icomputing: "Naive Realism"

[Robert Hettinga <rah@shipwright.com>]

"Cryptoanarchist" makes it to the printed word.  Can an OED entry be far
behind? :-).

Of course, it dawns on me that she might mean "cryptoanarchist", below, in
the same way that Vidal called Buckley a "cryptofascist"...

Cheers,
Bob Hettinga

"Web doyenne?"

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http://www.zdnet.com/icom/content/columns/1998/05/techno.realists/index.html
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                                                           May
                                                           11,
                                                           1998

                                                           Naive
                                                           Realism:
                                                           Taking
                                                           on
                                                           the
                                                           Technorealists

                                                           Practical
                                                           development
                                                           of
                                                           the
Internet comes from doing
practical things.

By Angela Gunn

The technorealist manifesto,
in case you missed it, is a
pompous version of the "Why
The Internet Isn't Evil"
speech you give to your mom's
bridge club.

Unleashed back in March, the
"manifesto" was authored by many people who just a year or two ago were
blathering about the world-changing, paradigm-shifting, cryptoanarchist Net,
scaring your mom's bridge club so thoroughly that, well, they asked you if
the Internet was evil.

Drop by the technorealism site and read this document. Sign it if you like.
Just don't expect it to make any difference to you or yours.

The manifesto is a simplistic summation of points most of us inside the
industry already know from years of experience, thought, and online
discussion. And for those outside the industry, it's all but
incomprehensible.

The whole thing stinks of college-student libertarianism, except for the
part about government having an important role to play on the electronic
frontier (a point that galled several actual Libertarians and college
students, as evidenced by their parody sites).

And it's frivolous. Development of the Internet as a practical entity comes
from the doing of practical things with the Internet. The programmer
laboring to improve customer access to a tech-support database, the site
producer working to streamline her site's design, the people who gave us
online ticket ordering and package tracking and hotel reservations--these
are the people who will convince the rest of the world that the Net is
worthwhile and important.

And in the battle to shape the Net, the genuine visionaries, theorists, and
even the political analysts have already taken the field. By assuming the
mantle of public debate, the too-fabulous New Media in-crowd behind the
manifesto has done a disservice to those of us in for the long haul.

Put another way, this fashionable cyber-asceticism is bad news to those
actually involved with technology--condescending in assuming that those in
the trenches can't understand the ramifications of what they do, oblivious
in assuming that there's anything fresh in the manifesto, and irresponsible
in not crafting a document that provides a genuine foundation for
discussion; that is, a real manifesto.

And that's what is really galling: they blew a good opportunity. This vague,
random document doesn't lay groundwork for discussing the real social issues
confronting technologists, creators, consumers, and citizens.

The real battle--to bring the Net to its rightful, humble, ubiquitous place
in the world's social, political, and economic life--has little to do with
manifesto pronouncements such as "We are technology 'critics' in the same
way, and for the same reasons, that others are food critics, art critics, or
literary critics."

The public is best brought onto the battlefield by careful, informed,
comprehensible discourse; these "critics" haven't even drawn up a readable
map of the countryside.

Don't let this single-mast ship of fools sail away with the discussion. They
have no authority (intellectual, moral, or otherwise) to dictate the terms
of debate, especially since their manifesto makes such a mess of it. That
debate belongs to you and me and the rest of the industry--and your mom's
bridge club--at least as much as it does to these
Siskel-and-Ebert-come-latelies.

But don't forget: when you're done amusing yourself with the technorealists'
down-the-middle drive for pundit spots in Harper's, The Nation, and the Utne
Reader, you've got a lot of work to do to build the real Internet.

Web doyenne Angela Gunn has been covering the Internet and its culture for
nine years. Send e-mail to agunn@zd.com.

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-----------------
Robert A. Hettinga
Philodox Financial Technology Evangelism
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'
Philodox: <http://www.philodox.com>, e$: <http://www.shipwright.com/>
          <mailto: rah@philodox.com>     <mailto: rah@shipwright.com>