Re: <nettime> Lori Emerson: What's Wrong With the Internet and How

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

On 28/Jul/15 02:56, Iain Boal wrote:

> So there was a purely political decision to build in the asymmetries.
> Can you corroborate, beyond the mere assertion? Who? When? Evidence
> welcome.  IB

Good question -- I don't think there is such a thing as 'purely political' 
decisions -- that would suggest that causation for techno-social change arises 
and is implemented without relation to actual resource constraints. (Nothing is 
purely political, eh?)

I am no expert in this question, but in principle, when the task of engineering 
a solution is in progress, there is a finite number of assumptions, and 
variables that one is able to consider -- the solution is never perfect. It can 
approach perfection but that approach would generally behave asymptotically, 
based on the ever-increasing consumption of resources necessary to more and more 
accurately model the reality that the solution is embedded within and that is 
impressing itself on the solution.

A systems approach -- which was, if nothing else, the widest approach of the 
social organization (the US military-industrial complex) that was spawning these 
solutions (networked communications) -- if not a more close structured approach 
for the particular development project (solution).

No systems-based solutions are perfect. And it's easy to look back and 
conjecture about where precisely the imperfection arose -- from intent, from 
lack of time/funding/resources to further optimize solutions, from lack of 
understanding of ultimate use of the protocols, etc. And I'm not sure of the 
point in spending time in trying to suss out particular details aside from that 
process throwing light onto more general flaws in wider processes -- there are 
thousands of technological implementations that drive our lives in one way or 
another -- perhaps it's better to understand some principles as to the social 
dynamic of how those 'protocols' arise and control us than to reverse-engineer 
each particular protocol and determine its genesis.

I would suggest that one piece of evidence that would support MorlockElloi's 
assertion would be to see where the developer(s) studied! (MIT?, likely).

> > The Internet *is* it's lowest protocol layers. The ideology and
> > politics are embedded in protocols, and attempts to 'solve' the problem
> > without addressing these fundamental issues are doomed to fail.

I would totally agree with this, and it's possible to drill 'deeper' into 
protocorollary layers of a technology below what is traditionally held as 
protocol -- into the protocols of systems theory, into the military itself (the 
'protocols' of Sun Tzu!)...

etc...

JH


--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
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