Hello Ned --
At 12:27 -0600 08/09/01, Ken Freed wrote:
>Wrongaroonie, Einar --
>The goal is a decentralized network of independent democracies,
>just as we need individuals practicing reponsible self rule from a
>common global sense of our deep interactivity. That how genuine
>freedom and democracy can work best. Isn't it time for us humans
>to outgrow our addiction to despots? Or do we still fear adulthood?
>-- ken
>
>Ken Freed, Publisher
>Media Visions Journal
>http://www.media-visions.com
>
>"Deep literacy makes global sense."
I don't think you can contest with me about love of or distaste for despots,
so why do you make this an issue.
My point is very simple:
What is the correct view of the Internet in terms of analogies with
other phenomena that we see in our universe?
My view is the the Internet, with its edge control and many
participants who both contribute information to and consume
information from other edge based participants, is more like a free
economy, in terms of its need for organized central control.
In this new millennium, after the last in which hundreds of millions
of people were slaughtered in fighting to see who would be in control
of various economies, including the global economy, why should we now
shift to fighting over control of the Internet. Why don't we take
some lessons from our experiences with economies and markets which
must remain free and open in order to function properly.
So, looking at your proposals backwards, if a global internet constitution
(for governing the Internet ) is a proper idea, why is it not also a
good idea for governing the global economy?
The basic problem is that all of the real driving decisions are made
at the edges of the net (just as with the global economy), where
people set up their computers as they individually wish to set them
up, in spite of the fact that a lot of vendors are doing their best
to in effect, convert all this freedom of choice into the original
IBM Computer model with some central processor in control of the edge
people's information access and flows.
The MSN Windoze paradigm is that of central control, with central
singular points of control. like PASSPORT, and ICANN to decide for us
what we should be looking at. It maps the IBM central control
paradigm onto the Internet.
The fact is that a lot of people just believe that there has to be a
control point of control of things, or they will fall apart!
In my view, what we have been losing, and are still losing more of
every day in the Internet is basic trust in the net, in its service
providers, and in each other, as we are all producers and consumers
of the words that we use to exchange ideas.
MSN offers to induce trust by registering all of us so MSN can vouch
for our trustability. but, on close inspection, trust is not
transitive, so why should I trust MSN to tell me that I can trust you?
[Side note: Trust is transitive in Spy Networks, but not otherwise!]
[This is why most of our "Internet security tools" depend on transitivity.]
[Just think about where crypto technology came from;-]
That the currency of the Internet is ideas, instead of sovereign
coinage, does not change the underlying basis of the power of the
Internet to self organize and to function without some kind of
centralized trust inducer. And to be sure, a constitution will
result in forming some kind of government, just because that is what
constitutions do -- they specify the structure of a governing system
that has a central point of control, such as the United States, which
the EU is now trying to emulate with what they think is a more
enlightened way to deploy bureaucracies for the common good of
controlling the actions of its citizens and its markets. I wish them
all good luck!
Indeed, the entire world is struggling to form more perfect unions of
people and communities, (typically with someone one chosen to be "in
charge";-)... You are only proposing that this someone should be
chosen by some other means than that chosen by the ICANN process. I
don't like the ICANN process either, but the solution is not to
replace it with yet another flawed system of centralizing control of
the use of names, and numbers, and ideas and information in general.
In our world, there are many instances of self organized social and
economic structures that do not require, and would not be enhanced,
with the addition of any central controller, no matter how
democratically that controller might be chosen.
I realize that there is a very large proportion of the world
community that suffers great discomfort when they do not find someone
in control, from whom they can obtain permissions to do what they do,
or denial of permission, which gives them comfort in the removal of
their needs to be responsible for controlling their own behavior.
But, I much prefer the Jesuit Principle:
"It is easier to beg forgiveness than to get permission!"
Now, given that I cannot support your proposal for building any kind
of central government for the Internet, you might ask what I think
are the great underlying principles and the problems to solve.
A fair question, Eh?
Well, what I see is that as the net has grown at its exponential rate
since the inception of the original ARPANET in 1970, it has now
gained sufficient mass to find that something is missing at the heart
of the net which happens to be distributed at the edges, where the
driving and governing decisions of our users reside.
Yes, the heart of the net is distributed to is edges! This was done
very deliberately by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn when they devised IP and
then TCP.
And, I am sure that they then did not then foresee what all this would lead to,
and I hold not brief that they should have foreseen it all at that time!
I certainly did not foresee it then.
(I did not even understand what they were doing then;-)...
Cutting to the chase scene, what I see now is a failure of TRUST, in
that over time, we are finding that everything we see on our screens,
just might be false, including mail that says it was mailed by our
trusted friends. And we are never totally sure that the web site
pages we are looking at are really from where they say they are from,
or trust that what they say is really the truth.
Now, the problem is to find a way to induce trust into the net,
with tools that are distributed to the users on the edge of the net.
Your answer to my previously unasked question here, is to create a
centralized governing system (which should be "democratic" in its
formational structure), to induce trust among the users at the edge
of the net.
And my next question is:
"When have you ever seen trust to be induced in such a manner?"
And, note well, trust can be and is induced over time in real life.
Perhaps it will help to contemplate what you know about "trust
induction" in general.
It is my humble opinion that the issues of trust (and distrust) among
users of the net is what needs to be sorted out, just because when
the IP/TCP protocol was adopted, it created an edge controlled matrix
of individual users who in fact have control of their edge based
choices. The Internet is "Power to the People", in spades!
The IP/TCP protocols dealt with the trust issue by placing
responsibility for guaranteeing that what you receive from me is what
I sent to you, at the end points of our exchanges of information
using IP. Nothing in between our end points has a role in providing
this trust.
TCP, at the end points, takes care of the lack of trust that is inherent
in the deliberate design of IP. IP is prone to error, by design!
Now, just as MIME was the same (tagging and bagging) idea as IP, but
at the application interoperability level instead of at the system
interoperability level, what seems to be missing is the trust
building functions that TCP gives to the IP/TCP pair. But, this is
at a higher level, about mere assurance that what I received is in
fact exactly what was sent.
So, what we are now (collectively) realizing is that something is
missing, and we are looking for a way to add something to our systems
that will provide a remedy for our lack of trust.
My sense is that what is missing is trust, and our instinctive
understanding of what trust is, and how it works, and how it is
induced, and how it can be mechanized for deployment across the
Internet, are all part of what needs to be distilled and deployed
into our Internet environment.
I simply do not see how you can do this with some kind of democratic
government of people who will also be external to the net, and will
just be an organization of a supposed central controlling body (all
be it constitutional and democratic) that is also just another
organized set of users at the edges of the net.
My sense of the basic problem goes all the way back to the great mind
experiment of Rene' Descartes, who asked himself:
"Suppose that everything I sense is false; What do I know?"
What I see is that this very question, though not yet well
articulated in the minds of Internet users, is what is confronting us
here. The question is:
"Why should I trust anything I sense from the net?"
"We all know and trust that it might be false!"
This question is suddenly very real for everyone on the net, so we
are all now engaged in the deep thinking of Rene Descartes, but
without the benefit of doing so with his clearly articulated question.
So, I herewith present you with the well articulated question;-)...
"Suppose everything I sense from the net is false? What do I know?"
The answers will take us through the growing Internet walls of
distrust and through the next Internet paradigm shift where-in we
suddenly find a way to induce trust to complement the IP-like tagging
and bagging provided by MIME, which allows us to send anything we
choose to anyone on the net, which means we can pretend to be anyone
we choose and to say anything we choose, whether it is true or not.
That great sinking feeling you are sensing is the draining away of
trust from your current conceptual model of what you think the
Internet is (or was;-)...
It is part of the process of shifting your paradigms;-)...
I will leave you now to enjoy your shift! Onward!...\Stef
At 12:27 -0600 08/09/01, Ken Freed wrote:
>Wrongaroonie, Einar --
>The goal is a decentralized network of independent democracies,
>just as we need individuals practicing reponsible self rule from a
>common global sense of our deep interactivity. That how genuine
>freedom and democracy can work best. Isn't it time for us humans
>to outgrow our addiction to despots? Or do we still fear adulthood?
>-- ken
>
>Ken Freed, Publisher
>Media Visions Journal
>http://www.media-visions.com
>
>"Deep literacy makes global sense."
>
>
>
> >And then we can undertake to create a global constitution for the
> >Global Economy, and then take on any other edge controlled
> >environments which also surely\ need to have a constitution, to apply
> >Centralized Democratic Government.
> >
> >Enjoy your trip;-)...
> >
> >At 12:47 -0600 07/09/01, Ken Freed wrote:
> >>Seems to me any effort to work within ICANN
> >>to acheive "network democracy" is innately an
> >>act of self-deception, continuing the public lie
> >>that ICANN is a legitimate government. It isn't.
> >>
> >>There has never been a public vote to privatise
> >>our public Internet. There has never been a public
> >>vote to grant any governance power to ICANN. The
> >>emperor is clothed in a fabric of veiled delusions.
> >>
> >>I still advocate a global Internet constitution, so we
> >>have a governmewnt of laws not committees.
> >>
> >>Ken Freed
> >>Media Visions Journal
> >>http://www.media-visions.com
> >>
> >>"Deep literacy makes global sense"
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> >(fixed)
> >> >
> >> >>Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2001 08:21:30 -0500
> >> >>From: "ooblick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >>Subject: Re: Re: Why wake up? (Re: [IFWP] Is this list up?
>(Test, ignore,
> >> >>sorry))
> >> >>To: "Dan Steinberg" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >>Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >>MIME-Version: 1.0
> >> >>Content-Type: text/plain
> >> >>Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >>X-OriginalArrivalTime: 05 Sep 2001 12:18:55.0359 (UTC)
> >> >>FILETIME=[EE94E8F0:01C13604]
> >> >>
> >> >>Hear hear. So i am going on vacation. The fix was in from the get go
> >> >>and all we were was pawns to lend legitimacy to their fabricated claims
> >> >>of consensus.
> >> >>
> >> >>See you next week. I'm going diving.
> >> >>>---- Original Message ---
> >> >>>From: Dan Steinberg <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >> >>>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >> >>>Cc:
> >> >>>Subject: Re: Why wake up? (Re: [IFWP] Is this list up? (Test, ignore,
> >> >>>sorry))
> >> >>>
> >> >>>Well to counter your argument I would say that I went to IFWP meetings
> >> >>>all over
> >> >>>the globe, went to an ICANN meeting or two. I worked on the at-large
> >> >>>issue in
> >> >>>good faith in the first Membership Advisory Committee. I
>believe I was
> >> >>>very awake
> >> >>>during the entire process, with gusts to diligent. What did all that
> >> >>>work get?
> >> >>>not much I think. I am not funded to work on lost causes.
> >>Those that go to
> >> >>>Montevideo are funded to act and more than a couple of them
>will have a
> >> >>>pre-set
> >> >>>agenda. Unless you want to fund everyone on this list to show up
> >>and make a
> >> >>>presence felt, I think sleeping is the more economical course.
> >> >>>
> >> >>>Marc Schneiders wrote:
> >> >>>
> >> >>>> Why we should wake up fast? Quite a few people are on their way to
> >> >>>> Montevideo right now. A couple of them may try to
>determine a lot of
> >> >>>> things on their own there without real input from those
>affected. The
> >> >>>> ALSC preliminary report leaves not much hope for a change to the
> >> >>>> better. Now, if it would be a good, thorough, well argued report, in
> >> >>>> whi
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >--
> >> > "But at the end of the day, even if you put a calico dress on
> >> > it and call it Florence, a pig is still a pig."
> >> > -- Bradshaw v. Unity Marine Corp. et al., 2001 U.S. Dist.
> >> > LEXIS 8962, (S. D. Tex., 2001).
> >> >
> >> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
