Feb 13 - Feb 16, 1998

Ronda Hauben wrote:
Responding to post by Howard Rheingold
:1. Lack of any systemic thinking about the psychological, social, :political effects on humans and human civilization of the accelerating :evolution of global technological society.

I wondered what you felt would be the kind of systemic thinking that would be helpful?

I won't respond to the rest of your excellent post, Ronda, but I do want to point out that we are in a world where tens of millions of people -- probably hundreds of millions of people -- spend a great deal of time sitting in front of computer screens.

What is the effect on the way we think and the way we think of ourselves?

What is the effect on the way we interact with our families, neighbors, and communities.

What is the effect on our societies and our civilization?

You would think, considering the importance of these questions, that they would be widely researched. In fact, you could gather all of the people who have been conducting social science research into these questions for the past ten years in one room. Together with the Markle Foundation, I recently worked with some folks at MIT Media lab to bring together some social scientists to talk about the beginning of a multidisciplinary research agenda. We need cognitive and social psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists.

Decisions that are made about the way these technologies are being designed and deployed are made in ignorance of what computers and networks do to our minds, our relationships, our societies.

While the cyber-pundits discuss the r/evolution of the Internet and the effect it has on all members of our societies, the private sector is racing ahead actually implementing far reaching, precedent setting innovations. I just returned from a week in Silicon Valley where I attended a series of closed strategic meetings by firms who are ramping up for wiring most parts of the globe with astonishing bandwidth. All this will happen without, even some might add in spite of, government intervention and support.

The challenge to those of us who see the potential of the Internet for integrating marginalized people of our societies into the benefits of globalization, is to assure that all segments participate. This requires active development measures as well as policies that restrict monopolies created by a 'winner-take-all' technological environment.

At PEOPLink we are developing tools to bring the benefits of global e-commerce to poor artisans all over the world, even in remote locations without electricity and phone lines. Comments are appreciated.

Howard Rheingold wrote:
I won't respond to the rest of your excellent post, Ronda, but I do want to point out that we are in a world where tens of millions of people -- probably hundreds of millions of people -- spend a great deal of time sitting in front of computer screens.

What is the effect on the way we think and the way we think of ourselves?

What is the effect on the way we interact with our families, neighbors, and communities.

It is true that millions of people are online on the Internet and that is a significant, or even momentous development.

That was the basis for some of the research that Michael took up to do online when he worked on 'The Net and the Netizens: The Impact the Net Has on People's Lives' which is the first chapter in 'Netizens: On the History and Impact of Usenet and the Internet'.

In 1993, when Michael wrote:
'Welcome to the 21st Century. You are a Netizen (a Net Citizen), and you exist as a citizen of the world thanks to the global connectivity that the Net makes possible....Virtually, you live next door to every other single Netizen. Georgraphical separation is replaced by existence in the same virtual space.'

It seemed like a prophesy of the future, but that future is rapidly coming to be the reality.

And the time sharing pioneers, Corbato and Fano, in the 1960's recognized that the development of networks would profoundly affect the communities that people online came from.

They wrote 'Communities will design systems to perform various functions -- intellectual, economic and social -- and the systems in turn undoubtedly will have profound effects in shaping the pattern of human life.'

What is the effect on our societies and our civilization?

These are important questions, I agree.

You would think, considering the importance of these questions, that they would be widely researched. In fact, you could gather all of the people who have been conducting social science research into these questions for the past ten years in one room. Together with the Markle Foundation, I recently ...

People are raising the questions. And they are being studied. But I don't see sufficient support for those doing such study.

So that is a bit of a different problem that Michael and I have run into than the problem you are raising.

worked with some folks at MIT Media lab to bring together some social scientists to talk about the beginning of a multidisciplinary research agenda. We need cognitive and social psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists.

It is good to hear that you and Markle Foundation and others have met at the MIT Media lab to take up these questions.

But is there a way to gain support from something like the Markle Foundation for people doing research into the impact of the Net?

Or are there other ways to support such research?

By supporting the people doing such work, that will encourage not only the work that is done, but also people to do such work

Decisions that are made about the way these technologies are being designed and deployed are made in ignorance of what computers and networks do to our minds, our relationships, our societies.

True - but somehow it seems there is another important issue.

Decisions at the policy level are being made, and at the funding levels, to support things and those decisions don't seem to be based on trying to learn how to move forward, but rather to try to impose certain political models rather than to try to continue to do the things that helped the developments to grow and flourish.

For example, the way ARPA supported research that made it possible to build the ARPANet is a model to learn from in trying to spread the Net and help it to expand.

Instead that model is abandoned, and there is the hype that these developments grew out of the 'private sector' and the 'private sector' therefore should be entrusted with future development.

But in fact ARPA, and especially the IPTO under Licklider and his successors figured out how to give support to those projects that would move two steps forward, and to support what private industry wouldn't support.

There is a need for that kind of broad vision connected with funding to make it possible for people to do needed work to be part of what helps to spread the Net to the education and civil sectors.

That, however, isn't what is happening and the result that I see is that the education sector is floundering (at least the public schools in the NYC area) in a sea of backwardness, going back to doing CAI with kids, rather than welcoming them into the world of email and net access.

Also, doing the research and writing about the history of the developments that have led to the Internet has been a hard and lonely effort in general, though there has been much help from the pioneers and cooperation from them.

However, to build on the past developments it is helpful to study them and analyze and understand them (some as you also did in your book Tools of Thought). Yet efforts like what you did and what Michael and I have tried to do need to have open support and that seems hard to find.

Have you found a way to solve this problem?

Following is a summary of points discussed in the parallel Japanese Online Conference.

January 19th to January 27th
It has been pointed out that there is a need for a disinterested body to provide a neutral forum where groups (businesses) can air their opinions, in the event of a net dispute. The idea is being considered within the framework of the three sector (government, industry, society) theory. In the past, journalism was expected to have a 'neutral stance,' and its current industrial stance in now under criticism. The importance of the social sector in settling these matters needs to be recognised. But then, if an NGO makes a decision on a certain 'rule' in cyberspace, what will happen to the validity of such a 'ruling' if even one individually minded person decides not to be bound by it? In other words, how is its legitimacy as a means of reconciliation to be guaranteed?

Leading from a basic discussion on Internet domains, the question of gTLD was introduced.

The future of cyberspace journalism was discussed, and the point made that its future is an unknown quantity.

January 28th to February 1st
More specific points and figures with regard to net disputes.
Followed by a discussion on character defamation and privacy. The restriction of the creation of new systems seems a reasonable approach to address the issue of anonymity.
1. Can the technological vicious circle be broken?
This would possibly affect the distribution of free software, and looks difficult, given the background of the Internet.
2. Technology needs to be advanced so that superior technology can be prevented from producing simply.
It needs to be made as unprofitable as physical paper money. Progress is being made in the field of security, but it will be difficult to eradicate the problem completely.
3. Anonymous organisations on the Net (including providers, hard and software products) should be excluded from the application of the laws. There are already businesses that have been formed selling anonymity. The questions of media revenue, etc., in the future of journalism, were raised and discussed.

February 2nd to February 4th
GNU SF author Richard Storeman was cited as an example, in saying that the future of the networks should not be left to nature, but should be deliberately directed towards a better society.
With regard to the question of privacy, self restraint is the order of the day among industrial groups, but the point was made that legislative measures are indeed required.