Re: [ga] The news at the Lisbon meeting
Hi! Dear Michael and Karl, very interesting Historicann debate. IMHO the issue is simpler and quite in line with the ICANN's soul. The official intent of ICANN was to create a DNSSEC oriented structure in a form similar to the one they discuss for ICANN now. Such a project could take years and never succeed. But ICANN could claim that it works hard on it, any time the question of its IGF/WSIS status is raised, this leading to periodical meetings, studies, documents, public questionnaires, and then accepting the second parallel structure as they want it: under US leadership and technical control, as a "compromise". In such a case David Gross would not know the details, but would know the end. This is the well known, time proven ICANN "technology", comparable to its way to address @large, new TLD, IDNs, etc. Now, the comparison with Louis XIV is quite interesting. I agree with Karl that Louis XIV would have liked the Internet. Yet, may be not for the reasons he gave, as he sees my fellow-citizen Louis XIV from outside (I live in Versailles :-)). But because, he actually created it. To understand this, one has to remember that "absolute" was used with the meaning of absolute coordinates. This means "objective", "totally independent from pressures". The legal formula "car tel est mon bon plaisir" ("because such is my good pleasure"), actually means "because this pleases me to offer you this law as a good gift, without being myself subject to any pressure". The new French Monarchy he created (after civilian wars, due to the lack of independence of the King) was actually ICANN like: a no-member, non-profit, independent organisation. The "State is me" is the first step to the "nation is you", in the very complex society networking of his time. The difference with ICANN was that this situation was created, lived, and accepted as such, as a Stewart of the country governance (which was far more complex than the Internet Governance, and incredibly reactive - they could create and suppress a nationwide tax in two months). The real interest of Louis XIV's discovery was that an IANA can govern the world. So, he made Versailles the IANA of his time. Delegating administration, delegating power to provinces, even delegating war (Corsairs were created and named "industrial war"), but concentrating the need for common information to Versailles. So, stakeholders had to live, spend, and be controlled at the Court. Transposed in today's systems, this is what ICANN is trying to do. Using exactly the same system: selling responsibilities (TLD, Registrars) to force people to get their return in supporting its policy. He actually spent his time selling domain names (not fearing cybersquatters). Creating scarcity and local disputes, to keep the "function" (TLD) and IPC (monarch's/state's service) constituency strong. Like ICANN is doing with TLDs and Registrars, and keeps trying with ccTLDs. About taxes: you should try to compare Fermiers Généraux and Registrars, very very similar. Creating titles as ICANN creates unnecessary committees just to buy and control people's fidelity, while decisions were taken elsewhere. But there are at least three major differences: - ICANN has now half the size of the King's national administration (around 200 people). - the @large had accepted the system (by support, apathy, usage, complexity, love?) for over a thousand years (actually more since it was a slow evolution of the Gaelic system). - Louis XIV made a huge change in Governance, freeing it from the power of the Judges (completed by his successor Louis XV). So, he was an inventor, renewing a very old communication and power cycle in a chain. ICANN is a first attempt, so they went faster. But they are just a local Prince (a US Agency), they are not an independent royal power - NTIA is). However, as I said, Louis XV freed himself from the Judges (the wise people power) because their old wiseness could not match the new spirit of the time. Why the four Louis's (starting with XIII) engaged transition to democracy did not go fully as planned and had to go through the Revolution? This is the real question to understand the future of ICANN. Louis XVI (the fourth "Louis" in a row) did not fail as a person. He stayed in power "à la Louis XIV" for 16 years (as much as the two Bushes). During this period he created the USA: we now start knowing how he did it, quite alone, and the way he forced an exchange with UK over India against USA. And why: build a permanent problem/competition for the UK on their West.There are a few American websites having studied this far more than any French historian. He obtained several big things this way, including the first human flight and the first parachute jump, in Versailles. Comparison is no reason. However, this means that Paul Twomey can be hyper-brilliant, as Louis XVI most probably was, this will not change the cybernetic ecology of the historical trend. Louis XVI made one single, but major error. He was too young when he took over, and he went too fast to democracy instead of continuing to prepare it through the huge administrative reform he engaged, France, Europe and actually the world still lives on. Democracy was not ready in people's mind, so he called back the Judges [the old system] first: the President Advisory Comity, as Paul is trying to set-up his own court. These people used more an more their right to disagree with the King, and to oblige him his right to force his decision through. This was old monarchy, taking more importance that the paying-Court, i.e. the Registrars (who wanted to get a good ROI). To complete and get approved by all his huge modern State reform, Louis XVI called on the people. But, Judges (ICANN community) competed with administrative Court (today the GAC). A few scandals like Registerfly did not help. "Judges" included people having purchased their aristocracy on the free market (legacies, and TM) and free-minded (hackers, alt-roots), had money enough (large gTLDs) to pay election propaganda, etc. This resulted in confusion, Louis XVI was beheaded, instability developed, until Napoleon came, changing people's priority from national to international (ex. IDNs) and finishing the Louis XVI reform, as the Napoleonic Code. At the end of the day Louis XVIII (Louis XVI's brother) came back and stabilized the evolution toward democracy, the normal continuation of Louis XIV's institutional and administrative cycle (cf. PS), on its way to the new present phase that the WSIS has identified, but not yet fully covered. Today the ICANN situation is same as Louis XVI, except that we are one governing cycle system further. Louis XIV affirmed monarchy and rooted democracy. Today we are finishing democracy and getting into what they look for at the IGF. In France, and now in Europe, we call it "concertation". A multiconsensual way (we talk together - this list is an example -, the ideas [not the people] are represented. The consensuses are first over the description of the reality, and then over the mutual interoperability of the various virtualities. In technical words we also name this "norms+interoperable standards"). Lacking an English word (in Eurospeak we retained "consensus", in the French meaning), the WSIS named it "enhanced cooperation" and gave IGF five years to understand what it is and how this works. The way ICANN (and USA?) understands "enhanced cooperation" seems to be a mandatory cooperation with ICANN. This will lead to nowhere, except from Versailles to the Place de la Concorde. Because too many stakeholders will prefer to kill ICANN than their interests, and will be able to trick people (@large, end users, countries) into voting the beheading (Louis XVI was condemned by one vote majority, including his cousin's vote, who wanted to be king and had helped/paid a lot for that). jfc PS. The people's social process is simple and goes by cycles. First the person is alone and listen (lurker). Then it creates a committee which talks within its one self (soliloquies). Then the committee becomes a council which needs a king to give its members some legitimacy and arbitration. The King speaks and delegates to everyone (monologue). This progressively creates an assembly which enlarges and replaces the many royal councils. Then the assembly gets rid of the King and is made people leaders and representatives talking together (democratic dialog). Then the resulting society becomes smart and complex enough for the decision to switch from blabla to every people, each being quite informed on the others (the polylogue of the Information Society). And a new cycle at an higher layer can start, etc. When one wants to constrain the things, one tries to get the process back or to stop it (from democracy to dictatorship, from concertation to pseudo-democracy [like today], to status-quo). When one wants to destabilize things, one tries to speed-up the cycle. When two moves oppose (ex: status-quo network centrism, and distributed user-centric) you have a Revolution. At 22:51 31/03/2007, Michael Froomkin - U.Miami School of Law wrote: ICANN will use the US government refusal to agree as an excuse to move to Geneva.
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