Re: [DC3] Thoughts on Community Infrastructure

(This is a bit rambling ... more reason for a conversation because it's hard to capture all the nuance in a monolog). It's helpful for me to learn how people interpret my examples. There is also a lot to respond to that requires more of a book than an essay. I'm striving for an amoral understanding of motivations and the paradigms/memes through which we view the world. There is an interesting interplay between the acceptance of authority be it corporations or saviors that leads us to look to authority for answers. It is the notion that things can't work unless someone is in charge. My sense is that in Latin America there is a more lawless version whereas in the US there is more of a popular embrace (aided and abetted by money). I've switched from roads to sidewalks as my standard example because roads to have a lot of implicit semantics. I use trolleys as an example of infrastructure built for "access" rather than local use. You may be interested in http://rmf.vc/Turnpikes describing how the US went from toll roads as the norm to roads as a public facility. At this point I explain that tolls are only placed at constriction points where people can be forced to pay and we tell them just-so stories about why the tolls pay for the roads when, in reality, they are just more sources of income to the ... either community or road owners or whatever. This is also related to the "access" meme - it's another story. One reason I use sidewalks is that they facilitate walking but are not necessary because one can take paths. While people can be forced to drive on highways in the US, at least, they are generally public infrastructure so that they aren't considered captured by corporations. In http://rmf.vc/IPEngineersDilemma I write about public roads permitted competition with railroads whereas the FCC has prevented a similar alternative for our ability to communicate. As to food, you might be interested in http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/01/arts/does-democracy-avert-famine.html?page wanted=all. In general I don't worry so much about "corporate benefit" as much as acceptance of the notion that things are "provided" rather than created by cooperation. This is why your examples are so important. It is also why I try to explain how we stumbled upon a DYI/DYO (Do It Ourselves) Internet because it's difficult for people to understand and thus the provider story is so much easier. I'll need to learn more about the World Forums and we should think about how to present a DYO approach for IGF. I'm glad you and Luca are on top of this because I’m not very good at such procedures. They are far beyond my planning horizon. -----Original Message----- From: dc3-bounces(a)listas.altermundi.net [mailto:dc3-bounces@listas.altermundi.net] On Behalf Of Nicolás Echániz Sent: Wednesday, June 1, 2016 00:16 To: dc3(a)listas.altermundi.net Subject: Re: [DC3] Thoughts on Community Infrastructure I've finally taken the time to read your text Bob. I believe your ideas are perfectly compatible or maybe even more of a background to what I've been pushing for lately[1]: that we stop talking about access to the Internet and instead start to talk more about making infrastructure available to people (communities), so they (and their devices) can network in whichever way they want/can. The "internet access" terminology puts the people in a position of receiving a service and it also puts companies as middlemen between these "consumers" and the "goods" they are consuming (Facebook, Youtube, etc.). You know I usually use the example of the roads system in a different way than you do, but it's compatible: The Internet as it's being mostly modeled by big companies is equivalent to a roads system where every house has to be directly connected to a toll road or highway. There are no local roads, no sidewalks, no spontaneous paths through the land. Just highways. In this model, people cannot "walk" to the park or to the local shop (local service); those cannot exist. People have to use the highway and they have to buy at the Mall (concentrated data centers) and have fun in the Mall's theater (Facebook, Youtube, etc.). And of course they always have to pay for this "access" through toll booths. In my view, fighting for "access for everyone" leaves out the discussion about how the infrastructure is built, controlled and used. From community networks perspective we need to stress these ideas. We need local infrastructure that's open for everyone to use (just like local roads are), where people can host and offer locally and to the rest of the world their contents, services, etc. This point of view also breaks the idea of scarcity that is artificially imposed only to create profit. And this also connects our struggle with many others that are also the result of artificial scarcity for corporate benefit. The food problem is one example. And in fact, the approach of that fight is also sometimes wrong. Communities don't just need access to food. We need a system where the land can be used locally so the people can produce and share what they need. The artificial scarcity problem is again created through concentration, of the land, of the production means and of the food distribution system. There are many other examples of this and it's a reason why I have focused for years on trying to get people from one camp to identify they are fighting the same struggle as others, just in a different domain. So... in relation to this, I want to propose that we somehow have the DC3 represented in the World Social Forum and the World Forum of Free Media[3] this year in Montreal. Sorry for the long e-mail. Cheers! Nico [1] http://www.apc.org/en/news/altermundi-apcs-new-member-argentina-lets-talk-ab o [2] https://fsm2016.org [3] http://www.fmml.net On 05/21/2016 08:22 PM, dc3(a)bob.ma wrote: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=10A2CCB2B2A54109!91737&authkey=!A… KDlD196Ds&ithint=file%2cdocx. _______________________________________________ DC3 mailing list DC3(a)listas.altermundi.net https://listas.altermundi.net/mailman/listinfo/dc3 _______________________________________________ DC3 mailing list DC3(a)listas.altermundi.net https://listas.altermundi.net/mailman/listinfo/dc3