[governance] Re: Nomcom and conflict of interest

[Karl Auerbach]

George Sadowsky wrote:

> it is not an unfair comment, and it wasn't meant to be pejorative. Some 
> decision processes are characterized by confrontation; witness the 
> American election system for public officials.  I'm saying that I think 
> that one does better to start on the cooperative side, assuming that the 
> goals of the parties are not too diametrically opposed.

On might read our historical experience over the last few hundred years 
as indicating that those structures of governance that survive and work 
are those based on a presumption that there will be strong advocacy, 
manipulation, confrontation, misrepresentation, deception, underhanded 
dealing, withholding of information, personal and institutional ambition 
- pretty much everything except transient events of cooperation (which 
themselves may often be merely short term tactical moves to gain an 
advantage.)

Internet governance will deal with matters that involve not merely 
prodigious amounts of money but also with deep cultural values - in 
other words the kind of pressurized, temptation filled cauldron that 
brings out the worst rather than the best of human nature.

I'd suggest that when building institutions of governance it is safer to 
bet on Machiavelli than on Valentine Michael Smith (from Heinlein's 
"Stranger in a Strange Land.")

		--karl--

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