[governance] Another Immovable Legal Object Meeting An Irresistable Internet Force (this time it ain't Taipei...

Wed Aug 24 13:11:47 EDT 2011

I would like to bounce back on Salanieta's comments and push the analogy a bit further.

Definitely we all come from different perspectives and some exchanges are truly lively and interesting because they show the gap between our "respective perspectives".

I wonder if the issues we are facing are not related to the fact we are trying to apprehend a n dimension space and project it onto a (n-i) dimension space. It is like Mercator world maps : it is closer to reality that our classical maps, however, it is still a 2 dimensional representation of a 3 D object. Hence a distorted representation. I am sure we will all agree that the bigger the "i" (or the bigger the difference between (n) and (n-i)), the more distortion we have.

Those distortions however are not real, they are just artefacts incepted by our projections.  Going back to Salanieta's image, the drawing is BOTH a beautiful lady AND an old hag.

As far as I understand, the democratic model relies on a transfer of responsibility to another, upper one. It has 2 pre-requisites : an ability/opportunity to choose your representatives AND the separation between the legislative, executive and judiciary responsibilities.
THis democratic model is hence based on a vertical distribution of powers and some hierarchical representations (me; my town representatives; my deputy; my government; my President (if I happen to live in a democracy); Inter-regional Unions - EU for instance ; ...and United Nations atop).

What if we have not only a vertical/some vertical representation model(s) but at the same time vertical AND horizontal organizations ? What if we shift from a - let's say - 1 dimension space (x axis) to 2 (or n) dimensions... ? What if not only Nation States but also other stakeholders (private, foreign) are the decision makers ? 
Then our vertical democratic model is then clearly challenged.

We all agree that the internet has brought new interconnection possibilities.  And I think we all agree there will be no turning back, we are not going to give away our expression rights... 
Ok, Ok, I  know the risks and remember clearly the work of Wilhelm Reich's "Mass psychology of fascism" ! However, we are now in a position to better benefit from the "1789 Declaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" where article 11 (freedom of expression) and article 15 (control of government action) are clearly applicable.

We have the power to now express ourselves on one hand, and on the other hand, as a communicating group, we represent also a new entity...
(For the sociologists, refer to the 3 levels of information :
1/ someone knows, the individual knowledge
2/ the collective knowledge : through media (press, radio...) we share some descending knowledge 
3/ the global knowledge: we all know that we all know. We are now handling an information level and its "meta-level"). And that is where control of govt action applies.

Therefore, one core question is how can we counter-balance, not to over-throw but to re-balance, the power between Nation States, transnational corporations. 

PJ Proudhon used to say " anarchy is order without power", I do think the net can breed auto-organizations if and only if we reach and feed this global knowledge level. 

Best regards,
Philippe

On Aug 20, 2011, at 11:46 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro wrote:

McTim, one thing is for certain, it will be fun to watch and see what happens in the space. Watching the debate between Paul and Daniel reminds and others of course reminds me of a picture which was shown to a class. Students were asked what the picture was, some said, it's of a beautiful lady in her 20s who is refined and polished and I would not mind taking her out. Others said, it's a picture of an old lady, some said she looked like an old hag.

The distinction of course was in perception. They were both seeing the same picture but seeing totally different images. Stephen R Covey in his "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective people" illustrates this example in the first two chapters, I think.

I am not trying in any way to reduce the ongoing debate by boxing it but would merely like to as an observer of the debate appreciate where each debater is seeing from so I can appreciate the various rich contexts that you all have to offer.

I think that when Daniel mentioned the regulation of the end point and the internet being a cloud, it helped me to see how his perception was being formed. Perhaps because my training is in law, so my natural paradigm is configured to see where Paul is coming from. 

As someone who is immersed in internet governance, I am enjoying the multi-layered complexity and the challenges that governance discussion brings. In Covey's book, he explores how as people begin to attempt to see and understand the diverse perspectives, they could then start discussing solutions.

Best,

Sala

On Sun, Aug 21, 2011 at 2:03 AM, McTim <dogwallah at gmail.com> wrote:

On Sat, Aug 20, 2011 at 12:34 PM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
The reality is whether the company hosting the Application is based abroad, the fact that its reach is in Germany, and where according to the German Regulators, privacy laws are breached then their responsibility is to notify whoever is in breach. It follows then that Facebook can either revise the protocols or web analytics for the German community where they are not in breach.

I don't think that follows at all. What the DE authorities can try to do is prosecute German websites for using the "Like" button.  I have serious doubts that FB will disable "Like" for all German FB users.

-- 
Cheers,

McTim

"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

-- 
Sala

" Perfect Stillness in the midst of the noise".

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