[governance] another interesting IG piece in Forbes

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Fri Jan 27 00:44:27 EST 2012


On Thursday 26 January 2012 06:58 PM, John Curran wrote:
> On Jan 25, 2012, at 4:11 AM, McTim wrote:
>
> Selecting one protocol over another turns out to be very difficult,
> and that's likely one of the major reasons that the IETF avoids making
> such decisions unless absolutely necessary.  The result is that we have
> many, many competing standards adopted which then have to prove their
> actual worth in the darwinian marketplace.  It is left to the reader
> whether selection via marketplace should be considered a "pure form
> of democracy" or not.
>    

No, it is not. . Social Darwinism has very negative connotations and is 
kind of quite the opposite to democratic ideals.  Unless of course the 
information society discourse and social constructs overtake our 
traditional democratic sensibilities, of which there is a well founded 
fear that they may.

Technical standards need to be developed with just public interest in 
view, which may involve listening to big market players but not acceding 
to their partisan views. Markets choosing the right technical standards 
is almost always an euphemism for the big market players choosing them.

  Parminder
> /John
>
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