techno-politics was Re: [governance] Bloomberg - The Overzealous

[Avri Doria]

On 20 Jan 2013, at 06:21, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:

> The single root (system of root servers under a wide range of control) setup is a result of architecture, not politics.  Alternate roots are technically not feasible, and where they do exist, they either require their small number of believers to set up a complete new set of resolvers without which the particular set of alternate roots they require won't resolve.   
> 


I contend that this is a techno-political statement

I know this is just an example in this discussions, but let me explore this just a little.

In the beginning, as far as I recall when DNS was first being discussed in the IETF, there were those who felt that DNS should allow for multiple roots.  But it was hard to do and was deemed to be unnecessary by most at the time.

the decision that it was unnecessary was political
the decision that it was hard was technical.
The overall decsion was a techno-political decsion.

Today many people feel that it is necessary.  That is still a political decision.
Today some beleive it is technically possible and not so hard.  That is technical
Still techno-political

There are those who feel that while it may be possible, won't know until it is studied and undergoes a technical development process, but who also beleive that to allow the IETF or other organizations to study and work on that possibility would  sanction multiple roots, which they see as a bad thing.  Again, a techno-political decision, one where the technical and the politics cannot be separated.

I think a lot of the discussions where we have where there 'is it technical' or 'is it political' tussle can be analyzed this way and that in many many cases, things people call solely technical or solely political are really techno-political where both aspects, and maybe others, need simultaneous analysis.

avri







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