[governance] Meanwhile back at the ranch - Was Big Porn v. Big Web Ruling Could Spell Trouble for ICANN / was Re: new gTLDs

[Ian Peter]

Daniel, the trouble with these philosophical arguments is they divert us
from giving attention to real issues that should be addressed.

Of course consensus is achievable, be it in internet standards or
international agreements.  Of course we are capable of working together for
the common good, even if that is a big leap from unilateralism. And I could
describe the USG as a decentralised system if I wanted to. All
interconnected systems be they governments, international agreements or
networks, have elements of centralisation and decentralisation.

All of that is missing the point, which is that that because we havent
evolved enough to have global policies, guidelines and/or structures to deal
with significant issues, we are experiencing significant interference from
many governments, and also from large corporations, operating unilaterally
to interfere with the free flow of information without having to justify
their actions or co-ordinate their actions with other affected parties.

Ian Peter



From: Daniel Kalchev <daniel at digsys.bg>
Reply-To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, Daniel Kalchev <daniel at digsys.bg>
Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:58:05 +0300
To: "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
Subject: Re: [governance] Meanwhile back at the ranch - Was Big Porn v. Big
Web Ruling Could Spell Trouble for ICANN / was Re: new gTLDs


On Sep 12, 2012, at 10:20 AM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

> Re: [governance] Meanwhile back at the ranch - Was Big Porn v. Big Web Ruling
> Could Spell Trouble for ICANN / was Re: new gTLDs
> The problem is, Daniel, that because we havent evolved enough to have global
> policies, guidelines and/or structures to deal with significant issues, we are
> experiencing significant interference from many governments, and also from
> large corporations, operating unilaterally to interfere with the free flow of
> information without having to justify their actions or co-ordinate their
> actions with other affected parties.
> 

This is all correct. However my personal opinion is that global consensus
and therefore global policy is not achievable, because such is human nature.


> No, the Internet was not designed to be like that.

Apparently, we look at it from different perspective. Internet is certainly
designed to operate without any centralised control system. Any part of
Internet can function independently from the other parts and all they can
function independently from any external party. This clashes with the
"government" concept, or even with the "corporate" concept that everything
should be centrally managed and policed. The Internet architecture however
matches very closely how human society works (i.e. peer pressure).

If we narrow our discussion to DNS only, it seems centralised. It does seem
centralised, because most players prefer it this way (people are lazy).
However, there are many players on Internet, that don't buy the centralised
DNS concept and have for decades operated around it. There are also, other
name resolution technologies in use in Internet, that do not use DNS
(partially or at all). So, even DNS on Internet is not centralised, strictly
speaking.

The "problem" of "governments" (of any kind, not only national) with
Internet is that this beast simply cannot be framed to their model. On the
other side, Internet can accommodate any "government" system ... but that
happens within Internet, integrated together with other governments and
behaving, not "over" it.

I also understand you read my comment in the sense "Internet means anarchy".
It doesn't. It's simply the next history wave of returning to normal human
interaction model. No doubt, some day, some "bright" mind, perhaps the next
Emperor will figure out how to take over Internet --- or so he and his
subjects will think for a while.

Since I do repeat this opinion form time to time, you might ask, what I
think of "Internet Governance". Well, that would depend of what you define
by "Governance" here. If it is to build an global control structure of any
kind, I will always call it waste of time and resources. If it is to educate
those who think the world depends on their wishes (almost any human being
falls here), then I am all for it -- people simply have no clue what
Internet is and it will be more beneficial for everybody if they learn what
they can't do to/with Internet. That will result in much less resources and
time wasted. I do remember the statements from several representatives from
Africa, during the IGF in Athens: "For the money you all spend here, you
could rather provide stable electricity to one of our countries, and then we
can talk about Internet" (I know, that's not enough, of course)

Daniel


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