Re: <nettime> Technorealism

[bruce@evolution.com]

It's OK that you and your buddies decided to post yet another manifesto
about the proper use and administration of the Internet and related
technologies, but "Technorealism" is a poor and somewhat dishonest title for
it.  According to my dictionary "realism" is "concern for fact or reality
and rejection of the impractical and visionary."  Your manifesto is not
concerned with how things are in fact, but with how you believe they should
be, based on your particular ideology.  "Technoleftism" would have been a
more accurate title.

You fail to identity the so-called "self-appointed visionaries" who "try to
reduce these complexities to breathless tales of either high-tech doom or
cyber-elation" or what specific agenda you are arguing against.  These
"self-appointed visionaries" are just straw men you attack to discredit
anyone who does not share your specific point of view about how the Internet
should be governed.

A couple of the things I object to in particular are:

>3.     GOVERNMENT HAS AN IMPORTANT ROLE
>       TO PLAY ON THE ELECTRONIC FRONTIER

If you mean that government should extend into cybersapce the role it has
played for millenia in protecting citizens against force and fraud and
enforcing contracts then this is not a controversial point, but then you go
on to say:

>Technology standards and privacy issues, for example, are too important
>to be entrusted to the marketplace alone.

Given the respective track records of each, it would be much more
*realistic* to say "Technology standards and privacy issues, for example,
are too important to be entrusted to government alone.""

>Competing software firms have little interest in preserving the open
standards
>that are essential to a fully functioning interactive network. Markets
>encourage innovation, but they do not necessarily insure the public
interest.

Yeah, well that's your opinion but it is a radical one which is not shared
by most people in the technology industry.  Most of us believe that the free
market does just fine and if this point is argued on the evidence you will
come up short.  There are plenty of examples of the free market creating and
preserving open technical standards, through voluntary standards bodies and
other mechanisms.  The Web is of course the most obvious example.

>7.      THE PUBLIC OWNS THE AIRWAVES;
>        THE PUBLIC SHOULD BENEFIT FROM THEIR USE

How about "THE PUBLIC OWNS THE LAND; THE PUBLIC SHOULD BENEFIT FROM ITS
USE"?  It doesn't work that way with real estate, so why should it with the
airwaves?
Many of us believe that treating the airwaves the same way land is treated,
as (initially auctioned off by the government) private property which can be
bought and sold and is protected from encroachment by government is very
*realistic*.

It's difficult to understand how someone in this day and age, after all
we've seen of the results of statism vs. free markets, could believe that
the public benefits more from a resource being administered by the
government than being utilized by the free market.

Ultimately this has nothing to do with realism, or even protecting the
public interest.  It has to do with you and your buddies wanting to use the
coercive power of government to substitute your preferences for those of the
general public.

Write as many manifestos as you want, but don't call your beliefs "realism"

Bruce Fancher

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