oD Opinion - Future of the Internet Annotation's feed | Diigo Group

The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It » Chapter 4: The Generative Pattern

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:50:34 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Chapter 4: The Generative Pattern

I wonder what the relationship is between the JZ notion of generativity and the anti-trust notion of verticla restraints. I think that JZ could be interepreted as taking a strong line against vertical integration, beyond anything the Coasian market would on its own support. posted by tonycurzonprice

hierarchies

principle at work

Generativity is a system’s capacity to produce unanticipated change through unfiltered contributions from broad and varied audiences.

consumers

f code.

specialized

training

accessible

generative

frequently generativity at one layer is the best recipe for generativity at the layer above.

generates

Free software satisfies Richard Stallman’s benchmark “four freedoms”: freedom to run the program, freedom to study how it works, freedom to change it, and freedom to share the results with the public at large

generative

platform

detail

Generative systems facilitate change.

breakthrough

compete

market model.

initial spark

They represent tinkering done by that one person in a hundred or a thousand who is so immersed in an activity or pursuit that improving it would make a big difference—a person who is prepared to experiment with a level of persistence that calls to mind the Roadrunner’s nemesis, Wile E. Coyote.

The genius behind such innovations is truly inspiration rather than perspiration, a bit of tinkering with a crazy idea rather than a carefully planned and executed invention responding to clear market demand.

Web service

Generativity, then, is a parent of invention, and an open network connecting generative devices makes the fruits of invention easy to share if the inventor is so inclined.

He then noted the innate value of being able to express oneself idiosyncratically

This Mill quote does not point to an innate value in idiosyncracy - it points to the tenet of liberal utilitarianism sometimes held by Mill that satisfying desires increases utility. posted by tonycurzonprice

We are seeing the possibility of an emergence of a new popular culture, produced on the folk-culture model and inhabited actively, rather than passively consumed by the masses.

makers

policy issues

innovation

The divide is not between technology and nontechnology, but between hierarchy and polyarchy.⁷² In hierarchies, gatekeepers control the allocation of attention and resources to an idea. In polyarchies, many ideas can be pursued independently. Hierarchical systems appear better at nipping dead-end ideas in the bud, but they do so at the expense of crazy ideas that just might work. Polyarchies can result in wasted energy and effort, but they are better at ferreting out and developing obscure, transformative ideas. More importantly, they allow many more people to have a hand at contributing to the system, regardless of the quality of the contribution.

contribution

eccentric

Internet

disruption

economic harm.

But society has now fairly got the better of individuality; and the danger which threatens human nature is not the excess, but the deficiency, of personal impulses and preferences.

The generative Internet and PC were at first perhaps more akin to new societies; as people were connected, they may not have had firm expectations about the basics of the interaction. Who pays for what? Who shares what? The time during which the Internet remained an academic backwater, and the PC was a hobbyist’s tool, helped situate each within the norms of Benkler’s parallel economy of sharing nicely, of greater control in the hands of users and commensurate trust that they would not abuse it.

This is the generative pattern, and we can find examples of it at every layer of the network hourglass:

123

An idea originates in a backwater.
It is ambitious but incomplete. It is partially implemented and released anyway, embracing the ethos of the procrastination principle.
Contribution is welcomed from all corners, resulting in an influx of usage.
Success is achieved beyond any expectation, and a higher profile draws even more usage.
Success is cut short: “There goes the neighborhood” as newer users are not conversant with the idea of experimentation and contribution, and other users are prepared to exploit the openness of the system to undesirable ends.
There is movement toward enclosure to prevent the problems that arise from the system’s very popularity.

surfing

Tags: montpelerin

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It » Chapter 3: Cybersecurity and the Generative Dilemma

Sun, 04 May 2008 14:46:15 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Urging users to patch their systems and asking hackers to behave more maturely might, in retrospect, seem naïve.

Think of the naivety of the Incas when they encounter Cortes .... posted by tonycurzonprice

operations

enforced

the Internet.

Internet

responsibility

attack

the Internet.

The decentralized, nonproprietary ownership of the Internet and the computers it linked made it difficult to implement any structural revisions to the way it functioned, and, more important, it was simply not clear what curative changes could be made that did not entail drastic, wholesale, purpose-altering changes to the very fabric of the Internet.

a thought about JZ's position: is it a sophisticated version of the report that suggested that "education in ethics" was needed to solve Morris-like problems ... only JZ is explaining to us where the ethics come from? they come from the communities themselves that build code collaboratively ... so we have a wonderful bootstrapping. posted by tonycurzonprice

considered

Then it stalls.

generativity

password security.

a set time.

syndicates

happening

money

orbit

Internet

globe

starts

compromised

appliancized

decisions

device

the fore

gatekeeper

f the user is allowed to make exceptions, the user can and will make the wrong exceptions, and the security restrictions will too often serve only to limit the deployment of legitimate software that has not been approved by the right gatekeepers.

Thsi reminds me of the discussions of self-determination: "We want the freedom to make OUR OWN mistakes." The appliantised world is like the Hobesian state -- the contract is simple: safeguard my life/machne, and I will hand over my freedom to Leviathan/Device Maker. JZ is asking for a state of self-determination and looking for its conditions. posted by tonycurzonprice

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It » Chapter 2: Battle of the Networks

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 22:25:41 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

One possibility is a set of information appliances.

Would all our specific tasks be performed by appliances if the hobbyists' PC had not become mainstream? I doubt it - surely there is a strong economic driver for the general purpose machine: that you can share hardware costs between appliances. Remember the craze for reconfiguralbe mobile computing devices in 2000/2001? posted by tonycurzonprice

somehow

one another.

connect to it.

networking

Hush-A-Phone, which was invented in 1921 as a way to have a conversation without others nearby overhearing it

:) posted by tonycurzonprice

were sold.

The court drolly noted, “[AT&T does] not challenge the subscriber’s right to seek privacy. They say only that he should achieve it by cupping his hand between the transmitter and his mouth and speaking in a low voice into this makeshift muffler

:) ATT's view of how to achieve privacy on its network posted by tonycurzonprice

small ways.

phone network.

The physical layer had become generative, and this generativity meant that additional types of activity in higher layers were made possible.

Was it easier to make the physical layer generative because ATT was a regualted monopolist? ie would it have been harder, possibly, with a disorganised, competitive market? posted by tonycurzonprice

services business

THE PROPRIETARY NETWORK MODEL

I'm wondering how the notion of generativity relates to the anti-trust notion of "vertical restraint". There have been a number of thorny anti-trust cases relating to market power exercised through control of ertical market relationships - like service/nertwork/appliance. The classic case in UK anti-trust cases was Raleigh bicycles' refusal to supply supermarkets with their bikes ... The relationship is that if you have competition at every level of a supply chain, then the market _should_ deliver the generative opportunities. And if it does not, it is a question of regulating market power. posted by tonycurzonprice

themselves

unchanged

tinkering

Why would the proprietary services not harness the potential generativity of their offerings by making their own servers more open to third-party coding?

model prevailed.

shopping

free-for-all

But none seemed prepared to budge from the business models built around their mainframes

I'd like a comment of the French Minitel model. I was a young programmer in Paris in 1987, and Minitel was a full-employemnt ticket for keyboard jocks .... especially, of course, the "Minitel Rose" .... The Minitel encouraged 3rd party apps, and th eproliferation of pornography alongside banking services was quite similar to Interneet circa 1997. The minitel even had PC hook-up apps, and quite fiddly ways of pulling data off the Minitel (eg bank statements) and integrating them in your accounts package. The Minitel could have worked, but did not, I would venture, because its lingua franca was French. posted by tonycurzonprice

who built them.

possible.

Jennings’s work

annoyed person.

the world

FIDOnet

services

message

points

billion

from them.

network work.

controlling it.

tryout period

access

code for it.

rust that at least some third-party software writers will write good and useful code, and trust that users of the device will be able to access and sort out the good and useful code from the bad

Very reminiscent of the motor car. Many potential uses ... remember that Michelin, a tyre manufacturer, started writing guide books for travellers because 1. they wanted to get people to drive more and use more rubber and 2. wanted to make the open experience of arriving somewhere new at least somewhat predictable .... a restaurant is an app on the network of roads ... posted by tonycurzonprice

harmful code.

approach

Its origins can be found in a 1984 paper by Internet architects David Clark, David Reed, and Jerry Saltzer.

First (engineering) argument for network neutrality, maybe? the 1984 paper asking for only unversal features to be built into the network. posted by tonycurzonprice

requirements

The people using this network of networks and configuring its endpoints had to be trusted to be more or less competent and pure enough at heart that they would not intentionally or negligently disrupt the network.

Environment of trust that allowed network to arise .. in general social-evolutioanry terms, this suggests that closed-ish groups that allow repetition-based behaviors to emerge might do better than isolated tit-for-tatters. posted by tonycurzonprice

persists today.

Yet the assumption that network participants can be trusted, and indeed that they will be participants rather than customers, infuses the Internet’s design at nearly every level.

Internet assumes participants, not customers. This is the first sense of the Aristotelian argument ... man as "neworking zoon". posted by tonycurzonprice

an outsider.

the IDs.

User identification is left to individual Internet users and servers to sort out if they wish to demand credentials of some kind from those with whom they communicate.

If the proprietary networks were modeled on single businesses, the Internet was built as a mirror of society. posted by tonycurzonprice

contents

regulation

The person at the endpoint must instead rely on falling dominos of trust. The Internet is thus known as a “best efforts” network, sometimes rephrased as “Send it and pray” or “Every packet an adventure.”

chapter

environment

dead end.

ignore

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It » Chapter 1: Battle of the Boxes

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:34:17 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

Cutting and pasting different pieces of Flexowriter tape together allowed the user to do mail merges about as easily as one can do them today with Microsoft Word or its rivals.

:) lol posted by tonycurzonprice

reprogram them.

problems

tabulators

springy posts.

revolution

a university

no more.

opponent

or the Web.

PCs can run.

installed

themselves

parties’ code

by others

supremacy there.

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: tonycurzonprice

The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It » Introduction

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:59:09 -0000

Highlights and Sticky Notes:

groups with shared norms and a sense of public purpose

So far, JZ offers 2 foundational reasons we should prefer the open to the tehtered: a) it allows innovation to flourish, and b) the tehtered is really bad news in authoritarian states. These "groups with shared norms and a public purpose" seem to be instrumental to that end. This was not exactly the way I heard it in the lecture I wrote up here: http://www.opendemocracy.net/blog/tony_curzon_price/from_zittrain_to_aristotle_in_600_words where the way we solve these issues will in itself make us better or not. Still waiting for that argument .... posted by tonycurzonprice

Tags: no_tag

Posted by: tonycurzonprice