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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 227
Netizens-Digest Monday, December 14 1998 Volume 01 : Number 227
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Voltaire's Bastards (was: THOUGHTS ON THE NEW COMMUNICATION TECH
Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
[netz] A parallel
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 15:31:53 -0400
From: kerryo@ns.sympatico.ca (Kerry Miller)
Subject: [netz] Voltaire's Bastards (was: THOUGHTS ON THE NEW COMMUNICATION TECH
p 24-5
... As for essentials, little has changed. We began the 17th century in the
grip of what philosophers called blind logic. We end the 20th c in the hands of
blind reason...
What has changed radically are the roles which those who want power must play.
We have lost an unsatisfactory pyramidal system, which did have a few
advantages -- functioning in a relatively public manner, for example. In its
place, the management of power by rational structures is much more absolute.
...And so the breakdown of public figures over the last century has resolved
itself into a large group on the rational side -- technocrats, Heroes and false
Heroes -- with, on the other, a small group that resists the structural
imperatives and stands for an embattled humanist tradition...
This same phenomenon of technocrats and Heroes versus practical humanists plays
itself out in every sector of our society. The conflict is endlessly repeated
with the same imbalance and the same results. It is as true among the military
and the businessmen as it is among writers and architects.
The more these conflicts are examined, the clearer it becomes that certain of
our most important instincts -- the democratic, the practical, the imaginative -
- - are profound enemies of the dominant rational approach. The war between the
reasonable and the rational is one which our civilization, as we have
constituted it, is congenitally unable to resolve. If anything, the rise of
more and more parodically Heroic leaders indicates that the system in place is
desperately driving itself forward according to its own logic. And endemic to
that logic is the denial of all internal contradictions, to say nothing of
internal wars.
p. 27-30
[In the case of government,] there has been a gradual widespread improvement in
social standards, thanks in good part to the work of large bureaucracies. But
the conversion of the political class into an extension of the technocracy has
been a disaster. Perhaps the most damaging part of our obsession with expertise
and systems has been the restructuring of elected assemblies to make them
more efficient. This equation of the idea of efficiency -- a third-level
subproduct of reason -- and the process of democratic government shows just how
far away we have slipped from our common sense. Efficient decision making,
after all, is a characteristic proper to authoritarian governments. Napoleon
was efficient. Hitler was efficient. Efficient democracy is democracy
castrated....
It follows that the theology of power, under which the technocracy prospers,
marginalizes the whole idea of opposition and therefore that of sensible
change. Opposition becomes a refusal to participate in the process. It is
irrational. And this trivialization of those who criticize or say no from
outside the power structure applies not only to politics but to all
organizations.
...From the beginning of the Age of Reason, the Law had been intended to
protect the individual from the unreasonable actions of others, especially
those in power. This involved regulating the proper relationship between
ownership and the individual. Or between the state, the individual and the
corporation. Or between defined responsibilities and the people charged with
carrying out those responsibilities. In other words law attempted to regulate
the application of power.
But the nature of power has completely changed in our society. There has been a
marriage between the state and the means of production, an integration of the
elites into an interchangeable technocracy, a confusion over ownership and
management in the corporations. These structures make it almost impossible for
the law to judge illegal that which is wrong.
...[The] breakdown of social order -- rules of dress, sexual controls, speech
patterns, family structure -- has been seen as a great victory for the
individual. [But] these acts of personal freedom are irrelevant to the exercise
of power. So in lieu if taking a real part in the evolution of society, the
individual struggles to appear as if no one has power over his personal
evolution. Thus victories won for these individual liberties may actually be an
acceptance of defeat by the individual.
For example, never have so few people been willing to speak out on important
questions. Their fear is not tied to physical threats but to standing apart
from their fellow experts or risking a career or entering an area of
nonexpertise. Not since the etiquette-ridden courts of the 18c has public
debate been so locked into fixed positions, fixed formulas and fixed elites ...
Finally, our imagination has been radically altered in two areas by the Age of
Reason. The image, which was first scratched on stone walls, then painted,
printed, photographed and projected, can now be conceived as a three-
dimensional whole by a computer program. In other words, after thousands of
years of progress, the image has achieved technical perfection. That progress
has been central to our sense of our own immortality and the completion of it
has had a profoundly destabilizing effect on our sense of what we are. On top
of that, the undermining of universal language, in large part by the dialects
of expertise, has meant that we cant turn to the word to steady ourselves.
Instead, the writers and their pens, having invented the Age of Reason, are now
its primary prisoners and so are unable to ask the right questions, let alone
break down the imprisoning linguistic walls of their own creation.
p 39
The [manager or] technocrat began his existence as the ideal servant of the
people -- a man freed from both irrational ambition and self-interest. Then,
with surprising rapidity, he evolved into one who used the system with a
distant contempt for the people.
The Hero was a more complex phenomenon. He appeared unexpectedly out of the
shadows of reason, drawn forward when the people showed uncontrollable
impatience with the way they were being governed. This impatience may have been
provoked by poor or selfish government, by the inability of the new technocracy
actually to govern or even by leadership which somehow bored the populace. With
the old royal-baronial rivalry gone, there was no fixed structure to take up
the slack of unpopular government. The idea of elections was new, and even now,
two centuries later, does not easily convert the peoples desires into
appropriate government....
Trapped between these technocrats and Heroes were the reasonable men... -- men
who held firmly to their common sense morality. But they were neither efficient
enough nor exciting enough to hold their own [although] many did, for a period
of time -- Pascal Paoli for twenty years in Corsica, Jefferson for even longer
in the new United States, the first Pitt for several decades in England... But
they are not the ones who have defined the main line of the last four and a
half centuries. They have been exceptions to the rule, fighting a rearguard
action in defence of humanism.
That main line has been obscured by two of our obsessions. One is an
uncontrollable urge to give ourselves the impression that we have made yet
another fresh start. We are constantly declaring new ages...
This tells us a great deal about our other obscuring obsession. We have great
difficulty dealing with philosophy in the context of real events. These two
categories seem to live on separate planets. For example, we are still
convinced that violence is the product of fear and dear the product of
ignorance. And yet, since the beginning of the Age of Reason, there has been a
parallel growth in both knowledge and violence, culminating in the slaughters
of the 20th century.
Does this mean that knowledge creates greater fear than does ignorance? Or that
the rational system has distorted the value of knowledge? Or something else?
[This] separation has encouraged the invention of mythological obscurantism.
The constant launching of new philosophical ages [and technologies] is part of
that invention.
- -- John Ralston Saul, _Voltaires Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the
West_ (NY: Macmillan/ Free Press, 1992)
===========
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 21:15:15 +0100
From: christian mock <cm@tahina.priv.at>
Subject: Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
- --==_Exmh_-1754170732P
Content-Type: message/rfc822
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.1 12/23/97
To: netizens@columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:12:27 -0400."
<19981214151424.AAA20732@LOCALNAME>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> [For instance, what once read:
[...]
uhhh... I didn't compare the drafts, but the ministry of truth seems
to be at work.
> attention from *commercially profitable* offences against children such as invasion of privacy?]
not only this; it also distracts from the fact that a terrible number
of children is regularily sexually abused in their families,
certainly way more than are abused for the production of child
pornography -- kiddy porn is a straw man.
and then, kids are a huge customer potential for advertisers, so you
better give their parents the feeling that it's save to have them
exposed to your banner ads on the information superhighway.
- -- I set up a mailing list for the discussion of the "net censorship"
issue in austria; we'll see what we can do against AON's attempt at a
cozy clean internet.
ciao,
cm.
- --
christian mock @ home in vienna, austria
sind fremdcancels strafbar? -> http://www.tahina.priv.at/bincancel/
Those silly RFCs are all that separate us from the animals!
-- Kevin Rodgers in a.r.e
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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 22:48:35 +0100
From: christian mock <cm@tahina.priv.at>
Subject: Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
- --==_Exmh_877171538P
Content-Type: message/rfc822
X-Mailer: exmh version 2.0.1 12/23/97
To: netizens@columbia.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] censorship in austria (and the EU)
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 14 Dec 1998 11:40:50 EST."
<199812141640.LAA23009@panix3.panix.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
hi,
> Good you are on the Netizens list. Christian and I met when I visited
> Vienna in November and it was fun talking for hours even though
> we had lots of differences, we could talk about them and learn
...and we'll meet one of those differences (or probably just
different perceptions) later on...
> >It's "consumers", as in one-way media.
>
> And isn't that its purpose perhaps, to change the Internet into
> a single Net. No more diverse networks and diverse activity
of course it is. make it a centrally controlled, mostly one-way, cozy
nice little consumer thingy with no sharp edges.
> >material, if it's in a newsgroup they issue a NoCeM notice that all
> >their members can execute to remove the material from the news
> >servers.
>
> So they made the decision, without any consultation of users?
users? customers. the ISP's POV is probably "it's our ass that's
going to jail", which is understandable; OTOH, the important ISPs
(did I already tell that the amount of votes you have in the ISPA
depends on the yearly membership fee you pay?) don't give a damn
about those few usenet freaks, they run a business. there were only
two votes against the hotline proposal at the ISPA assembly general.
> What is the significance of having to switch on NoCeM processing
> for every single source?
NoCeM is a way for anybody to basically send out PGP-signed lists of
message-ids, and if you think one NoCeM issuer's point of view on
what is wanted or unwanted is OK you add him to the list of issuers
whose NoCeMs you accept; you can do it in your newsreader (so it only
affects yourself) or on a news server, so it affects the whole
server. NoCeMs are mostly used for spam canellation or removal of
"technical" violations of group chartas (excessive crossposting,
binaries in non-binary groups, etc.).
In the ISPA hotline case, it means every news admin in austria who
wants to have potentially illegal content removed has to add the
hotline to his NoCeM config (and it probably means 99% of austria's
news admins have to install the NoCeM software, as it is not very
widely used). It also means that the influence of the ISPAs opinion
of what is illegal is restricted to servers actively enforcing it --
would they have used cancels, all the world would have deleted the
respective articles, unless somebody would notice and configure his
server not to accept those cancels.
> >-- the ISPA does this to prevent the govt. to introduce new laws that
> >would (supposedly) be worse.
>
> But they are doing it without any discussion of the population
> or users, so the implications of it aren't considered.
I don't really think they care -- subtle pressure to follow the
hotline's "proposals" will be big enough to have 95% of austria's
Internet users covered, and they'll probably soon start to advertise
with "our Internet is cleaner than the competition's", as AON shows.
> >-- Big problems could arise for ISPs who don't follow the ISPA
> >hotline's advisories
>
> Interesting, so that ISPs are being essentially forced to follow
> this?
forced... hmmm... not directly. I think on one hand they have the
legal risk that gets bigger as more ISPs follow the "self regulation"
(as court could argue "but there _was_ a way for you to prevent
illegal content, and you chose not to prevent it"), on the other hand
they can't win much by not following it, by "standing on the side of
kiddy porn makers" -- the percentage of interested netizens is too
low for the big ISPs, probably small one will find kind of a market
niche there, but who knows how long they can stand the risk...
> I realize you feel that government entities are monopolists, but in
> the U.S. at least the telephone company was regulated before the
> breakup, and thus it made service available to all.
ahh, the discussion we had when we met. let me phrase it like this:
the PTT (and the ORF, the radio and TV monopoly) were bad in the
sense that they prevented progress; OK, the PTT had to provide
universal access, which is a good thing, but prices are still high
compared to most of europe, and quality was baaaaad; and the cause
for this is definitely not the "good sides" of the monopoly (e.g.
universal access), but the structure of the whole dinosaur -- big,
arrogant, slow, incompetent. Same with the ORF: the good sides were
that they did care more about culture and minorities and information
and content, and they could put money into projects that would never
get funding in the "free market", but the dark side was that they had
a media monopoly. nowadays, there's a few commercial radio stations,
and a "free" one (done by lots of groups cooperatively, and without
commercials).
the point about "monopolies" regarding AON is that they have a HUGE
advertising and opinion-building force due to the ORF, and a terrible
number of sales outlets for their accounts (i.e. all post offices),
so while technically as an ISP they're as bad as you can imagine
(they disappeared from the DNS for 4 days due to their own
incompetence, etc.), they could set "market standards" with their
pure weight. yeah, and as they come from a civil servant background
they're very good at getting hints to what the master wants, and
obeying.
and that's what they're doing -- I read another ISPs AUP today, and
those basically said "you may not do illegal things with your
account, and in case you do, we kick you off and work with the
authorities. email is a whole other story."
> I was surprised to learn that the Austrian telephone company
> was being presented as the problem was monopoly, rather than
> the problem was that the regulation disn't require the most
> advanced technoloyg.
hmmm... that's an interesting thought. OTOH, I like choice, and I
don't want no well-meaning whatevers.
> That the government had to protect the autonomy of the average
> people on the Internet, not take away their autonomy.
doesn't matter -- the _government_ (be it the austrian or the EU one)
doesn't take away citizen's rights, it's the ISPs via a "self
control" mechanism. hey, it's not forbidden to publish your thoughts
on the internet, it's just that no provider lets you do it. sorry,
the court can't help you.
> Has there been much discussion among people on Usenet in Austrial
> about this?
yes, quite a bit, about all the issues (i.e. the EU paper, but
especially about the ISPA hotline and the AON "code of conduct"). and
now we've formed a mailinglist where I hope we can focus on these
issues and find some ways to act against them.
> Any chance the U.S. court decisions in the CDA case will be helpful
> to you in this?
not as court decisions, but the CDA judge's arguments were good and
they are certainly useable.
> What is the respnose of people to it all?
many of the people that are generally concerned about usenet (i.e.
at.usenet regulars) see the dangers, and also many people I meet
offline, as long as they're generally either concerned about citizens
rights or the net...
ciao,
cm.
- --
christian mock @ home in vienna, austria
sind fremdcancels strafbar? -> http://www.tahina.priv.at/bincancel/
Those silly RFCs are all that separate us from the animals!
-- Kevin Rodgers in a.r.e
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------------------------------
Date: 15 Dec 1998 00:13:27 +0100
From: Carsten Laekamp <lakamp@capway.com>
Subject: [netz] A parallel
christian mock <cm@tahina.priv.at> writes:
> Same with the ORF: the good sides were
> that they did care more about culture and minorities and information
> and content, and they could put money into projects that would never
> get funding in the "free market", but the dark side was that they had
> a media monopoly. nowadays, there's a few commercial radio stations,
> and a "free" one (done by lots of groups cooperatively, and without
> commercials).
Reading this made me think of something that could cause more worries
on this group, because it demonstrates how the system could/can/will
<choose a word :)> work for (?) the Internet:
In France, we had a state monopoly on radio stations until 1981, which
coexisted with a few (LW, ewww :) ) commercial stations broadcasting from
the outside, mainly Luxembourg and Monaco. In the late 70's, there was a
fashion of small "pirate" (FM) stations who soon became too important for
the authorities to handle. When the socialists and communists took
over government (for the first time after 45 years), one of their
first actions was to legalise those stations (a good and inexpensive
way to promote their image as the party of the young), provided they didn't
broadcast commercials and kept their power below 2 W.
Of course the situation ran out of control in larger cities, as nearly
everyone could set up a station in his kitchen. Also, American-style
radio networks appeared, that started broadcasting commercials despite
of the law. Some of them got enough public support to stop any attacks
against them and some others were backed by large (for France) media
groups.
As a result, the number of stations per town got regulated and they
got the right to broadcast commercials. In the mid-80's, almost all
independent stations had vanished, most of them because licences went
primarily to the networks.(These, in turn, got powerful enough to be
among the first companies to expand to Eastern Europe right after the
fall of the iron curtain.) Only one or two remain in each town,
mainly to serve as an excuse for the government.
Any resemblance to...
- --
Carsten Läkamp
claekamp@mindless.com
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End of Netizens-Digest V1 #227
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