[governance] Re: The Internet (as we know it) can never be "private"

Sat Jul 16 17:12:02 EDT 2011

*Question*

Why is it that when someone from Kenya emails someone from the US, the ISP
in Kenya pays?

Why is that when someone from the US emails someone from Kenya, the ISP in
Kenya still pays?
*
*
*
*
Who makes the rules and who calls the shots?

Sala
*
*
On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Paul Lehto <lehto.paul at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7/16/11, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
> <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This is interesting Paul. I am not taking sides but am throwing these
> > thoughts in for general discussion.
> > Consider the analogy of roads. highways and border controls mechanisms
> such
> > as Customs etc. Who determines the roads and highways that gets built?
> Who
> > pays for it?
>
> While private roads exist (no trespassing) public roads are most
> common.  The rules of those roads are set by democratically elected
> legislatures.  While legislatures on occasion (and because of
> budgetary constraints usually) call for toll roads, the requirement of
> a direct user fee collected in this way is disliked by large
> majorities of people.  Part of the proof of the preference of most
> people for free access to what they experience as the commons is the
> preference of telephone users for a flat fee unlimited access
> telephone plan, even if large numbers of those people would be
> economically better off if they paid for each telephone usage, local
> or long distance.  People want to have the freedom to go long
> distances or talk endlessly on the phone, even if chances are they
> will never do that, they want it anyway and will pay a premium for it
> if forced to do so, as with telephone flat fee plans.
>
> > There are all kinds of roads - public and private. Are tolls collected on
> > some roads? Why are they collected?
>
> Most of this is answered above.  Tolls are nearly universal on those
> private roads that accept all comers, tolls are relatively rare but do
> exist on government operated public roads, but disliked and
> disfavored, and mostly instituted for budgetary reasons.
> >
> > Can anyone be allowed to drive through the roads or should there be some
> > sort of rules? Who decides the rules and why?
>
> There are always rules, even in the "freest" marketplace.  These rules
> are the structures for freedom (don't dig up the grass in the park,
> travel at a safe speed on the road, etc.)  Restrictions are lesser on
> private property in terms of what one may do (cut the trees, etc) but
> they are almost always greater in terms of who may participate (the
> "exclusive use" element of property law).   Legislatures decide the
> rules of the commons as well as the rules that still remain applicable
> to purely "private" transactions.  One cannot on private property
> spread nuclear radiation, or continually feed large fires.
>
> What nearly all humans seem to want is a "private" home of some modest
> minimum where they can retire and feel safe, and that implies the
> right to exclude unwanted others, and thus its private property or
> privacy that's sought.  At the same time, nearly all humans, when they
> venture out into the world, want to maximize the commons - that which
> is (up front at least) free to all.
>
> I think it's mostly only when someone has found their way in this
> world, (and found their way into enough money to join enough private
> clubs, and pay for private schools and so forth that they can have the
> illusion of an upscale "commons" together with some similarly wealthy
> friends who are in the same schools and clubs)  that they start to
> resent or oppose the commons they grew up in.  People thinking
> themselves "self-made" and thinking they can now  purchase their own
> "commons" start to resent paying taxes  to support the commons that
> the general public mostly uses, because the wealthy have chosen to
> form an upscale substitute commons.
>
> These relatively few people come to believe (unlike the vast majority
> of the population that picks the flat rate telephone plan that usually
> subsidizes both their own freedom and everyone else's too, as well as
> the phone company's profits), that they can safely pay for everything
> they utilize on a direct user fee or toll basis, and therefore they
> don't want any of their money to indirectly benefit other people.  But
> they are the minority.
> >
> > Are there aspects which are public and private? Are these justified?
>
> The more discriminatory in any way and the more money is charged, the
> more the activity is normatively "private" and the less it is public.
>  Some forms of discrimination even private clubs can't engage in (by
> law), and some forms of exclusion are nevertheless practiced with
> varying degrees of legal and social acceptability by public
> governments.
>
> But the bottom line is that what is public is normatively Open, and
> what is private is normatively Closed.  To the extent there are
> departures from these, they are either  justified or there is an
> attempted justification based on necessity, or a grudging acceptance
> of "reality" (public parks CLOSED at night, or tolls charged on a few
> roads), or an outright controversy is caused, and perhaps a legal
> violation depending on the specifics.  Despite lots of exceptions and
> cross-over, the baseline from which we argue or reason our way to
> exceptions is still Public = Open and Private = Closed, and most
> people want a private home and a public world to the maximum extent
> reasonably possible.
>
> Paul Lehto, J.D.
>
> --
> Paul R Lehto, J.D.
> P.O. Box 1
> Ishpeming, MI  49849
> lehto.paul at gmail.com
> 906-204-4026 (cell)
>

-- 
Sala

"Stillness in the midst of the noise".
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