Comments on: Internet exceptionalism

By: Amanda

Amanda — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:46:22 +0000

The internet is an extension of a primary concept to control information, it was built with a basic single purpose ….. to control information. Information manipulation is not a by product of computer science it is the motivating force. Who can get to the mecca of supreme information control first. Google and Facebook are constantly engaged in a power war over the information mecca.
To state that the internet is a human right is to demoralize humanity. While the internet holds much information and is a source for many to inspire and educate in the same manner as a library, the internet also is a playground for cyber criminals and deviants who have no correlation to Omniscience.
The internet is it’s own beast and while we can derive commonalities with tangible objects like paper and libraries, we are yet to define internet regulation. Paper and libraries answer to copyright law while the internet currently has no formal legislation on this issue. Until cyber democracy is defined by the people the internet CANNOT be upheld as a human right, since human rights require a framework of laws to operate in. The internet is everything to everyone, leaving it wide open to consumerism which is also NOT a human right …… just ask someone from an underprivileged nation. Television is not a human right nor is having a cell phone. The internet is the ultimate in free speech. Democracy recognizes a right to free speech but not without engaging due process. Crisis Management is the only due process that the internet currently offers. :)

By: Points of Concensus in the Optimist/Pessimist Debate | meta-activism project

Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:48:46 +0000

[...] matter for the social good is a natural extension of David Weinberger’s idea of “Internet exceptionalism“.Â It also echoes the spirit of the recent paper â€œBlogs and Bullets: New Media in [...]

By: Max

Max — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 17:29:49 +0000

DW and sympathizers are right, The Internet is inherently exceptional — at least for now. The current relationship between BitTorrent and access network congestion proves nothing, except perhaps that the currently widespread practice of strategic edge network rationing fixes access capacity at a level that falls below the upper limit of finite individual-level attention spans/filtering. But this is a contingent byproduct of current circumstances. If individual network users were not haunted by the legitimate concern that even more draconian artificial rationing might be just over the horizon, the BitTorrent-enabled strategy of “grab as much as possible now, filter locally later (if necessary”) would probably be quite anomalous — and eventually (if access capacity were allowed to grow in line with actual technology-cost-adjusted provisioning and maintenance costs), even the most gluttonous, attention challenged infovore would never be able to find the bottom.

Unfortunately, the condition of non-scarcity is not only exceptional, it’s anathema in the context of our current economic system. In fact, recognition of even the possibility of technology-driven non-scarcity would represent a clear and definitive refutation of the worldviews of some of the most vocal (and currently, quite influential) champions of the “pure” market-based life (Austrian economists, anarcho-capitalists, etc.). The facts will never hold sway in this particular context, because the worldview dictates that the facts must be otherwise.

By: Aphorism 34 | Public Strategist

Aphorism 34 | Public Strategist — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:38:16 +0000

[...] David Weinberger [...]

By: Joho the Blog Â» Internet exceptionalism

Joho the Blog Â» Internet exceptionalism — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:28:16 +0000

[...] See thе rest here: Joho thе Blog Â» Internet exceptionalism [...]

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:36:49 +0000

SMOE

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:08:35 +0000

BitTorrent already proved the aphorism. If infinite bandwidth was available, it would try to use infinity-plus-one. Or more like Cantor’s infinity aleph-one.

People have already found that they need more than is available, and will for the foreseeable future (24 hour 300dpi real-time 3D lifecasting, anyone?)

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:37:46 +0000

I stand corrected. Should have said: “Everybody can have as much as they need,” not “more than they need.” Didn’t think I had to qualify my comment to include shifting perspectives over time.

If it’s okay with you, I’ll simply reject the aphorisms about work and applications expanding. I’ll grant that we do have an infinite demand for bandwidth, but I’d like you to see that there is infinite bandwidth available.

Brief comment on “pterodactyl requirements of ordinary people,” or whatever. Most ordinary people haven’t ever seen a parrot, much less a pterodactyl. Nevertheless, there will be bandwidth available for their pterodactyls if they ever need it. They may, of course, be required to file a flight plan.

By: Seth Finkelstein

Seth Finkelstein — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:59:10 +0000

There is no such thing as “everybody can have more than they need”. Work expands to fill the time available. Applications expand to fill the resources available – and note, more resources means more potential for conflict.

Or, remember the apocryphal statement “640K (of memory) should be enough for anyone”.

For heaven’s sake, people are now finding 1 TERABYTE hard drives are insufficient. For ordinary people.

This is all a bit like the argument that one should never need a special-purpose coprocessor, just a faster general-purpose processor.
After all, if you have a graphics card, that’s making a value judgment that some sorts of calculations are more important than others. The correct thing to do is improve CPU engineering, to virtually infinite cycles, because abstractly it’s all just calculations.

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 17:44:39 +0000

Maybe I was a bit too poetic. I thought the ironic juxtaposition of the image of my DSL network interface with the sweeping statement regarding the infinite capacity of the sum of all transmission media would speak for itself.

Consider Korea. More and more people there have affordable access to more bandwidth than they can use, because they have a properly provisioned infrastructure and a well run market.

I guess “more bandwidth than they can use” is the key concept. If I provide you with a megabit of bandwidth and you are constrained by present need or immediate expectation… i.e. you need 2 megabits of throughput and I only supplied one, or you anticipate the need for 2 megabits and the single megabit while adequate today will clearly be inadequate tomorrow, you live in an environment of scarcity. It’s as if a monopolist is squeezing you. On the other hand, if I provide you ten megabits, but the most you can conceive of using in the foreseeable future is 3 megabits, then you have been provisioned with “virtually infinite” bandwidth. In this model any number greater than three = infinity. Bandwidth is infinite when everybody can have more than they need. The telecommunications industry can provide virtually infinite bandwidth.