[governance] For you as an Internet user, what is a "Critical Internet resource"?

[Lee McKnight]

Veni, Kwasi,

With all due respect, and yeah maybe I'm being pedantic, but we are
talking of definitions after all. You are confounding critical
resources, and critical Internet resources.

Noone's arguing that food, water, shelter, and safety aren't absolutely
critical, for everyone on earth. But that wasn't the question, was it?  


When one gets to power then we can start debating 'critical information
infrastructure' as the phrase was popularized some years back; but that
also wasn't Paul's question.  Though we can all agree its further
development, worldwide, is an important objective.

Lee

Prof. Lee W. McKnight
School of Information Studies
Syracuse University
+1-315-443-6891office
+1-315-278-4392 mobile

>>> kboakye1 at yahoo.co.uk 10/2/2007 6:25 AM >>>
Veni,
   
  You summmed it all up in the following:
   
  "When you have hot water 24x7, you don't even think about the people
who have never had hot water, or for the ones, who have limited access
to water. Do you want to bet that for some of the people on the list
from the West/North part of the world water is not among the critical
resources of their everyday life; and if you ask them what's critical
for them, you may find out answers like "how much gas my car spends", or
"there is not enough parking space in the downtown area of the city", or
"my favorite skim milk", etc. And they will be right - for them these
are critical."

  Cheers,
  Kwasi

Veni Markovski <veni at veni.com> wrote:
  Hi, Jeremy and all. 

You are quoting the WGIG Background Report, but see the beginning of
that same document: 


1.         This Background Report accompanies and is complementary to
the Report of the Working Group on Internet Governance (The WGIG
Report). It includes much of the work produced in the course of the
Working Group process and reflects the wide variety of opinions held
within the group as well as many comments made by stakeholders during
the consultation process. The Background Report does not have the same
status as the WGIG Report, which is a short consensus document for
policy makers. However, the Background Report can be used as a reference
in that it provides a summary of the process and various issue papers,
with some additional thoughts and considerations about potential
solutions for issues not covered in detail in the WGIG Report. If not
every member of the group agrees with every word, they all agree with
this approach and the Background Report makes clear whether an argument
or opinion is shared by the entire group or only by some of its
members.


  It is not by accident that the WGIG report is the official document,
and this is the Background Report. In the UN world every detail is
important, and you can pick more of the words in the above mentioned
paragraph to see it for yourself. 

Perhaps some think that it is much more fun to discuss issues where
there's controversy (you don't believe me? then think that the tabloids
have bigger circulation than the serious newspapers), but at
ISOC-Bulgaria (and in Bulgaria in general) we understand quite well that
if we want to achieve something, we need to focus on the things that
unite us, not on the ones which divide us. 

In the current discussion for example we see that, yet again, people
with North/West thinking (and that does not eliminate Australia:-) have
different understanding of what's critical for the Internet. It is
understandable - when you have high-speed Internet at home, and
thousands of wi-fi spots all over the country, and sometimes whole
cities, which are with wi-fi, provided by the municipality, of course
that for you the perspective is different. 

When you have hot water 24x7, you don't even think about the people who
have never had hot water, or for the ones, who have limited access to
water. Do you want to bet that for some of the people on the list from
the West/North part of the world water is not among the critical
resources of their everyday life; and if you ask them what's critical
for them, you may find out answers like "how much gas my car spends", or
"there is not enough parking space in the downtown area of the city", or
"my favorite skim milk", etc. And they will be right - for them these
are critical. 

When Paul was asking the question, it is also interesting to see the
responses, and the way they were given. We don't believe one can have a
discussion with people who already have an opinion on something. Once
they have an opinion, they are not going to change it, therefore the
discussion will be only for the sake of the discussion, not to achieve
something fruitful. 

Best,
Veni


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