[governance] Re: Rhonda:

[David Allen]

At 3:04 PM +0100 12/9/06, William Drake wrote:
>This historical arcana aside, Milton's broader point about mythologies is
>indisputable.  Government and corporate decisions in the international
>telecom policy space directly impacted the net's development pro and con,
>and emerging developments therein probably will as well.

Mythology to specific reality:  We can see how this particular piece of history lays out at least one template to consider, when hatching future schemes.

The birth of this big tool, the 'Net, was fused out of both the opposites we tend to posit - the individual inventor versus the big institution.  In the 'Net case, these two were US government support, via an internal funder of research, and the intrepid group of individual innovators who made it happen.  Neither big institution, nor individual actor, separately - but rather the two together in a sort of symbiosis.

Interestingly, Bell Labs - source of the main innovations we still suckle going on a century later - may offer a similar template.  Though the Labs seemed to be (only) a large institution, reports from those who flourished in its golden age tell of a freedom for individual inventors, inside.

Both cases give hints of stable order and creative chaos together, in a tension.

History does have its uses (as George Santayana reminded).

David
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