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Netizens-Digest Volume 1 Number 531
Netizens-Digest Sunday, October 19 2003 Volume 01 : Number 531
Netizens Association Discussion List Digest
In this issue:
[netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
[netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
Re: [netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
[netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 15:10:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Hauben <jrh@umcc.ais.org>
Subject: [netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
Dear Netizen Digest subscriber,
The majordomo digesting of netizens list postings had not been functioning
since June. It has now been restored and you have received 6 digests:
numbers 524 to 530.
I particularly call your attention to Digest 524. That digest contains all
the posts from June to September 2003. Digests 525 to 530 contain all the
posts from late September to the present concerning the technical
community's response to Verisign's SiteFinder capture of lookup requests
to mistaken domans ending in the .com and .net,
I would like to remind you that all the digests are available from
majordomo@columbia.edu and also online at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/netizens/digest/
I hope that there will be no more interruptions in your receiving of these
digests.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the netizens list or
the netizens-digest.
Thanks.
Take care.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2003 15:17:05 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Hauben <jrh@umcc.ais.org>
Subject: [netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
Dear Netizen List Subscriber,
The majordomo digesting of netizens list postings had not been functioning
since June. It has now been restored and there are 6 new digests, numbers
524 to 530, bringing the digests up to date.
I particularly call your attention to Digest_1-524. That digest contains
all the posts from June to September 2003. Digests 525 to 530 contain all
the posts from late September to the present concerning the technical
community's response to Verisign's SiteFinder capture of lookup requests
to mistaken domans ending in the .com and .net,
I would like to remind you that all the digests are available from
majordomo@columbia.edu and also online at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/netizens/digest/
I hope that there will be no more interruptions in generating these
digests.
Please let me know if you have any questions about the netizens list or
the netizens-digest.
Thanks.
Take care.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 11:52:36 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Netizens List Digesting has been restored.
Jay,
Thanks. Incidentally, your subject line is perfectly accurate and
reasonable, but I keep giggling at the generic thought of mailing
list indigestion. I need caffeine or more sleep. :-)
Howard
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 22:18:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jay Hauben <jrh@umcc.ais.org>
Subject: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Hi,
Recently, two articles appeared on the German online news journal
Telepolis addressing a valuable question:
Can the online community, defend the Internet from the various
challenges to its continued spread and development? Some of those
challenges may include censorship, spam and viruses, privatization,
the spread of commercialization and the attacks on the public and
collaborative Internet culture.
Inherent in this question is the question of whether the democratic
promise of the Internet is worth defending. And even more importantly, can
it be successfully defended?
The original articles were
1) Doing Democracy by Ronda Hauben.
I have put an updated version of this article "The Internet: A New Model
for Democracy or Replicating the Commercial Agenda?" at:
http://www.ais.org/~jrh/edemocracy1.txt
2) The Reality Behind E-democracy By John Horvath
http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/te/15807/1.html
which I have put at http://www.ais.org/~jrh/edemocracy2.txt
These articles are a sort of debate. The Amateur Computerist is
considering featuring them in its next issue.
Perhaps readers of this list might want to read the articles and/or
contribute to the discussion.
Take care.
Jay
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 10:37:16 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Jay started his post by suggesting that the two articles address the
question, "Can the online community, defend the Internet from the various
challenges to its continued spread and development?" It didn't seem to me
that they addressed this question very directly, although Ronda's perhaps
more so. I might have said that the two articles address the
question, "What is the nature of the Internet's contribution, if any, to the
practice of democracy?" (If someone can improve on that formulation,
please do.)
Jay wrote that the articles are "a sort of debate," which nicely captures the
feeling that the articles (1) stem from very different answers to the question
as I have framed it (or, if you don't accept my framing, start from very
different premises about the Internet generally) and (2) largely talk past
each other rather than contradict each other. I think -- although I am
professionally predisposed to think so -- that the key is the ambiguity
of "democracy."
In particular, it struck me that Ronda quotes, I think approvingly, Jesien's
statement that begins,
"Almost in front of us, and almost unnoticed the new kind of
citizenship is evolving. . The Netizenry -- those who use the
Internet. Without much attention, without governments and power,
without financial incentives and social entitlements. But using
the Internet today is a sign of belonging...to those who exchange
ideas, who participate in something important, in a common cause.
There is no question of governance there, nor the question of
representation, but there is full, ultimate and direct
participation."
John Horvath isn't much interested in discussing a form of democracy that
exists "without governments and power," with "no question or governance...
nor the question of representation." Horvath is concerned, I think, precisely
with the question of how the Internet affects the world of governments. His
emphasis on communication with elected officials no doubt is too narrow,
but the question remains, how does (and how might) the practice of
Netizenship influence what "democratic" governments actually do?
Mark Lindeman
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 Oct 2003 11:58:13 -0400
From: "Howard C. Berkowitz" <hcb@gettcomm.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
At 10:37 AM -0400 10/18/03, lindeman@bard.edu wrote:
>Jay started his post by suggesting that the two articles address the
>question, "Can the online community, defend the Internet from the various
>challenges to its continued spread and development?" It didn't seem to me
>that they addressed this question very directly, although Ronda's perhaps
>more so. I might have said that the two articles address the
>question, "What is the nature of the Internet's contribution, if any, to the
>practice of democracy?" (If someone can improve on that formulation,
>please do.)
>
>Jay wrote that the articles are "a sort of debate," which nicely captures the
>feeling that the articles (1) stem from very different answers to the question
>as I have framed it (or, if you don't accept my framing, start from very
>different premises about the Internet generally) and (2) largely talk past
>each other rather than contradict each other. I think -- although I am
>professionally predisposed to think so -- that the key is the ambiguity
>of "democracy."
From the perspective of a political scientist, do you think it
clarifies the discussion not to use the generic term "democracy", but
always one of the more specific terms "direct democracy" or
"representative democracy"?
>
>In particular, it struck me that Ronda quotes, I think approvingly, Jesien's
>statement that begins,
>
> "Almost in front of us, and almost unnoticed the new kind of
> citizenship is evolving. . The Netizenry -- those who use the
> Internet. Without much attention, without governments and power,
> without financial incentives and social entitlements. But using
> the Internet today is a sign of belonging...to those who exchange
> ideas, who participate in something important, in a common cause.
> There is no question of governance there, nor the question of
> representation, but there is full, ultimate and direct
> participation."
The classic argument about direct democracy is one of logistics --
before electronic communications, it simply did not work in groups of
more than a thousand or so.
That argument is not as strong with the possibility of electronic
voting, so another argument or set of arguments come up. Today's
world, as well as allowing mechanisms for large-scale direct
democracy, also is inundated with advertising and opinion molding. In
a classic town meeting with direct democracy, advocates of a given
position usually could be challenged before a vote, and real debate
took place. It's awfully easy, in electronic communications, for a
relatively small set of people to debate, and it's much less likely
(based on current experience) to get participation beyond the vote.
Even if every member of a large community did post a comment, at some
point, it becomes logistically impractical to read every comment,
reply, have reasoned debates, and then cast a thoughful vote.
>
>John Horvath isn't much interested in discussing a form of democracy that
>exists "without governments and power," with "no question or governance...
>nor the question of representation." Horvath is concerned, I think, precisely
>with the question of how the Internet affects the world of governments. His
>emphasis on communication with elected officials no doubt is too narrow,
>but the question remains, how does (and how might) the practice of
>Netizenship influence what "democratic" governments actually do?
A different scalability argument applies to communication with
elected (or appointed) government officials. The good news is that
with a smaller voting or regulating group, there is at least the
_possibility_ of having manageable debate. There quickly comes a
question if the representatives are simply there to convey the
current opinion of constituents -- essentially driven, in modern
terms, by focus groups and polls -- or whether the representatives
are elected and trusted to present what they consider to be a
consensus position of their constituents, with qualifications.
These qualifications should have been examined closely at election
time, because there will be times where a representative will vote
his or her conscience, not necessarily the majority opinion's.
_Profiles in Courage_, by John F. Kennedy (and ghostwriters) has good
examples.
Let me close with another question: is it necessarily advisable to
have the fastest possible input of direct democracy, if the goal is
to operate a government that actually has to carry out policies?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 15:59:30 -0400
From: lindeman@bard.edu
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream? (fwd)
Howard,
[my text snipped]
> From the perspective of a political scientist, do you think it
> clarifies the discussion not to use the generic term "democracy", but
> always one of the more specific terms "direct democracy" or
> "representative democracy"?
That's generally a step in the right direction. However, "direct democracy"
tends to evoke decisionmaking by referendum, and that isn't (I think) what
Ronda has in mind, either. Or, to put it another way, direct democracy
could be a form of governance or government, whereas Jesien's statement
seems to disavow both. (I don't mean to imply that Ronda agrees with
everything Jesien says.)
> >In particular, it struck me that Ronda quotes, I think approvingly,
> Jesien's
> >statement that begins,
> >
> > "Almost in front of us, and almost unnoticed the new kind of
> > citizenship is evolving. . The Netizenry -- those who use the
> > Internet. Without much attention, without governments and power,
> > without financial incentives and social entitlements. But using
> > the Internet today is a sign of belonging...to those who exchange
> > ideas, who participate in something important, in a common cause.
> > There is no question of governance there, nor the question of
> > representation, but there is full, ultimate and direct
> > participation."
>
> The classic argument about direct democracy is one of logistics --
> before electronic communications, it simply did not work in groups of
> more than a thousand or so.
It's worth noting that the authors of the Federalist seem to have been very
suspicious of decisionmaking assemblies even smaller than that -- although
I can't recall that they set a specific number.
> That argument is not as strong with the possibility of electronic
> voting, so another argument or set of arguments come up. Today's
> world, as well as allowing mechanisms for large-scale direct
> democracy, also is inundated with advertising and opinion molding. In
> a classic town meeting with direct democracy, advocates of a given
> position usually could be challenged before a vote, and real debate
> took place. It's awfully easy, in electronic communications, for a
> relatively small set of people to debate, and it's much less likely
> (based on current experience) to get participation beyond the vote.
> Even if every member of a large community did post a comment, at some
> point, it becomes logistically impractical to read every comment,
> reply, have reasoned debates, and then cast a thoughful vote.
It's not _logistically_ impractical for every member of a large community to
participate to the extent that he or she is prepared to cast a thoughtful
vote. (I don't mean to twist your words here; I agree that it is impractical
for every person to read every comment, etc. -- and various people have
wrestled with these issues of scale.) Perhaps a more fundamental problem
is what Downs wrote about in _An Economic Theory of Democracy_ (with respect
to elections): since each individual can calculate that the probability of
his or her vote determining the outcome is infinitesimal, there isn't much
rational basis for putting much effort into forming thoughtful positions.
> >John Horvath isn't much interested in discussing a form of democracy that
> >exists "without governments and power," with "no question or governance...
> >nor the question of representation." Horvath is concerned, I think,
> precisely
> >with the question of how the Internet affects the world of governments.
> His
> >emphasis on communication with elected officials no doubt is too narrow,
> >but the question remains, how does (and how might) the practice of
> >Netizenship influence what "democratic" governments actually do?
>
> A different scalability argument applies to communication with
> elected (or appointed) government officials. The good news is that
> with a smaller voting or regulating group, there is at least the
> _possibility_ of having manageable debate. There quickly comes a
> question if the representatives are simply there to convey the
> current opinion of constituents -- essentially driven, in modern
> terms, by focus groups and polls -- or whether the representatives
> are elected and trusted to present what they consider to be a
> consensus position of their constituents, with qualifications.
>
> These qualifications should have been examined closely at election
> time, because there will be times where a representative will vote
> his or her conscience, not necessarily the majority opinion's.
> _Profiles in Courage_, by John F. Kennedy (and ghostwriters) has good
> examples.
I hope I won't sound like a knee-jerk critic of elected officials when I suggest that
sometimes representatives vote neither their conscience nor majority opinion.
But _if_ more people were drawn into rich discussions on policy issues, the
opinions that emerged would probably pose fewer challenges to elected officials
consciences than slavish adherence to polls and focus groups would. (How many
fewer? heck if I know.) I could elaborate on my point, but I'm not sure it is very
important.
> Let me close with another question: is it necessarily advisable to
> have the fastest possible input of direct democracy, if the goal is
> to operate a government that actually has to carry out policies?
I don't really understand the point of the question, so I probably shouldn't try to
answer it. I suspect many of us would agree that the most successful forms of
deliberative dialogue on the Internet take place over days or weeks or months, so
the "fastest possible input" is really not an issue for us. Dick Morris did write a
rather horrid book called Vote.com, with a website by the same name, but I'm not
sure I've ever heard anyone argue that this is a good idea (and even Morris doesn't
suggest that the results should be binding anytime soon, if ever -- I've forgotten the
seamy details).
Again, as far as I can tell, Ronda Hauben and Jesien really aren't
advocating "direct democracy," so I doubt that our comments about direct
democracy would cut much ice with them. In past personal conversations with
Ronda, I've never did sort out how she would link democratic deliberation to actual
decisionmaking, i.e. government and governance.
Mark Lindeman
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2003 16:50:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ronda Hauben <ronda@panix.com>
Subject: Re: [netz] Democratic Promise or dream?
On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 lindeman@bard.edu wrote:
> Howard,
>
> [my text snipped]
> > From the perspective of a political scientist, do you think it
> > clarifies the discussion not to use the generic term "democracy", but
> > always one of the more specific terms "direct democracy" or
> > "representative democracy"?
>
> That's generally a step in the right direction. However, "direct democracy"
> tends
> to evoke decisionmaking by referendum, and that isn't (I think) what Ronda
> has in
> mind, either. Or, to put it another way, direct democracy could be a form of
> governance or government, whereas Jesien's statement seems to disavow both.
> (I don't mean to imply that Ronda agrees with everything Jesien says.)
>
Yes Mark it isn't that I or it seems Jesien are referring to
decision making by referendum.
The important part of what both Michael and Jesien referred to is the
participatory nature of democracy. Actually, isn't that what democracy
actually means as a term. It doesn't mean representation.
> > >In particular, it struck me that Ronda quotes, I think approvingly,
> > Jesien's
> > >statement that begins,
> > >
> > > "Almost in front of us, and almost unnoticed the new kind of
> > > citizenship is evolving. . The Netizenry -- those who use the
> > > Internet. Without much attention, without governments and power,
> > > without financial incentives and social entitlements. But using
> > > the Internet today is a sign of belonging...to those who exchange
> > > ideas, who participate in something important, in a common cause.
> > > There is no question of governance there, nor the question of
> > > representation, but there is full, ultimate and direct
> > > participation."
The point in this quote from Jesien's article is that netizenry
"participate in something important".
That is it seemed to me the point of the paper he did.
> >
> > The classic argument about direct democracy is one of logistics --
> > before electronic communications, it simply did not work in groups of
> > more than a thousand or so.
>
> It's worth noting that the authors of the Federalist seem to have been very
> suspicious of decisionmaking assemblies even smaller than that -- although
> I can't
> recall that they set a specific number.
But the federalists didn't have the ability to have discussions online :-)
In one of his articles Michael refers to Rousseau saying that it wasn't
in his time possible most of the time to have a general assembly where
all can participate (chapter 18 of Netizens
http://www.columbia.edu/~rh120)
And Michael refers to Mill's idea of freedom of the press as the needed
alternative to Rousseau's idea of a general assembly.
Now we have a means for many more people to have access to the Net than
ever before had the ability to contribute to the press.
>
> > That argument is not as strong with the possibility of electronic
> > voting, so another argument or set of arguments come up. Today's
> > world, as well as allowing mechanisms for large-scale direct
> > democracy, also is inundated with advertising and opinion molding. In
> > a classic town meeting with direct democracy, advocates of a given
> > position usually could be challenged before a vote, and real debate
> > took place.
In the discussion on the website of the "Times of India" in response
to their editorial "Netizens Unite" I would estimate about 1000 people
participated.
Also my experience online at times is that one can say something,
have many people disagree with one, and then come back to the discussion
two weeks later and have the discussion centering on the point that
was made two weeks earlier. In the two weeks time the discussion was
such that people are treating the idea with seriousness, even though
they didn't do that initially.
Chuq (one of the folks on early Usenet) has commented about that in
some of his discussion of how ideas that were not greeted initially
in a way that welcomed then, had a way of being treated seriously
even if the person who first proposed them didn't stick around for
the discussion.
> >It's awfully easy, in electronic communications, for a
> > relatively small set of people to debate, and it's much less likely
> > (based on current experience) to get participation beyond the vote.
> > Even if every member of a large community did post a comment, at some
> > point, it becomes logistically impractical to read every comment,
> > reply, have reasoned debates, and then cast a thoughful vote.
>
But it isn't a matter of reading every comment, unless one wants to.
Rather discussion is dynamic, so there will be people that will read
and think about someone's comment and that will influence the second
person. The second person will build on what the first person said,
and so on.
>
> > >John Horvath isn't much interested in discussing a form of democracy that
> > >exists "without governments and power," with "no question or governance...
> > >nor the question of representation." Horvath is concerned, I think,
> > >precisely
> > >with the question of how the Internet affects the world of governments.
This is a helpful clarification.
The issue of government, however, can't be understood if one separates
it from the citizens who are part of the governing entity.
The government, whether it consciously recognizes it or not, is
connected with those who it is claiming to govern in the name of.
(...)
> >
> > A different scalability argument applies to communication with
> > elected (or appointed) government officials. The good news is that
> > with a smaller voting or regulating group, there is at least the
> > _possibility_ of having manageable debate. There quickly comes a
> > question if the representatives are simply there to convey the
> > current opinion of constituents -- essentially driven, in modern
> > terms, by focus groups and polls -- or whether the representatives
> > are elected and trusted to present what they consider to be a
> > consensus position of their constituents, with qualifications.
> >
All of this is outmoded, however, as there is now the possibility
of interactive discussion, rather than "focus groups and polls".
The interactive discussion is a dynamic process that can produce
something different from what one started with. While polls concern
themselves with the questions that are formulated, rather than
with evolving some understanding of those questions.
(...)
>
> I hope I won't sound like a knee-jerk critic of elected officials when
> I suggest that
> sometimes representatives vote neither their conscience nor majority opinion.
>
And neither of the two alternatives match the alternative that would
be the result of a reasoned discussion with diversity of opinion
considered.
>
> > Let me close with another question: is it necessarily advisable to
> > have the fastest possible input of direct democracy, if the goal is
> > to operate a government that actually has to carry out policies?
There is often time to have discussion before some decision is to be made.
And that considered discussion has the basis to lead to better decisions.
>
> Again, as far as I can tell, Ronda Hauben and Jesien really aren't
> advocating "direct democracy," so I doubt that our comments about direct
> democracy would cut much ice with them. In past personal conversations with
> Ronda, I've never did sort out how she would link democratic deliberation
> to actual
> decisionmaking, i.e. government and governance.
>
I guess I don't quite understand, Mark, why you find it so hard to
think of how democratic discussion will be able to affect actual
decision making of government and governance.
The development of the Internet is a model in fact of where
people would discuss differences and in the process work out the problems
so that good decision making could take place.
That has at times been my experience as well online.
For example, there was a discussion about creating a newsgroup that
would be the newsgroup for people in the press to look at if they
wanted to write about Usenet. It was to be a moderated group.
Through the discussion of why it might be a problem to have a moderated
group as a place to refer journalists to, as then whoever did the
moderating would have the ability to determine what journalists
read or didn't read, the discussion evolved to the point where
what was created was one moderated group for announcements but
an unmoderated group for discussion.
In one of my papers about the history of Usenet, I described how Mark
Horton asked people if they felt that the name of Usenet should be changed.
He was going to put out an update of the Usenet software.
He asked people to participate in the discussion. There was a long
and considered discussion and afterwards it was clear it would be
better not to change the name of Usenet.
The point of discussion where differences are explored and discussed
is that it becomes a dynamic process that has the basis to solve
a problem.
Ronda
------------------------------
End of Netizens-Digest V1 #531
******************************
