[discuss] technical vs societal issues (was: Report from the BR meeting local organizing group - Dec 2013)

Tue Dec 24 03:15:57 UTC 2013

Hi Mawaki,
At 01:24 23-12-2013, Mawaki Chango wrote:
>Last, meetings such as BR's need not to be assessed or appreciated 
>from a technical perspective mainly, let alone, only. They are 
>catalysts that can create/shape social discourse and benchmarks 
>(norms) empowering social actors to expose related abuses of power 
>by governments and large corporations or any other powerful actors, 
>shame the authors of such abuses and even eventually move the needle 
>in policy/legal provisions at appropriate levels, in order to 
>institutionalize accountability mechanisms in the domain at hand 
>--even if the technology were not to change the slightest.
>
>Am I being too much optimistic?

It is up to the representative to decide about whether it is 
important to make some progress on the technical versus societal 
issues or it is important to expose related abuses of power.  The 
"institutionalize accountability mechanisms in the domain at hand" is 
ambiguous.  There isn't enough information to determine whether it is 
being too optimistic.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy 