[1785] in Commercialization & Privatization of the Internet
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daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dave Hughes)
Wed Dec 25 18:47:10 1991
Date: Wed, 25 Dec 1991 16:46:24 -0700
From: Dave Hughes <daveh@csn.org>
To: com-priv@psi.com
On Christmas Eve, Dave Farber wrote mellowly about the evidence these
discussions have produced that gives him hope that members of the online
technical and scientific 'community' have matured in their dealings with
the many NSFNet issues that have come up. He does express amazement that
some online still wonder how these discussions reach the Press and the
Hill. Or dismiss the whole matter disdainfully as 'just politics.' But
is happy that the discussion has led to responsible reporting.
In this seasonal interlude from the strenuous strivings which will
continue to preoccupy us all during these decades of great change and
global economic stress, I would like to philosophize more broadly on
Dave Farber's point.
I am not sure I believe that 'maturity' has fully been reached.
Responsible Information Age Adolescence maybe. But there is a long way
to go before those who know how to achieve technological and scientific
breakthroughs are willing, and able, to participate in the national
debates that will be necessary before the best national policies, laws,
regulations, and practices emerge that are in the broadest public
interest.
This medium may be one of the few ways they can, and will.
And there is an even longer way for elected and appointed officials to
go before they can base their decisions soundly on science and the
predictable, as well as unpredictable, effects of rapid technological
change. Through this medium they, and their advisors and supporters, can
learn - and afford the time it takes to learn ever more more complicated
technological matters which they will be required to decide upon. And
not be unduly influenced by the distorting, as well as clarifying,
magnifying lens of the press, which itself is going to have to use this
medium to be able to understand that about which they write.
There is as much need for Presidential and Congressional Candidates to
be 'online' discussing these matters directly and unfiltered by the
Press, as for Captains of Computer Industry to debate them with
Operators of the Networks and Academic and Scientific representatives or
those of us who are neither, but give a damn about the common man, and
where he and his children fit in all this.
So that the press can return to its proper role of reporting to the
nation at large, and not be as media has too uncomfortably become of
late - the flawed lens through which we all see each other - and debate
the issues in sound bytes and quick quotes. More tribal and emotional
than civilized and thoughtful. The directness of the New England town
hall meeting can be preserved in Electronic Town Squares. But everyone
affected by the decisions of the majority are going to have to take part
in the discusssions and debates - and not jsut passively lurk, rely on
the media, or else we will continue to be ruled by the influence of the
most powerful or well heeled lobbyists, and the pressure of political
money and media.
Benjamin Franklin would have been early on the Internet, and not just to
discuss electricity.
The important issues go far beyond that of commercialization of the
Internet, technical feasibility, K-12 access, network security,
information overload, or allocation of subsidy by the Federal
Government. They go to the heart of how this nation is going to function
in the Age where knowledge, expertise, and the means of acquiring both -
and where new modes and economics of telecommunications will play a
decisive central role enabling all the rest - will be the ultimate
measure of economic, political, educational success or failure, of
individuals, local communities, states, and nations. Ordered knowledge
is now this nation's most valuable strategic resource - scientific,
technological, economic, political, cultural - and how it all fits
together. Mining it, expanding it, and delivering it to where it is
needed, as well as to those willing to pay for it, is our most important
task.
There is no guarantee that moving into the Post Industrial society by
merely extending the economics, infrastructure, and political consensus
that dominated our Industrial Age past will work well enough in an era
where the Highways of the Mind will be the only path of education,
training and opportunity, to permit a continuation of the pursuit by all
of 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' With the gulf between
the information-rich, information-poor already very big, the ghettos of
armed ignorance growing, the miniaturization of technology arming the
dangerous and greedy as well as the public-spirited and generous, the
spread of instant mis-information as well as good-information, the
massive obsolesence of our public educational empire, there simply are
no guarantees we will succeed. This transition of may be as difficult
for our society as the breakup of the Soviet Union will be for theirs
(and our ability to lend a hand by telecom may be very important to
their success in 'learning fast' how to change their ways).
It does not take much stretching of historical parallels to see that
large parts of our society more resemble darkening conditions during the
Middle Ages than the spread and promise of the American Dream - which in
essence has been one in which there has been an ability of our society
to continually evolve its social vision, a political system which has
been able to tolerate, and act as midwife for peaceful and evenhanded
change, technologies that have harnessed resources to the social vision,
and an economic engine which has supplied the means to achieve the
vision for all who are willing to work hard for its fruits. Nothing much
seems to be working well in America right now, and while high-tech,
computers and telecom seem to be playing an almost religous role of
'faith' in a better future, its going to take more than public relations
speeches on the floor of Congress or statements from the White House to
meld the new physical possibilities into a workable system that makes a
difference nationally.
With castles of self-perpetuating political power, ivory towers of
intellectual elitism dependent on the indulgence of government princes,
armed bands unsure to what values they owe their allegience, and
peasants in the computer fields paying tribute to economic kings, the
Internet and NREN can either evolve into Telecom Toll Roads for the
intellectual priveleged, or start becoming a system of true Highways of
the Mind for the Everyman and Everywoman of this nation - and by
example, the world. And who controls that system of communications and
determines where it goes, will be as important as how smooth the surface
and how fast goods, and services, and people can move over it.
So I am glad that, as an outcome of the com=priv debates that have
occured here there is now as much light as heat, the press is able to
report a very difficult and arcane area which millions are going to
have to understand if they are to exericise their ultimate political
power over it, Congress, the White House, and the Administration seem to
be listening and moderating their views and decisions by what is going
on here, that there seems to be an effort to find creative solutions
more than win-lose, zero-sum game compromises or capitulations, and that
THIS promises that indeed, progress can be made in the best tradition of
the American political system - of citizns getting Informed, and then
Debate, and then Decide - in the broadest public interest.
In that sense, I agree with Dave Farber's far briefer expression of hope
and call to cursors. And can continue to teach my granddaughters how to
log into their future with a chance their lives will be better than even
mine, which was, on balance, swell.
