So I’m at Micah Sifry’s Politics of the Internet class at the Kennedy School, and risk live-blogging it (taxing my multitasking abilities…)
Some questions in the midst of dialog between Micah (@Mlsif) and the class (#pol-int)…
- Was there a $trillion “internet dividend” over the old phone system, and was it a cost to the old system?
- Did the Internet have to happen?
- Is the IETF‘s “rough consensus and running code” still a prevailing ethos, or methodology?
- Is it an accident that the rough consensus above is so similar to the #Occupy methods?
- When you add value, do you also subtract value? (And did I — or David Weinberger and I) actually say that in World of Ends?)
- Does this new un-owned decentralized medium cause or host culture?
- How is the Internet used differently in different societies? (Assertion: it’s not monolithic.)
- What is possible in a world where we assume connectivity?
- What are the major disruptive effects?
- What is the essence of the starting point in the early connection of computers? (What is the case for the Net, and how would you make it to, say, a legislator? Or you’re in an elevator with your boss, and you want to make the case against legislating how the internet is structured?)
Topics brought up:
- Net-heads vs. bell-heads (the Net as its transcendant protocols vs. the Net as a collection of owned and controlled networks)
- Commercialization
- Authentic voice
- Before and after (what if Compuserve and AOL had won?)
- How can we speak of a giant zero when companies and governments are being “smart” (either through government censorship or carrier limitations, including the urge to bill everything, to pick a couple of examples)
My Linux Journal collection on the topic (from a lookup of “giant zero”):
- Saving the Net: How to Keep the Carriers from Flushing the Net Down the Tubes (the main one, from 2005)
-
More…Feb 24, 2008 … Linux Journal Senior Editor Doc Searls tells us about The Giant Zero.www.linuxjournal.com/content/doc-searls-giant–zeroJul 28, 2008 … He noted that I own giantzero.us, and told me that giantzero.com had become available. (The Giant Zero is the name of a book I’m working on, …www.linuxjournal.com/…/what-google-does-and-needs-keep-doingJul 9, 2008 … I’ve been calling this “the giant zero,” because one of the Net’s founding ideals is reducing toward zero the functional distance between any two …www.linuxjournal.com/…/saving-net-iii-understanding-its-framesDec 18, 2008 … Deployment of the infrastructure required before the Net becomes a true “giant zero“, or makes Big Switch benefits available to everybody, …www.linuxjournal.com/…/why-internet-infrastructure-need-be-fields-studyJul 1, 2007 … Software as construction, the Live Web, independent identity, the Giant Zero, VRM and The Because Effect are a few that come to mind. …www.linuxjournal.com/article/9717Apr 29, 2005 … Well then, this explains exactly why although MS is a successful softwaregiant, they have zero history of pioneering creativity and innovation in …www.linuxjournal.com/article/8280
Well, I wrote down nothing from my own talk, or the Q & A following. But there are clues in the tweet stream (there’s some funky html in the following… no time to fix it, though):
dskok David SkokAn excellent read re: the battle@dsearls was referring to. I recommend@scrawford‘s@nytimes op-Ed: nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opi…#pol-int
NoreenBowden Noreen Bowden@dsearls!#pol-int Death From Above – 1995 essay by John Barlow on future of internet. w2.eff.org/Misc/Publicati…dskok David SkokNoreenBowdenNoreen BowdenStanford prof leaves to start online university. allthingsd.com/20120125/watch…#pol-intdsearls Doc SearlsNaparstekAaron NaparstekdskokDavid SkokListening to@docsearls referring to the Internet Protocol Suite: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_…#pol-intNaparstekAaron NaparstekNaparstekAaron NaparstekTesting live classroom Twitter feed@Mlsif‘s new@Kennedy_School course, “The Politics of the Internet.”#pol-int
Enjoyed it. The class will be blogging. Look forward to reading those too.
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