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An Entry from the Archives

David: This is so good it deserves to be posted twice. As you clearly understood...

But if you really want people to remember what you said, you should repeat it three times!

Oy, if you had any idea the circumstances under which we wrote this, followed by my posting it as I was trying to live-blog the press conference, you'd get off my back, you bastahds! :)

I mean: Thank you for the correction. I've fixed it.

(We finished it five minutes before the presentation. And it was one of the most remarkable group editing sessions I've ever been in: Focused, low ego, quick resolution of disputes. The document is far from perfect, but participating in the writing of it was a great experience.)

It might not be perfect David but it IS bloody good!

This is a very important contribution. In the UK today, as I write, our upper House (the Lords) is defending an ill considered assault on some basic and essential civil liberties by the lower house (the Commons).

Openness is under threat in many areas around the world and needs to be defended and promoted.

I'm forwarding the link to the statement to friends and colleagues and suggest others do to. This demands to be read.

Here are some questions and/or criticisms that might help to make for a better statement, (or might not).

I. This is something that always puzzles me. Would we say the same thing about some other piece of technological infrastructure? How can an artifact have "core values?" What are the "core values" of a technology? People can have core values, people affiliated into groups can share core values, but many different people and groups use the same technologies. So how does a technology have "core values?"

I.1 - Same issue, slightly differently stated. What you're really describing is not the "internet" - the artifact - but a shared belief of many of the people who use the internet. I would say that not all the people who use the internet share those beliefs.

I.2 - I'll buy borders, but communicating across "belief systems" is a human effort for which no technology is essentially necessary, and none is sufficient.

I.3 - Great except for the end. Again, kind of a projection thing, or a "glass half full" point of view. It's just as likely that a technology that facilitates connection can be used to help form "uncivil" societies, or disrupt civil ones.

I.4 Thank you for not saying "markets are conversations!"

I.6 I would be interested if this was offered as a consolation, throwing someone "a bone," as it were. It's true, but it differs in tenor and tone (more realistic and sober I think) with the preceding statements. Not necessary to respond, just kind of idle curiosity.

Okay, how could paragraph (topic?) I be "better" in light of these comments:

1. Instead of saying that the internet has "core values" - state what the core values of democracy are and how the internet, as a technology, can promote and strengthen those core values, can be an asset if people who espouse those core values use it to that end. I think investing a "thing" with human qualities, kind of a "values-anthropomorphism" just creates a distraction for cranky old men like me.

Don't credit a technology with a capability it does not possess. Again, a distraction.

Be realistic, note that there is nothing _intrinsic_ to the technology that _promotes_ thing like civil societies. Human effort using the technology does that, and human effort can be directed in other ways using the same technology.

So I guess I would say the "optimism" needs to be dialed back a bit in I. You won't lose the optimists and you'll encounter less resistance from skeptics and curmudgeons like me.

II.2 - Almost a quibble more than a criticism, but I would say the word "best" is probably overstating the case. "Essential" would probably be more palatable to me. It's not a "happy" to "glad" issue, but I think removing "best" does help to foster the sense of realism and sobriety this topic deserves in order to be taken seriously by a wide audience (i.e. everyone not already aboard the "cluetrain").

No major heartburn with II.

III 1. I don't think you can make the claim that open socieities are necessarily congruent with "transparent." If by "open" socieities we mean "free," then people are free to be opaque if they want to. And I think it's patently false to assert that open societies are more "secure." It seems to me that open societies are ones that embrace greater risk in favor of openness due to the benefits that accrue from that openness. Embracing risk means accepting less security. I think you're off target in this statement and you're trying to make an assertion that isn't supportable. It's, forgive me, a "marketing claim."

III 3. I would insert the word "can" or "may" before "counter," because, again, the technology itself does nothing. People have to use the technology that way. It seems as though you're putting your faith in technology to do things that people do, or don't do.

III 4. Wow! You'd have to do a lot of convincing to get me to buy anything after "exploited by terrorists." What is it about "openness" that "minimizes the likelihood of terrorist attackes?" Openness has many important virtues and I don't suggest we need to reject openness, but making unwarranted claims about it will not help promote it in the long run. "Fertile ground..." indeed, as in bullshit! ;^)

III is the weakest part of this, whatever it is. A manifesto? Communique? Lots of projection.

IV. I would change "threaten" to something less loaded like "impair" or "impede" or "delay." Again, more sobriety, a little less hyperbole.

IV. 1. Regulation cannot destroy the internet. Again, you seem to conflate an artifact with the (seemingly exclusively positive, in your view) social interactions the artifact enables. This whole statement is hyperbolic and will likely not be taken seriously by anyone not already in your camp.

IV 2. This says nothing. Omit it, or make it say what you mean. It just sounds like "Government bad! Internet good!"

IV 3. Take out "For example," and make this 2. It makes a little more sense, though this statement itself induces cognitive dissonance. How does "anonymity" square with "transparency?" Yes, I know that anonymous people are more free to report on things authorities would prefer remain behind closed doors, but isn't anonymity itself un-transparent? I think you need to make the case for appreciating and tolerating the tension between competing values. The last sentence seems like just some hand-waving. "Bad things will happen! Bad things!"

V. 3 & 5 are the most problematic, and the least essential to what I believe your primary aims were. 3 and 5 need to address some very important issues, and seem to presume a universally-shared view of the internet and the belief systems of its primary proponents, which is simply not the case. There are critical questions that need to be addressed and there are ways we can help to spread the positive aspects of the internet while mitigating or ameliorating some of its more negative effects.

If you were promoting the automobile in the 1920s and 1930's with the knowledge you have today of the effects of the automobile on the environment, the scale of human architecture, accident rates, traffic stress, etc, etc, etc, would we try to accelerate its adoption all over the world? Or might there be a better way to make the technology more "humane?"

I'm sure that'll piss off a lot of people, but I'd like to see us start to be a little less clever and a little more wise. Though perhaps wisdom is a quality I'm projecting on humanity in the same way I sense you're projecting human qualities on an artifact.

I'm very sympathetic to what it seems you hoped to convey, but I think the group could have done a better job if it tried to be a bit more skeptical of itself. Try to include a few skeptics next time.

Most of the commentary I've read about the Internet & democracy tends to advance a 'direct democracy' agenda of one kind or another.

I know that 'direct democracy' and 'representative democracy' don't need to be seen as polar opposites here, but surely any serious statement on this subject should take a view of how representative democracy can be enhanced - or at least bulwarked?

Given the huge and progressive success of representative democracy, I'd suggest that this is a significant oversight.