the world will bring to all aspects of society. Comments, disagreements, and any other variety of response welcome to help to properly celebrate the coming of a new year on the Internet :-) Ronda [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. The book is "The Information Utility and Social Choice", papers prepared for a conference sponsored jointly by The University of Chicago, Encyclopedia Britannica and The American Federation of Information Processing Societies. It is edited by H. Sackman and Norman Nie. Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet http://www.columbia.edu/~hauben/netbook also in print edition ISBN 0-8186-7706-6 __________________________________________________ To receive the digest version instead, send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To SUBSCRIBE forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNSUBSCRIBE, forward this message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Problems/suggestions regarding this list? Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___END____________________________________________