Re: [atlarge-discuss] comments welcome [Joey breaks his silence] - Part 2

[Joey Borda **star*walker** <starwalker@gay.com>]

[Continued from Part 1]

> We have 1000 members. IMHO anything we do which centralizes, looks top 
> down, etc. we lose them. The only solution I think - but I may be wrong - 
> to keep our momentum and develop is neither to be bottom up or top down, 
> itis to be TOGETHER.
As I see things so far this is the ONLY way we can sustain AND BUILD 
interest, enthusiasm and momentum!

Yes, I always allow that I may be wrong too. However, I do not see any 
alternative to Jefsey's proposal that will not within quick time result in 
the very thing we are now opposing.

So far our tendencies to erecting hierarchies has not been successfully 
sorted out from our overriding anti-entropic function in the universe which 
is to create ever-greater complexity of the raw and apparently entropic 
building blocks of the universe. [See R. Buckminster Fuller's "Utopia or 
Oblivion" for a fuller explanation.]

Our latest evolutionary capacities empathy and compassion are our tools to 
do that sorting and think in new ways. We must all, I "pray," struggle if 
necessary at every step along the way to use those tools and find new ways. 
Our very survival on this planet depends on it!

> When some one has an idea, a project like Joey, let him go ahead. The 
> panel and any other structutre is not to be a dominance, but a catalyst 
> for "concertance". In my vision WGs have no one in charge from the Panel: 
> we are liaisons from the panel, with the role to keep the WG informed and 
> they have a Chair or a Spokeman liaising with thet Panel and the rest of 
> the world, the way they want.
Both the panel and all the WG's have conveners as far as I am concerned, 
whatever the titles of use may be. That is all. All are equal.

Conveners are those who call for attention, call to attention, call to 
meet, cheerlead, coordinate, provoke, help formulate, and disseminate. They 
do not control anything. All and any members can serve the same functions, 
alternately or simultaneously.

This structure presumes we are all people of good faith, good will and 
autonomy. This "structure," metaphorically much like Bucky Fuller's 
geodesic structure, is the strongest possible in the universe, and all 
energy and responsibility are distributed and travel along ALL lines!

This structure presumes we are all people of intelligence, good faith, good 
will, empathy, compassion and autonomy. This "structure" is, 
metaphorically, much like Bucky Fuller's geodesic structure and is the 
strongest possible in the universe, with all energy, strength and 
responsibility distributed and traveling along ALL lines simultaneously!

> It happens that I chair france@large, OK. Believe me should I not be in 
> the panel, I would never have accepted that a panelist would come and 
> interfere with it. I expect it is the same for WGs. I have pushed for the 
> WG-ccTLD and the WG-Networksystems. All I want is to make sure we do not 
> forget these two matters which are vital to us, and where we are vital to 
> our partners. People will come from the ccTLD world, from the IETF, from 
> the W3C, etc.. with much more competences than me. My role (and o 
> therother panlists) is not to lead them, nor to chair them. Our role is to 
> listen to them and to tell them what we know, what we experienced as a 
> member of the common panel. To help with a "concertance catalysis" service.
>
> This is why I think the only real links we have is a common name and all 
> what it represents. A TLD: we all are the @large, ie users interested in 
> sharing into the governance, from all the places of the world, from all 
> the possible concerns. In alt(sic)root I created ".atlarge" for us.
>
> We are @large from France, UK, India, USA, NZ etc. we are members of the 
> ICANN, ccTLD, incorporation WGs, in English this is put into the left to 
> right DNS order: france@large, India@large etc.. icann@large, inc@atlarge, 
> cctlds@large etc people.
>
> Should WG-ICANN have a site, their site will be http://icannatlarge.com, 
> http://icann.atlarge.org http://icannat-large.ws http://icannpopulacion.ar 
> etc... whatever people would feel confortable with, with no need for 
> anyone to vote, only for online index.htm files to reroute or httpd.conf 
> aliases - has anyone problems with 100 names for their site?
After reading the above I have changed MY position on our name, and 
WITHDRAW my support for InternetAtLarge.org.

I am compelled by Jefsey's logic and vision.

> IMHO we are the people of the world and we are interested in better nets: 
> internet, wifi, tv, radio, enum, etc.
>
> IMHO we want management methods adapted to that target. This is certainly 
> new challenge. We do not want old solutions inherited from other 
> technologies or dominances, however good they look. I fully agree it calls 
> for imagination and new solutions. But all our action is about fostering 
> innovation others willbe able to use.
I agree absolutely that we need be about fostering use of imagination and 
proposing new solutions, in time our legacy to the rest of the world.

> 3/ prgamatic coherence. If we are serious about gathering 100.000 people 
> we can only do it adopting from the very begining a culture able to match 
> this challenge. Since everyone knows about the US History: did they 
> elected Franklin King to be able to dialog with Louis XVI and get a 
> treaty, arms and troops. Did they made Washington a King to fight the 
> Royal Infantry? They could hav though thy would adapt and become democrats 
> afterward? One has to realize that democracy was very very new to them. 
> Actually they innovated it, and many people copied.
Being American and somewhat familiar with our early history, I prefer to 
think of our founding fathers and mothers as discovering "democracy;" and 
discovering it in the face of what they knew, with greater certainty, that 
they DID NOT want, namely everything that had come before.

Their steps were always tentative, fearful and hesitant. It was in the face 
of King George and his collection of sycophantic oligarchs determination to 
bring the colonies to heal that forced the colonists to surmount their fear 
of the great unknown that has since come to be called American democracy.

They also never went further than compelled to, and therewith never 
enfranchised women, slaves and the landless!

In the most real sense they had absolutely no idea WHAT they were doing. 
They only knew they had come to treasure and value above all their relative 
independence from the "old" world and were not going to surrender that.

Quite far apart from our modern notions of democracy they made sure, 
through landed aristocratic forms to structure a constitution creating a 
balance of power among competing landed and money interests -- a 
"representative" democracy, one intended to protect themselves from direct 
or "majority-will" democracy.

Even as modest an effort at democracy that it was it nevertheless led de 
Tocqueville (sp?) to mournfully wonder about the potential tyranny of the 
majority attendant to it. The Bill of Rights amending the Constitution even 
before it's adoption meant to address those concerns, and have in modern 
times become the only meaningful part of the constitution, leaving the 
product of the rest of the Constitution in de facto corruption, virtually 
absent of all democratic meaning.

> If we want to build up a coherent concertance for the internet systems we 
> have to be innovative the same. There is no world government, this is a 
> very old idea. There is no world parliament, this is an old idea ... two 
> ideas which make the problems of ICANN. There is a world gouvernance of 
> the nets (I use the French word which means here "net keeping"), there is 
> a needed world concerted service of the users.
>
> Governements represent the people by power, the parliament represent them 
> by vote, we have to innovate into the representing by dedication and 
> service: this is the @large. This is the only aceptable response to our 
> lack of Governmental force and of elected represenation. The only reason 
> why we are legitimate and why neither Joe nor Esther with old shemes in 
> mnd could fit the job.
I think, at least for the moment with any form of representation to all 
peoples of the world (direct or indirect) absent, you are absolutely correct.

All that we have, ALL THAT WE HAVE IS MORAL power -- power that comes of 
itself, in asserting that righteous and just things ought to be done!

We seek to aggregate that power so as to rightfully and justly influence 
electorates, parliaments and governments (administrations).

In order to successfully do this we must do the right, the just and the 
"ought to."

> If we try another way, as many tried before, we will fail.
>
> Your comments welcome.
> jfc
Thank you Jefsey. And thank you everyone who have taken the time to read this.

Respectfully and enthusiastically ... /s/ Joey

Thursday, August 22, 2002 * 12:57 PM EDT USA

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For an understanding of my name change see
http://www.starwalker.org/My_Story.htm]
/s/ Joey :)
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