Re: [hrpc] I-D Action: draft-irtf-hrpc-political-05.txt

[Stéphane Couture <[e-mail]>]

Hi, This is a very interesting discussion. I wanted to jump in following
this last comment, to make a small contribution. Not sure if it is coherent
with IETF discussions, but I hope this helps.


First, I agree with Niels that there is a near consensus in certain
academic fields (like STS and many works in philosophy of technology) that
technological forms (standards, protocols, machines, tools) are political.
Without making it as an argument of authority, I am wondering if it could
be helpful to simply better describe the "location" of this consensus,
instead of making sound like this is an absolute truth. This would avoid
the delicate process of verifying the claims of every authors, while also
informing the community that these scholarly work exists.


Second, it might be worth having a section to explain what we mean by
"political" and "how" the politics of technologies have been articulated in
the literature. We have a section like this, but it's more like a
"conclusion" than a framework. I like for instance this characterization by
Darin Barney (following Andrew Feenberg) of the politics of technologies:


-Technology as a *mean* of political activity : for instance, using a tool
(or protocol) to suppress freedom of expression or enhance citizenship
participation.


-Technology as an *object* of political activity or deliberation:
discussions and social process in the making of technologies : who is
making the decision about protocols? Is it democratic and legitimate? Who
is excluded in these spaces of decision about protocols/standards? Who
should be included, and why?


-As the *setting" of political activity : what are the constraints and
possibilities of our particular technological culture ? How is the history
of this technological culture affecting our choices today? Here you could,
I think, include discussions like the previous one on the impact of
historical standardization of time in our current technological choices
(why taking Greenwich as the reference point, and not Tashkent or Nairobi?).


Stéphane


Barney, D. (2007). One Nation Under Google. *Hart Lecture*.
http://darinbarneyresearch.mcgill.ca/Work/One_Nation_Under_Google.pdf


Le lun. 23 sept. 2019 à 07:59, Andrew Sullivan <[e-mail]> a
écrit :

> Niels,
>
> This post is a perfect example of one problem that I have been complaining
> about.  If everything that is ever touched upon by any politics is thereby
> itself "political", then your point is true (though, I submit, trivially
> so).  But you haven't actually shown that claim, and any time anyone
> objects to this point you simply trot out some authority to say, "But it
> is
> so true." But the argument is basically over whether those authors are
> right. So it's either begging the question or fallacious appeal to
> authority or both.
>
> Best regards,
>
> A
> --
> Andrew Sullivan
> Please excuse my clumbsy thums.
>
> On September 23, 2019 05:44:33 Niels ten Oever <[e-mail]>
> wrote:
>
> > On 9/21/19 4:18 PM, Stephen Farrell wrote:
> >>
> >> Hiya,
> >>
> >> On 21/09/2019 15:13, Eric Rescorla wrote:
> >>> Again, let's take the example of SSL, which was designed by Netscape
> >>> for its own market purposes and became a de facto standard because
> >>> Netscape had the dominant browser and people wanted to interoperate
> >>> with it. What's poltical about that process?
> >>
> >> To be fair, there was a lot of IETF politics around
> >> Netscape and Microsoft related to that and IIRC TLS
> >> was only called that as part of an explicit compromise.
> >>
> >> I think Eliot's examples (and NTP, which I raised)
> >> are maybe better examples of less/apolitical standards
> >> and protocols than SSL/TLS.
> >
> > Time, and its standardization, is a very political project. Going back
> to
> > Aristotle (Physics iv 10-14) there is the difference between Chronos and
> > Kairos, where Chronos became the number to measure motion (kinesis).
> There
> > have been many other perceptions and measurements of time, that were
> able
> > to exist next to each other, but as part of the colonial project, the
> > European concept of what time was, was made the universal standard. That
> is
> > why Greenwich Mean Time (in Great Britain) is used as a standard for the
> > whole world.
> >
> > There are also many stories about the development of timezones, and
> their
> > consequences, the way in which time helped shape labor, life, and how it
> > altered complete societies.
> >
> > I am not making a value judgment about this re-odering, but I am trying
> to
> > show that NTP, which helps synchronize to a specific time regime, on
> which
> > a lot of computing depends, helps promulgate a specific, and political,
> > ordering.
> >
> > This book on the topic is quite interesting:
> >
> https://www.amazon.com/Colonisation-Time-Studies-Imperialism/dp/0719082714
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Niels
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Niels ten Oever
> > Researcher and PhD Candidate
> > DATACTIVE Research Group
> > University of Amsterdam
> >
> > PGP fingerprint   2458 0B70 5C4A FD8A 9488
> >                   643A 0ED8 3F3A 468A C8B3
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ----------
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>
>
>
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