[discuss] What is MSism?

Sun Mar 30 04:48:41 UTC 2014

On 30 Mar 2014, at 1:07 am, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

[MG>] Yes and thank you for so clearly articulating my position.  The
magical process by which the one (public interest) somehow mystically
emerges from the concatenation of the many (competing private interests)
intrigues as does much magic which of course gains its aura by misdirection
of attention.

	But there should be no presumption that only private interests are represented.
	The 'public interest' is hard to define, but there are certainly representatives in MS processes that advocate for various aspects of the public interest (privacy, transparency, etc).
	In GNSO working groups, for example, the only people definitely excluded from participation are those who are unwilling to provide a public statement of interest, and the only major group who practically do not participate directly is government (largely due to incompatibillity of working processes, and we are working on streamlining other ways for government to participate). And most of the civil society participants are focussed on aspects of the public interest as they perceive it.
	In general, the claim is not that it mystically emerges from advocates for private interest, but that it practically emerges by including those who advocate for the public interest within the process.

Of course, nothing of the kind would or will result -- certainly not an
outcome that in any manner supports the well-being of the broad public which
would include the non-"stakeholder", the poor, the marginalized, the
non-user...

	Which assumes that none of the civil society (or government) participants in the process are representing the views of the poor, the marginalized or the non-users.
This is not, in my observations, the case - many of the civil society participants bring up those issues.

As they say.. "devil takes the hindmost... What you are
suggesting seems to me to be governance by the powerful and well-connected
in the interests of the powerful and well-connected (unless of course, these
folks have against all likelihood suddenly developed a strong streak of
altruism and commitment to the public good...

	Are you implying that existing civil society participants have no altruist streak or commitment to the public good?

[MG>] The problem with that is that every time I point to an example (as
I've done several times in my blog) the immediate response is--"well that
isn't really MS", or "well there were special circumstances" or "we were
just piloting the process, trust us things will get better...

	I have a similar problem with advocates of a government centric viewpoint such as yourself. Every time I point out an example of a government led process that is deeply problematic (most notably the TPPA process, which is secretive, controversial, and touches on Internet governance) I am completely ignored.

	David
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