Re: [discuss] Individual representation

[Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>]

On Sat, Jun 26, 1999 at 11:47:05PM -0800, Ellen Rony wrote:
> Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> >You as another loud voice want to add yet more.  It won't
> >make things any better.
> 
> Actually, I have said publicly that IMHO, the entire constituency structure
> is an unnecessary and inappropriate way to slice the DNS pie.  My comments
> about representing the academic interests could also be made about
> representing, say, the religious community or even the Gay Red Herrings for
> Jesus.

Oh, so your point is that in principle the Constituency (big "C")
structure in the DNSO cannot guarantee representation to all possible
constituencies (little "c").  Yes, we *all* know that, and have 
known it for ages.  That is not its purpose.

> The whole problem with this self-organizing privatizing process is that it
> is, indeed, built on self-interest.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with self-interest -- it is the
foundation of democracy and capitalism, things most people, on balance, 
think are good.  

The basic problem is actually a fairly obvious structural defect: the
issues are only understood by an infinitesimal fraction of the
parties who will be affected.  That understanding diffuses out at a
glacial pace, in Internet time.  Therefore a fundamental requirement 
of democracy, an informed populace, is not present, and there is no 
reasonable expectation that it will be present in any time frame of 
relevance to the problems being addressed.

[...]

> The words "elegant" and "ICANN" do not belong in close proximity. Earlier
> in this process, I believed, perhaps naively, that ICANN would develop
> through a series of course corrections, which is how our rocket scientists
> got the Apollo spacecraft to the moon.

Hmm.  From my perspective ICANN has gone through several significant 
course corrections (though some of them not exactly optimal).

> I have recently come to believe
> that the order of business has been pre-ordained behind closed doors, and
> all the energy we are putting into the meetings, proposals, bylaws,
> structures, comparisons, mailing lists, etc. are encouraged only to give
> the appearance of a public self organizing process.

"Behind closed doors" implies that there is a self-serving conspiracy
that is directing all of this.  That is not the case.  There are
undoubtedly many self-serving conspiracies involved, of course --
it's just that there isn't one directing all this.  

Instead there are certain fairly obvious constraints that simply
cannot be avoided, and those who are aware of those constraints may
seem like a conspiracy to those who are not. 

There are a fair number of people who appear for whatever reason to
willfully ignore these constraints, and persist in trying to
self-organize something that is far beyond what can actually be
accomplished.  The constraints have always been there, they continue
to be there, they are not going away; and nothing in the ICANN
bylaws, or meetings etc, can change that reality. 

> This sea change for Internet administration isn't going to be determined by
> the loudest voices but by the deepest pockets.

Those are not the only two choices, nor are they mutually exclusive.

-- 
Kent Crispin                               "Do good, and you'll be
kent@songbird.com                           lonesome." -- Mark Twain