SV: [governance] Innovation

[Michael Leibrandt]

Hi there,

For IG senior citizens like Wolfgang and me this discussions sounds quite familiar. Quite frankly, for two reasons I believe that the issue has lost some of it's importance: a) Some years back, many among us believed that we in the IG / ICANN community were crafting the new world order, or at least create the United Nations of the digital age. Today, we're discussing CityTLDs. See the difference? The IG has become regionalized, which I think is a pretty good development. To use my favorite example: The parliament of Berlin has voted down the .berlin proposal with a majority decision. Does anybody think that such a local decision should be ignored by an ICANN ALAC? I don't believe in the concept of a world government, and I also do not believe in a global Internet user representation. Can there be a better balance of participation and representation than in a sitiuation were your neighbourhood MoP lives next door. So, wherever it fits, the concept of "think global, act local" 
 is a pretty good one even for the Internet. MacLuhan once talked about the global village. I think he was terribly wrong, because we will never share the same values and believes around the world. To the contrarary: In the Internet age, the village becomes global: Local values and believes can be made heard and respected worldwide. b) The idea of a seperate form of participation and representation does only make sense as long your facing a subcultural development which, due to its innovative nature, is not sufficiently covered by the existing political structures. Regarding the Internet, I guess we are reaching the point where it becomes a mainstream issue, directly or indirectly effecting every citizen. So, if the electorate of the Internet community equals society at- large, the outcome of IG elections would produce the same core values and believes than general elections. I'm very much in favour of the fact that, for example, the "automotive community" is doing it's own e
 lections and decisions on safety standards and clean air requirements. The inclusion of external effects is one of the greatest improvements in the difficult history of the democracy, and even the Internet community will finally have to move into that direction. Seperate decision making procedures pretty much look like an attempt to camouflage vested ecenomic interests.

Michael   
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