Re: [ga] to put an end
Speaking as an American, in particular one from California, I really do not comprehend the energies and emotions that are coming out in this discussion. Bringing things back to the matter of internet governance - what this discussion is (re-)illuminating for me is that we are going to be making a lot of mistakes as we try to find the path - no single one of us knows enough. I think we are seeing one such mistake - the hegemony of the US over the affairs of ICANN and the internet. The conclusion that I want to suggest is that, because we are going to be making mistakes, because we are going to have misunderstandings based on cultural emotions and perceptions, we ought to build into our institutions of internet governance a kind of "sunset" provision, that these institutions lapse simply by the passage of time, unless we take positive action to give extra life span. For example, might it have been useful had ICANN been born with a five year life span unless we (by some measure of "we") agreed to give it another five years? I have fear that the present tendency is in the contrary direction - that we are now ossifying the status quo of internet governance when, instead, we should be be looking at deeply and asking, without excessive allegiance to things past, whether we have done right or whether we could do better. --karl--
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