[iDC] The Ethics of Participation

Sun Jan 7 00:48:41 EST 2007

http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Protocollary_Power

Hi John,

I'm not sure I understand the gist of your intervention, you are saying that
these platform and technology choices are constraining our freedom. Yes they
do, but so would any other choice. I believe that the point is that we can
choose and ameliorate those platforms in the sense of more
autonomy-in-diversity by both public pressure, or alternative creations.

I really liked Galloway's approach, and the entry above has some interesting
citations on why policy is now architecture.

Which is why I like the approach of Stephen Downes, who posits knowing
networks as an alternative to scale-free networks (see
http://www.p2pfoundation.net/Knowing_Networks_vs_Scale-free_Networks)

He quotes four criteria that have to be present to guarantee autonomy and
diversity, and how the platforms we often use diverge from that, which gives
us then inspiration for how to change and reform those systems (or invent
new ones).

Before you read it, and in the context of your travel schedule, I have a few
extra rooms here in Chiang Mai, free for visiting network activists, feel
free to pass by. (this is an open invitation to others on this list as well)

Stephen Downes:

"First, diversity. Did the process involve the widest possible spectrum of
points of view? Did people who interpret the matter one way, and from one
set of background assumptions, interact with with people who approach the
matter from a different perspective?

Second, and related, autonomy. Were the individual knowers contributing to
the interaction of their own accord, according to their own knowledge,
values and decisions, or were they acting at the behest of some external
agency seeking to magnify a certain point of view through quantity rather
than reason and reflection?

Third, interactivity. Is the knowledge being producted the product of an
interaction between the members, or is it a (mere) aggregation of the
members' perspectives? A different type of knowledge is produced one way as
opposed to the other. Just as the human mind does not determine what is seen
in front of it by merely counting pixels, nor either does a process intended
to create public knowledge.

Fourth, and again related, openness. Is there a mechanism that allows a
given perspective to be entered into the system, to be heard and interacted
with by others?

'''It is based on these criteria that we arrive at an account of a knowing
network. The scale-free networks contemplated above constitute instances in
which these criteria are violated: by concentrating the flow of knowledge
through central and highly connected nodes, they reduce diversity and reduce
interactivity. Even where such networks are open and allow autonomy (and
they are often not), the members of such networks are constrained: only
certain perspectives are presented to them for consideration, and only
certain perspectives will be passed to the remainder of the network (namely,
in both cases, the perspectives of those occupying the highly connected
nodes).'''

Even where such networks are open and allow autonomy (and they are often
not), the members of such networks are constrained: only certain
perspectives are presented to them for consideration, and only certain
perspectives will be passed to the remainder of the network (namely, in both
cases, the perspectives of those occupying the highly connected nodes)."
(http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=33034)

On 1/6/07, John Hopkins <jhopkins at neoscenes.net> wrote:
>
> A desperate ramble here, to try and get some thoughts injected to the
> frenzy of texts.  impossible to keep up with flesh-space life
> im-pressing attention nodes...
>
> >>The call for revenue-sharing, as mechanism for reciprocity, can
> >>therefore be misguided. Better solution is to keep the
> >>non-reciprocal logic of peer production, and to reserve the
> >>revenue-sharing aspects for the derivate scarce services, and to
> >>use part of that revenue, to create an ecology of support for the
> >>non-reciprocal sharing, as is done by the free software community.
>
> a focus on monetary instruments as a 'medium' of human connection is
> always bound to fail in the long run, as it cannot carry any embodied
> energy between the Other and the Self -- it is a abstracted proxy for
> the energy of human relation.  if the ecology is not built on a
> comprehensive understanding of the dynamics and the problematics of
> human relation AS AFFECTED by social systems, and the resulting
> wisdom used to expand (or remove) socially mediated pathways for
> expression and reception of embodied human energies.  The degrees of
> freedom necessary for inspiring, energizing, and creative
> interaction are necessarily more than are 'allowed' in any social
> system.
>
> >This point made by Michel is the quintessence of a lot of collective
> >thought, and could be the foundation of a whole new form of
> >redistribution, which tries to support the infrastructure of value
> >production rather than just give away money so that people can buy
> >products made in the competitive-authoritarian market fashion. The
> >subtle point lies in the notion of ecology; how to foster and not
> >hamper or twist or destroy all the interrelations and degrees of
> >autonomy that help bring
>
> the larger and larger scale of 'community' development begins to
> dictate the pathways of human connection that exist at a one-to-one
> scale -- through many levels of coercion, peer-pressure, and other
> socially engineered mechanisms.  One of those mechanisms is the
> deployment of any technology -- which then stands between the
> Self/Other relation as a socially mandated pathway for connection.
> The slow and inevitable elimination of idiosyncratic difference is
> one result of this process.  Creativity drains away.  The
> attentiveness of focused and open exchange is drained into the social
> infrastructure where it concentrates in the wrong places and is
> subsequently used by others who are adept in gathering scattered
> attentions...
>
> >into existence "participation" or "reciprocity" or "emulation" or
> >"commons-based peer production"? When John says that YouTube or
> >MySpace provides a distribution mechanism that doesn't expropriate
> >one's creations, I think he is right, for now. Which is already
> >important and interesting.
>
> it may not expropriate the material evidence of expressive energies,
> but it definitely forms a specific pathway for those energies,
> attenuating the energies as the technological infrastructure dictates
> -- you can do some things but not others...  and that attenuation of
> energy definitely affects the potential for a creative/inspired
> outcome...
>
> >However, one can be almost sure on the basis of past experience (Fox
> >News anyone? The Sun? The Weekly Standard?) that the likes of Rupert
> >Murdoch will not only want to make money off us (in which case I
> >would agree: so what?) but also to institute forms of social
> >relationships that tend more
>
> any participation in a social infrastructure by a constellation of
> individuals causes relative concentrations and scarcities of energy
> across a system -- the larger the system, the greater the scarcities
> and concentrations.
>
> >and more toward the traditionally commodified ones, with the
> >submission and violence they ultimately entail. The structure of the
> >platforms, the advertising and the for-pay opportunities offered,
> >the kinds of fashions promoted, will tend not to encourage a
> >productive, critical and generous quest for the shared development
> >of personal and collective autonomy. In other words, the ecological
>
> it's not just the market aspects of these deployed systems that is
> the problem, it relates to what I mentioned above -- the degrees of
> freedom of relation that these platforms offer to the dynamic of
> human relation are simply less than what is necessary!  Because of
> the collective nature of the social system -- it eliminates the odd
> backchannels of relation that are the most creative (i.e., out of the
> box)...  etc.
>
> >  conditions will not be respected, this is the way it goes with
> >commodity culture. The question of how to foster both the
> >infrastructure and the relational patterns that are already moving
> >people out of the commodity straitjacket is a question worth asking
> >imho. It is the question of how to move towards a more
> >cooperation-based society.
>
> IMO it is a question of how to facilitate more human-to-human
> connection with less interference by large and collectively-mandated
> technological infrastructures.
>
> I have not been able to deal with the flood of texts on iDC in the
> last week, but want to address many issues!  what to do!  but about
> to go full nomadic once again after a 18 month hiatus is taking all
> my energies in the moment.  I would love to have some dialogues f2f
> with any of you who might be on my pathway in the next 5 months --
> California, UK, NL, DE, FI, EE, AU, and NZ -- doing some workshops,
> lectures, and simply connecting with folks...  drop me a line, eh?
>
> Cheers
> John
>
>
>
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-- 
The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
alternatives.

Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p

Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html;
video interview, at
http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2006/09/29/network_collaboration_peer_to_peer.htm
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