[12717] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: Infobahn as Theatre (long)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Designa@aol.com)
Fri May 27 00:57:50 1994
From: Designa@aol.com
To: com-priv@psi.com
Date: Thu, 26 May 94 12:22:58 EDT
While it may be true that all the hype and hand-wringing over "convergence"
may be part of an enormous group ego trip on the part of technology
developers, the invocation of "the needs of the nation's poor" does point to
a major blind-spot in the analysis. While it may be true that the overt
purpose of this massive "wrestling match" may be to promote and provoke
consumption -- as consistent with the tacit economic rules of post-modern
society -- what's missing is the fundamental and extricable purpose that
underlies the net -- that of a means of free exchange for the purpose of
self-expression and inquiry. The challenge is to get the issue of building an
infrastructure that at its core promotes self-expression and inquiry for a
vast portion of society "on the mat", and cast the images of the
sequin-coated "managers" with $100 bills lining their top-hats.
In a world in which the volume of information content is growing rapidly,
what's missing is the capability to simply dwell in necessary inquiry.
American society is addicted to cheap closure -- the rapid fire exchange on
this list demonstrates this perfectly. Returning to the invocation of "the
nations poor", I look at the needs of all those suffering the shocks of the
'90s as being brought on by factors that don't stand up to cheap closure
(straining population growth, familial and community dislocation). Given the
bankruptcy of the assumptions that undergird society (which served to develop
and industrial era), we need to develop a means to involve society at large
in a broad inquiry into value -- the values that will succeed the declining
industrial paradigm. This is why convergence is important. Ill explain why.
As I observe the state of the world, the simplest measure I can take is that
the fundamental question in play across societys is simply this: What to do?
It is the inability to maintain this question in play in a balanced sense
that has the former-Yugoslavians at each others throats. Likewise throughout
the former Soviet empire, or in India and Pakistan, or in the South Bronx or
South Central L.A. What to do -- how do we define ourselves by purposeful
actions when the context for performing those actions is no longer valid? And
the more profound question -- which is the role of the network in a
futuristic sense -- is how do we connect with the work that needs to be done.
Obviously there is an enormous amount of work to be done. There is no work
shortage, per se. Whats missing is the guile and the will and the
INFRASTRUCTURE to coordinate and connect. We must step back from the narrow
debate about whether or not to let the net devolve into a consumptive medium,
and address the more fundamental question of what kind of medium does it need
to be. We cant parse the purpose of the net in terms of what it is not, or
cannot be, or how it fails to suit the paradigm of those investing in putting
together parts of it. Now of course, in the grand style of cheap closure, all
the netrepreneurs say Well how do you make money at building THIS net? Our
commercial models and capital business plans dont ascribe sufficient value
to this endeavor. Well what is the value of 911 when your child or spouse is
choking? What is the value of a lifeline service -- a global lifeline --
that connects people in such a way that their response to a shift in local
circumstances does not reflexively end up in an armed response again those in
the surrounding locale? Look up and around you -- there is plenty of
potential capital around being squirreled away -- benefitting no one but bond
sellers. Beyoyond that, it becomes clear that we need to redfine our
relationship with public interest and public trust investments so that they
are not automatically vieewd solely in terms of being agents to justify
useles beuracracies. Theres a middle ground thats being missed here -- and
each day that its missing, it costs us.
Convergence could means putting a terminal in a village in Indian village so
that they can coordinate their crop growth with that two villages over -- a
capability that has not existed before. Convergence is the means to allow
people to build increasing amounts of flexibility into their schedules --
breaking down the rigidity of the 9-to-5 workday by providing people with
direct connection to the administrative and coordination facilities of their
workplace. This flexibility, in turn, can be reinvested in both expanded
leisure and cultural activity and in continuous, location-independent
reeducation self-investment. Convergence means people who are now economic
and social refugees in Eastern Europe or central Asia developing a profile of
the skills and backgrounds of the people who are now without work, and to
profile the existence of unused factory or agricultural resources, and then
instantly post this profile to a global list which may include capitalists
looking to fulfill similar needs, and looking to globalize. None of these
are new ideas (See Bucky Fuller, Alvin Tofller, E.F. Schumacher, etc.) But
where is this signal amidst all the noise of narco-TV on demand?
There are certain background assumptions at play here that need to be
examined. First is the assumption of the exclusivity of data processing and
its underlying purpose as primarily as means to support commercial
transaction and production. The purpose is already designed into the network.
The debate about the net and the NII and the GII has devolved into occurring
within the narrow frame of how technology supports will continue to
commercial activity -- activity based on a large extent on industrial
models. The debate maintains hierarchy and scarcity as givens -- not to be
examined. If there is some movement to justify its existence outside of the
model -- certainly outside the narrow rows and columns in which that
investment bankers live -- then it is attacked simply to close the issue
before it makes anyone really dwell on the deeper implications.
The business models we inherit, and apparently cherish, will fail to justify
investments in a net that allows redefinition of societys (global society)
founding assumptions. This is my great fear. The net, at its heart, is
designed to accomplish this -- at its heart is an interactive and adaptive
medium for exchange and expression, based on consensus standards. That is all
you need. Those with the most to lose -- those most closely tied to
industrial models -- will act as noise agents, closing off real inquiry
before it makes inroads into the design process. This is the kind of threatre
to which we are all too accustomed.
= Joe Raimondo =
Editor
Encapsulations: Design Points for Global Access
Box 551, Haddonfield, NJ 08033 USA
(609) 428-8767, designa@aol.com
The modern world tends to be skeptical about everything that makes
demands on man's higher faculties. But it is not at all skeptical about
skepticism,
which demands hardly anything."
E.F. Schumacher
