We Don't Need No Steenking Digital Superhighway!!

[tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)]

What the Sam Hill is this?

> >   CPSR NII Paper
> >                     FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
> >      COMPUTER SCIENTISTS RAISE SOCIAL AND DESIGN CONCERNS
> >                      ABOUT THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
....
>   I really don't see why we need NII at all. We already have internet.
> Cable companies are rushing to provide high bandwidth networks for consumers.
> NII seems to be nothing more than WelfareNet. Which isn't surpising since
> CPSR praises systems like IGC (Econet, PeaceNet, etc) which are much more
> expensive than Netcom, Panix, Digex, and provide shoddier service.
> 
> Sam Hill

Very true! In fact, it is the EFF's talk about the "need" for such a
government effort that really worries me about the EFF (a mild kind of
worry...I haven't completely detweilered over it). I'm not clear just
how central are these issues to the EFF, currently, but I urge us all
to try to convince them that the "electronic frontier" really doesn't
need government-built channels and routes.

With a zillion forms of fiber, cable, satellites, land lines,
undersea cables, lots of competing companies, etc., there just is *no
need* for a nationalized effort to build some kind of bureacratic
dream of what the people "need."

And unlike the Interstate Highway System (actually called the National
Defense Transportation System, or somesuch, clearly an
autobahn-inspired Eisenhowwer defense project), which arguably needed
a government-level effort to obtain the land, the crossings, etc., no
such government-level effort is needed to lay more cable, put up more
satellites, etc.

In fact, the relatively anarchic growth of the Net (many nets, of
course) is a major strength and advantage.

We helped kill the Superconducting Supercollider, now we can help kill
Al Gore's TipperNet fantasy.

--Tim May


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