[bestbits] FW: [ciresearchers] Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA) is an IRTF initiative

[michael gurstein]

This was just sent to the Community Informatics elist by an old
friend/colleague who has been working in the grassroots ICT trenches since
there were such and probably before (currently mostly with  US Amerindian
folks in New Mexico.

 

It rather sums up my response to Andrew (and I'm looking forward to Andrew's
response to me. i.e. it is isn't simply about substituting one inadequate
system of governance for another one which seems to have its own (and
potentially worse sets of inadequacies and limitations) but rather of
finding ways forward to deepen and enrich what we already have with what we
now have come into possession of.

 

M

 

From: Richard Lowenberg [mailto:rl at 1st-mile.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, March 05, 2014 9:27 PM
To: ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net; Don Cameron
Cc: jlfullsack at orange.fr; gurstein at gmail.com
Subject: Re: [ciresearchers] Global Access to the Internet for All (GAIA) is
an IRTF initiative

 

Don's good posting has provoked me to add a response that I think is
appropriate to this list and its subscribers.

I'll try to be brief.    Language and our use and understanding of it is
getting in the way of a fundamental concept.

 

If we are talking about broadband, and the Internet, and technologies, than
I'd generally agree with Don.

However, I think that something greater is going on.    Our tools are merely
helping us to extend our sensory minds and bodies.

 

If we even partially agree with the human/social evolutionary trajectory,
that we are developing from agrarian, to industrial and manufacturing, to
information and services based, to ecologically intelligent societies (or
bust), than this is about more than just the tech.    By whatever miraculous
reason, humans are increasingly tuning in to the all-permeating and
surrounding information ecosystem.   The fundamental concept of the Internet
is a beautiful evolutionary reality.   For the first time in our
developmentally complex history, we are growing the means for highly complex
inter-personal, and local-global communications networking.    We are early
into it, and we've never done it before, so we're making many mistakes.
We are also growing this technology-facilitated system, with our technical
sensory aids, in a time of many other emergent eco-social mistakes, old
contrivances, dangerous conflicts and plenty of corruption.    We are on a
path, a treacherous one, but also a potentially inspiring one.     

 

Just as 'freedom of speech' has become a human right, our ability to be
intelligent, open-minded, lifelong-learning, creative and healthily
networked people and societies, should be a fundamental human right.    The
tools (the Internet, fiber-optic and wireless spectrum infrastructure, and
the energy  and resources saving systems) are our way of 'tuning in'.
Amid the treachery and the daunting challenges we face, the potential of a
more appropriately and intelligently grown networked society, is a shining
light.     That's why we are all on this list and doing what we are doing.

 

Participation in an 'open information and communications environment' ought
to be a fundamental human right.   We are far from it, and may not get
there.     Our right to be humane is a much greater eco-social challenge
than simply the right to have open networks, and addressing who owns and who
rents access to the tools.    We have our work cut out for us.

 

Richard

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