So some questions for discussion;
* What are other examples of Network Institutions, past or present?
* how can we distinguish clearly between Platform Institutions (power aggregators) and Network Institutions (power distributors)? Which is Wikipedia, for example, or WikiLeaks?
* how can we design and establish more Network Institutions?
* how can we protect them from destruction, neglect (eg most of Indymedia), or corruption into Platform Institutions (eg OSI)
(4/4)
The institutions I raged against in the nineties, and continue to do so today, are what we could call Platform Institutions;
* Religious platforms, which concentrate control over the means of large-scale sense-making
* Corporate platforms, over the means of large-scale production and distribution
* State platforms, over the means of large-scale decision-making
Social media platforms are a combo of the first 2, and if their owners have their way, they'll also take over the third.
(2/?)
So what's the alternative to this Snowcrash dystopia?
In the 90s, I thought it had to be the abolition of all institutions. Pulling people into purely peer-to-peer networks, slowly starving institutions of the humans labour and attention they need to operate.
At the very end of 90s, I got involved with the Global Network of Independent Media Centers, and helped to launch the Aotearoa Indymedia. Over time, I realised these too were institutions; what we might call Network Institutions.
(3/?)
So some questions for discussion;
* What are other examples of Network Institutions, past or present?
* how can we distinguish clearly between Platform Institutions (power aggregators) and Network Institutions (power distributors)? Which is Wikipedia, for example, or WikiLeaks?
* how can we design and establish more Network Institutions?
* how can we protect them from destruction, neglect (eg most of Indymedia), or corruption into Platform Institutions (eg OSI)
(4/4)
I write a paper back in my school days that roman roads were an early network system.
I stand by that thesis.
