[1495] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
Re: So what is the answer?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (sean mclinden)
Fri Oct 11 00:01:32 1991
Date: Thu, 10 Oct 91 23:28:55 -0400
From: sean@dsl.pitt.edu (sean mclinden)
To: edtjda@magic322.chron.com, sommerfeld@apollo.com
Cc: com-priv@psi.com
Bill Sommerfeld writes in <9110110018.AA26286@psi.com>:
> ...Technical solutions to social problems generally don't work -- and
> the percieved "problem" of the transmission of Bad Ideas over the
> Internet into the Defenseless Minds of our children is a social problem,
> not a technical problem.
Perhaps. But society may have another idea. Practically since the Civil
War the view of society has been that technology exists to deal with social
problems. Look at the advertising, "Better Living Through Chemistry", "Labor
Saver", "Live Like A King", and many others tout technology as the great
equalizer. "The same X found in Y can now be found in *your* home." In some
way or aother, technology responds to societal needs, and sometimes shapes
them (do we all really need VCR's with 24-month advance programming,
Nintendos, and the ability to grind our own coffee beans, make our own
expresso, compose and replay our own keyboard music...?).
Society funds this work and tolerates it's mistakes (the Exxon Valdez?,
Three Mile Island, all of the destruction of the environment due to
plastic, glass, and metal containers), because it addresses something
of even greater social priority that what it destroys (or so we think).
And because of this society argues that technology should be accountable
to it.
Technology helps to mold society and, when left to natural forces, may
help to advance it. Where the problems occur is when we attempt to, through
restriction, regulation, and legislation, interrupt this ecological process
in order to effect an unnatural and untimely outcome. I would not argue that
a totally unrestricted system is, necessarily, benign. But regulation, if
and when it is indicated, must be carefully thought out (something that I
certainly wouldn't expect the courts or the legislatures to do well) and
the potential effects of any intervention measured against the predicted
effects of doing nothing at all. Frequently, as experience has taught us,
the treatment is worse than the disease.
Sean McLinden
