This Is the Future of Politics and the Internet
Dr. Miriam Meckel
Co-founder, Executive Chairwoman @ ada | Professor @ University of St. Gallen | AI, Communication
This is the first part of a three-part piece.
The internet is a paradox information space. While it allows some information to travel across borders, others are kept hostage by new border control mechanisms. And while some of us want information to be free, like Steward Brand put it in his World Earth Catalogue, others don’t want them to be in the open at all.
An impressive example of this are the three famous words of diplomacy Victoria Nuland uttered, on the phone while talking to the US-Ambassador to the Ukraine, that have been quoted by international media over and over since last weekend. Those words have traveled the Internet as someone has published them on the net due to assumed interest and relevance of content. But they have only reached parts of the network population.
Members of the German parliament, for example, were not able to read the now infamous snippet of high-level diplomatic communication - thanks to control systems that block access to pornographic content: “Access denied”. After all, Victoria Nuland said: "Fuck the EU."
We can consider this incident as a reminder not to curse using technology. We also can consider it to be an example of the ineptitude of technology when it comes to decoding context. We can consider it to be an example of a lack of proper respect for institutions by human beings and the need for technology to step in. We can also consider it to be an example of a paradoxical development on the Internet: We focus on small things that touch no more than the surface of the global network. Meanwhile, below that surface, the real things happen. Something is moving there, slowly but with a sudden huge impact, like the tectonic plates that once in awhile cause eruptions and earthquakes. On the internet we experience the new "Realpolitik" – 'realist politics' in the Machiavellian sense of understanding: all fundamental values are negotiable, it’s just a question of means to an end.
Politics and governance need guidance—guidance from some major axes of understanding; guidance from a set of values common to a nation, a state, a global region. In light of the development we have been part of for quite a while now, it seems that this basic assumption is eroding as its foundations are being undermined. The axes of politics, governance and mutual agreement have shifted. They have shifted towards a new matrix of mutual distrust on a global scale, to a densely-meshed network of distrust and surveillance. These shifts not only have an impact on the promises of the Internet as an open, free, democratic, liberating and decentralized platform for the next level of human civilization – like Vinton Cerf pointed out a few days ago when speaking of the “Maginot-Line” of World War II as an applicable interpretative scheme for a fragmented Internet. Rather, these shifts also have a significant impact on international relations and, sadly enough, on the relationship between the USA, Europe and Germany.
For the next part, click here.
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9 年Thank you for the article Ms.Meckel. As the picture is taken in Moldova, at the Moldavian President Office, I would like to ask you, how do you see the relationship of politics - internet - laws in former Soviet Republics?
Coach, Advisor and Creator
9 年Thanks for some interesting ideas to reflect on. It reminded me of an inspiring speech on the subject from Paddy Ashdown from back in 2011: The global power shift, always a good read, just in case you missed that. https://www.ted.com/talks/paddy_ashdown_the_global_power_shift/transcript?language=en "… power that was … held to the rule of law, within the … nation state has … migrated … onto the global stage.”; “… the power of the Internet, the power of the satellite broadcasters, the power of the … financial speculators … the multinational corporations ... [who] live in a global space which is largely unregulated … in which people may act free of constraint." “… our success … will … depend on our capacity to bring sensible governance to the global space.” “Increasingly, we are going to have to do business with people with whom we do not share values, but with whom, for the moment, we share common interests. It's a whole new different way of looking at the world that is now emerging.”
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9 年Great discussion point Miriam ;Its often been the case that leadership of every type in every Epoch has commited to the phallacy of permanance once a sustained precence has been established by themeselves for an appreciable period. It seems there is a tendancy overtime for such leadership to focus on their longevity amd establishing systems ,process and protocol to somehow insure this longevity.The orginal focus would intially have been an exterior motiviation the concern of leadership and governance for those outside and other. Maybe when the Meso American cultures,which were so interested in Time and its effect on their cultures were not attempting to illustrate the end of Worlds cto perhaps exsternal enviromental or catasprophe,but concepts such as the "long count" may of been reffering to how long an inclusive belief can held by a culture within its majority. After all the Roman Civillisation did'nt seem to simply end,it seemed to fade away due to a lack of conensual beleif in its values and cultural codes,the justification for this loss of beleif was maybe due to its failure in delivering the physical neccesities based on it cultural premise and edicts.The idea failed.