[governance] All power should be in the hands of the engineers? (was Re: HLLM in LOndon - CS reps)

Tue Dec 10 05:43:17 EST 2013

Yes. Norbert said civil society should participate. My question was who from civil society can effectively and productively participate. 

--srs (htc one x)

----- Reply message -----
From: "Jean-Christophe Nothias" <jeanchristophe.nothias at gmail.com>
To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, "Suresh Ramasubramanian" <suresh at hserus.net>
Cc: "Norbert Bollow" <nb at bollow.ch>
Subject: [governance] All power should be in the hands of the engineers? (was Re: HLLM in LOndon - CS reps)
Date: Tue, Dec 10, 2013 3:44 PM

Hi Suresh,

Sorry about that, but what do you mean? Can you elaborate a little bit? Was it humor, irony? Maybe you have a concrete idea for following up on Norbert's view - which I entirely agree with.

Thanks for being a bit more explicit.

JC

Le 10 déc. 2013 à 10:37, Suresh Ramasubramanian a écrit :

> If you find competent people for what he is advocating in civil society, then why sure. 
> 
> --srs (htc one x)
> 
> ----- Reply message -----
> From: "Norbert Bollow" <nb at bollow.ch>
> To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> Cc: "Jean-Christophe Nothias" <jeanchristophe.nothias at gmail.com>
> Subject: [governance] All power should be in the hands of the engineers? (was Re: HLLM in LOndon - CS reps)
> Date: Tue, Dec 10, 2013 2:58 PM
> 
> In relation to Jean-Christophe's posting quoted below...
> 
> Those remarks of Alejandro Pisanty (who by the way is not only Chair of
> ISOC Mexico, but also definitely an influential person in the global
> technical community, for example he has served three terms as an ICANN
> board member, and he is currently on ISOC's Board of Trustees) are at
> minutes 50:00-57:00 in this video:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtOfsC2n_lQ
> 
> Although the agenda that he is promoting is absolutely shocking when
> looked at from any mainstream civil society perspective (in the sense
> of what is mainstream among civil society movements in general, if we
> look beyond the community of those who specialize on Internet
> governance), what he is saying is unfortunately an influential view
> among many technical people.
> 
> In effect, he's saying that all power should be in the hands of the
> engineers and by implication in the hands of the companies for which
> they're working, and he is promoting the use of smoke screen tactics
> that aim at preventing anyone else from gaining an effective influence.
> 
> Civil society absolutely needs to find a good way to deal with this
> kind of tactics.
> 
> These tactics have been successfully used *within* civil society
> networks such as the IGC with the aim of preventing IGC from being an
> effective civil society voice (again in the sense of what is mainstream
> among civil society movements in general, looking beyond the community
> of those who specialize on Internet governance).
> 
> If IGC in its current incarnation is not capable of dealing with this
> challenge effectively, we need to create an IGC v2 that has that
> capability.
> 
> Greetings,
> Norbert
> 
> 
> 
> Jean-Christophe Nothias <jeanchristophe.nothias at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > All of this is very impressive! Does the lists feel comfortable with
> > that type of situation?
> > 
> > It seems that, in this IG world, many things have no stable
> > definition at all. 
> > 
> > What's about the definition of 'trust', or 'respect'? Too complex?
> > 
> > I think what we observe here is not the right path to heal the
> > 'governance gap'* , nor to come to a 'single definition of Internet
> > Governance'**, nor to address 'orphan issues'*** and certainly not a
> > good way to look at a 'single list of governance issues'****. And
> > obviously not help to define a 'single set of principles'*****. We
> > should not worry about that. Why? see below.
> > 
> > 
> > These 'expressions' are forbidden since ICANN48, as per Alejandro
> > Pisanty, chair of ISOC Mexico, stated that these expressions have to
> > be banned from the I stars (I*, 1Net, ISOC...) narrative.
> > Surprisingly everyone in the room seemed to enjoy that rather odd
> > collection of 'NO'! I need t to find a couple of speeches by
> > notorious totalitarians using such a restrictive vision of a
> > democratic debate.
> > 
> > Here what ISOC Mexico Chair suggested to all ISOCs around the planet:
> > 
> > *
> > "We should not accept the term 'governance gap'. That’s an invention
> > that has been a very popular invention (inaudible) but we should not
> > use it in our vocabulary."
> > 
> > **
> > "We should have 'no single definition of Internet governance'. We
> > should push against the idea that the Brazil meeting, or anything
> > else, will produce a definition of Internet Governance which would be
> > good for everybody, every time and for many years. We have different
> > definitions of Internet Governance depending of countries, regions,
> > interests, religions and so forth and we should thrive for them to
> > stay diverse."
> > 
> > ***
> > "We should not use in our vocabulary  ‘orphan issues’. It might be
> > argued that there are organ, sorry orphan issues in IG but most of
> > the time if something is an issue, there is already someone, some
> > organization, couple of engineers trying to work on it. They may be
> > not of enough scale or expertise to grow globally or to split up
> > multi regionally. There are very few real orphan issues in IG. Many
> > of the things that appear as orphan issues are not IG issue but legal
> > issues. Your judges are not well trained to identify cybercrime as a
> > form of crime, or you do not have that law but it’s a national law
> > not a global law."
> > 
> > ****
> > "We should not have a 'single list of issues for governance'. There
> > are people who got it one way, people who got it another way. There
> > are people who put spam and pfishing together. Other pfishing and
> > cybersecurity together. Let that happen. Let these thousand flowers
> > of definition blossom."
> > 
> > *****
> > "We should avoid to establish a 'single set of principles' which is
> > among other things, one declared an objective of the Brazilian
> > meeting. During the eight years of IGF, there are already been two
> > dozens or so of IG definition. They are not all compatible."
> > 
> > etc, etc, etc...
> > 
> > Former president of South Africa, back in the 50's once explained to
> > the media and their audiences, the meaning of 'APARTHEID'. "This
> > Afrikaner word meant 'GOOD NEIGHBORING'. An expression of progress".
> > A beautiful way to twist reality. Manipulating and alluding people,
> > erasing definitions, avoiding debates... All of these drive toward
> > what the worst regimes can offer to its subordinates.
> > 
> > "We are the revolutionaries. They are the counter revolutionaries."
> > 
> > Comfortable? 
> > 
> > JC
> 
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